Posted on 07/14/2012 3:50:01 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
In N.C.A.A. parlance, “lack of institutional control” is a hazy, almost undefinable term. It is also the organization’s ultimate admonishment, the phrase it utters before handing down its most severe penalties.
Now, in light of the child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State, there is some question about whether those nebulous words will be used by the N.C.A.A. to impose serious sanctions on the Nittany Lions football program, perhaps even forcing the team to shut down for a time, the so-called death penalty.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“You mean Paterno himself. It didn’t give his school’s team a competitive advantage. (In fact, from what you’ve said it appears the team would have been better off without him.)”
The scandal would have put the team at a disadvantage when it was time for them to recruit. They would have moved from being a first choice to a second choice at best and possibly even an “anywhere but” choice. Paterno may or may not have had saving his job as his first priority but the others clearly acted to protect their cash cow.
Nothing any other team did to help their program is 1/1,000th as contemptable as what Penn State did. The comments by Penn State supporters and officals show clearly that they still don’t understand just how vile the actions of Paterno and the other pedo protectors are. Perhaps if it is quiet in Happy Valley for a decade or so, they will have some time to reflect on why there is so much outrage. And they will stop trying to defend the indefensible. When that day comes, and they rip down the Paterno statues and rip his name off all the buildings. When Penn State students spit on the ground when they here his name, then and only then should they be allowed to field a team.
One thing that puzzles me is why, after the 1998 accusation to the campus police that led to Sandusky’s apparently forced retirement, Paterno and others at the university allowed him to have access to the campus and have an office there. I can understand why self-interest — avoiding a scandal — might influence them to let him retire and fade away quietly. If they really believed he was sodomizing children, though, rather than just involved in inappropriate horseplay, why didn’t they separate themselves more completely from him — if only to protect themselves and the university?
If they had, his later arrest and conviction over a decade later would have been an embarrassment to his former university, but people wouldn’t be talking about tearing down Paterno’s statue and giving the university a death penalty. I haven’t bothered to follow the details of this story, but that sounds to me as if Paterno and the other Penn State authorities thought Sandusky had shown poor judgment, but didn’t really believe he was molesting children.
Good analogy. There were many more people throughout the program who undoubtedly knew about Sandusky’s “proclivities.” the Romans had it right when they dealt with the perversions of Carthage.
“The piano player knows what kind of business he’s working for. “
Well, I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley many years ago, and I can tell you that I knew then just what a shit hole it was with the suborning of all the radicals, the ‘free speech movement,” the filthy speech movement, and all the bowel movements of the worthless turds who went there or hung out on Telegraph Avenue. It’s reputation then, as now as a premier institution of higher learning is undeserved. If I were to read that the whole place had burned to the ground, I would run back and dance around the ashes. An institution that I, as a native-born Californian should have revered, turned out to be a disgrace! So too should the decent students at Penn State demand that all those who ran the place and covered up manifold criminal and corrupt activities leave immediately and as they leave, offer an apologies to the students for their actions. As for the “athletic program,” tell me just what does it contribute to the learning process of higher education? You get a bunch of low lives who have to be propped up in their studies so they can learn what amounts to a trade ( a sport ). Collegiate athletics detract from the mission of a university, they don’t do one thing for the learning process. But I guess if you are a “frat boy,” they give you the “vehicle” to go get drunk at the stadium when there’s a home game, where the school has to shell out extra bucks for the campus cops to ride heard on the whole sorrid mess.
If I remember correctly, in the documents that Freeh release one was the request by Sandusky to have access to all the facilities. On the paper, in what has been identified as Paterno’s writing, is something to the effect of: Sandusky yes, Second Mile no, liability issue.
This is speculation but they probably gambled if they didn’t let Sandusky bring children on campus then they would be in the clear. Don’t forget, they treat Sandusky like he was the victim in all of this. They never gave a seconds thought to the kids beyond the liability problems they might pose for Penn State.
Barring him from campus also poses problems, when they bar him people are going to ask why he doesn’t have access to these places. After all it was clearly normal for former Penn State officials to have the use of the facilities on campus after they retired. It would raise a lot of uncomfortable questions. The campus is a public place, to really bar him they need a court order and to get that order they’d have to give a reason why. The best solution for the Penn State gang of four was to pretend nothing was wrong and that Sandusky retired because he was just too caring a guy who dedicated too much of his time to helping under privileged kids to be head coach and hope the whole thing disappeared until they were dead and gone.
