Posted on 11/11/2011 1:10:27 PM PST by GSWarrior
The decision of Penn State’s trustees to fire the storied football coach Joe Paterno and the president of the university is a strong, and a fairly unusual, statement in our sports-obsessed society that there are more important things than winning.
A friend calls my attention to an even more dramatic case that I wouldn’t have remembered on my own in which a university president made an even stronger statement by suspending the entire basketball program for three years to try to purge it of a culture of corruption.
Does the name Quintin Dailey ring a bell? I’m a sports fan, and the name conjured up for me a moderately successful NBA guard who played with Michael Jordan.
He starred at the University of San Francisco in the early 1980s, but in a drunken stupor, he sexually assaulted a nursing student after threatening her with a weapon. After pleading guilty Daily was sentenced to three years probation and never served time in prison.
But during his run-in with the courts, evidence also surfaced that a USF basketball booster had paid Dailey $1,000 a month for a no-show summer job. USF’s once-great basketball program had been place on probation twice before for violating NCAA rules. After Dailey’s disgrace, the Rev. John Lo Schiavo, president of the Jesuit university, didn’t wait for the NCAA to impose sanctions. He canceled the entire basketball program for three seasons, after stating that the repeated violations showed that the program had become “hypocritical or naïve or inept or duplicitous, or perhaps some combination of these.”
My only purpose in writing about this is to highlight what it looks like when an educator really wants to demonstrate that there is something more important going on in college than the sports teams and to publish that statement just above and the next one:
“All the legitimate purposes of an athletic program in an educational institution are being distorted by the athletic program as it developed,” Lo Schiavo said.
Of course, many young USF athletes who had done nothing wrong paid the price. That is sad but not tragic. Unfortunately, Dailey paid a much smaller price. He was done with college hoops anyway and was drafted in the first round by the Chicago Bulls. He played for 10 seasons, earning a couple of million (chump change compared to the ridiculous amounts paid to NBA starters and high draft picks nowadays).
The NYTimes obituary, from which most of this brief biography is cribbed, says: “He had problem upon problem, many self-induced. He missed practices and games, gained 30 pounds in a single season, twice violated the league’s drug policy, once attempted suicide and took leaves of absence for psychiatric care.”
By a small quirk, Daily died on Nov. 9, 2010, one year and one day before the Penn State board acted in its own case. That one is also sad for the school and its football fans but tragic only for the victims of the sex crimes that brought it about.
Sports are nice, but perhaps not worth the price our society pays for them.
That pales in comparison to the Baylor Basketball scandal under Dave Bliss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylor_University_basketball_scandal
I recall, as a kid in the Bronx in the 60's..I played varsity BB in HS, and freshman ball at NYU..going down to CCNY..and back then it was a dump..and in the old gyrm, in a locked trophy case covered with iron bars, were some old baseketballs and pics..signed 1950-51 NCAA AND NIT champs..
I can’t believe they are playing a game this weekend.
what happened to sanctions?
what happened to sending a message about decency?
What happened to making some sort of public amends to the victims by saying loud and clear “We will not have this in College Football and we are deeply sorry for the tragedy you suffered at the hands of a , at best, negligent University Administration and Athletic team.”
Baylor did not get the death penalty. Unfortunately, Patrick Dennehy did.
Unless they had any classes in Kalmanovitz Hall, in which case they'd have to pass the commemorative shrine every day on their way to class. Bill Russell is still considered the school's patron saint.
think about it...none of the players, and most of the staff are innocent of ant wronedoing. The other school has nothing to do with anything, the 80,000 or so fans who have paid their money, made their plane and hotel arrangements, are guilty of nothing. This will all come to a head soon enough, but the scandal has nothing at all to do with the kids there that play football.....have the game and settle this later!!!!!
The trustee's need to end it, Penn State's season is over!
But how do you punish the college without punishing the players and the students for the crimes of the leaders?
I would not be surprised if the victims of Sandusky, if consulted, would be in favor of at least finishing the season.
If Penn State travels and there is trouble, it's on them for their arrogance.
“hypocritical or naïve or inept or duplicitous, or perhaps some combination of these.”
Well, that about covers it. off topic, but, can we apply this same critique to fast & furious? Yes, I think we can.
That said, in the modern world, college sports are just an entertainment business. Few if any of the schools actually make any direct profit. The players are hopelessly exploited--the only real beneficiaries are the one percent who matriculate to a professional program.
The programs take up valuable scarce resources and a diversionary from the school's primary education objective.
Just another beaucratic run lose lose proposition.
USF opens its season tonight. I am there!
Have to disagree. Football revenues keep afloat a lot more than just football programs at big BCS-type schools.
Otherwise they don't get into this sort of thing at all.
I'm a lot more sympathetic to the kids, than to the players.....let them transfer to other schools without having to wait a year. The innocent always pay for others' sins.
They should all be hiding in their homes & not coming out til the ones involved are behind bars. This is a nationwide disgrace & they still want to "play the game"! (in more ways than one)!!!
Was Sandusky still recruiting for PSU in 2011??? NCAA VIOLATION?
http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-football/2011/11/11/2555012/jerry-sandusky-recruiting-penn-state/in/2304037
Would be a stretch for them Fur Shur.
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