I don’t really agree with the second paragraph, once they made the decision to cover up the crimes the damage was done. Their university in general and Paterno specifically would be wearing future assaults no matter where they occurred. The gambled that the assaults would only become public long after it was possible to prove that they took place and that they would have deniability.
If I may I ‘d also like to comment on your Paterno serial killer analogy. For that analogy to be correct, Paterno would have to be killing star players on other teams just before they had a big game against Penn State. Spanier, Curley and Shultz would have to have helped plan and carry out the killings. And of course the reason they did it would have to be to protect Penn State’s football industry. Other lower ranking people in the Penn State organization would have to know about the killings but they would have to remain silent about them out of fear of what Paterno would do to them.
Nothing any other team has ever done is 1/1,000th as vile as this. If any program ever deserved to be shut down it is this one. If anyone on the Penn State board had a shred of decency they would have killed the program or they would be resigning and announcing that the reason why was the other board members refused to shut down the team. If Penn State fans had a shed of decency they would demanding that Paterno’s name removed from anything associated with the university and they would be doing a lot of soul searching about what kind of cult has been created at Penn State. That none of that has happened, that Penn State fans and students are tired of hearing about the rapes and want to get on to important matters like next years football season and celebrating the wonderfulness of Jopa, clearly shows that attitudes that lead to the cover up are alive and well at Penn State. That alone is reason enough to end their playing days.
Sorry that my reply is so long
Ah, but that sort of thing poses the only threat the NCAA cares about...namely anything that threatens the profit margin, such as the very notion that the reason people watch college sports (the players) should be compensated with anything other than the free "education" they get. As for Penn State, of course the football program should be shut down (for at least a year), but it won't be. The interests of children don't stand a chance up against Big Time College Football.
In the indices of the Freeh report, there are several letters and memos from Sandusky to University officials at the time of his retirement. There are what some (myself included) call veiled threats that if the University wants him to keep his mouth shut, they should give him what he wants. That includes the aforementioned access to school facilities, as well as being set up to coach middle school football, a request that was signed-off in the margins of the retirement agreement by Paterno himself, with the notes, and I quote “6th, 7th and 8th grade children” in Paterno’s own handwriting. That, along with an unprecdented one time payment of $168,000 to Sandusky as part of his retirement certainly makes it look like Sandusky had them by the shorts and knew it.
Clearly Paterno and the University just didn’t care that young boys were being raped and sodomized, and were prepared to provide Sandusky with a steady stream of victims to buy his silence. As for Sandusky, his behavior with his requests leads me to believe that the University was covering his tracks for a longtime, and he felt more than comfortable in blackmailing them because of it. Whatever else he feared, he did not fear exposure by Penn State. He knew they had as much to lose as him.
I have a low opinion of the academic and sports establishment too, primarily because of its bias and fostering of leftist views (which are widespread, not just characteristic of a few). I don’t like blaming universities of tens of thousands of people, though, for crimes that most of them abhor, and for which they were not responsible.
As sports themselves, I like them. They’re fun. I was a good student and not a frat boy, but think there’s room at school for sports and academics too. Cheating can be a problem, but at their best sports teach discipline and fair play.
I don’t see how Sandusky would be in the position to blackmail the university in 1998. Not every accusation is true, so I don’t think the initial reaction from Penn State was so bad. It was the stuff after 2002 that’s indefensible.
No problem with the long post. People who stay around after the initial brief responses are usually willing to read them. Otherwise they would have moved on. There’s no way to get into the details without writing long posts.
I don’t think the first accusation alone (1998) was enough to prove that Sandusky was guilty. That one was just for inappropriate touching, which could have been misinterpreted (or it could simply have been a false accusation, though in retropect I think it was true. I recall that a bishop or archbishop in Chicago was accused, and later his accuser admitted that he made it up.) “Horseplay” with a naked boy in a shower is irresponsible behavior at best, though, so he was in a position in which he should have been willing to agree to anything the university demanded.
You’re right that banning him outright would have been difficult to explain without creating a scandal. You mentioned a publicly acceptable reason for not bringing boys there, though, the liability one. As for Sandusky himself, if he wanted to keep his good reputation, he should have thought of a reason for not being on campus — a personal conflict, whatever. Especially after the second accusation (the one from the graduate assistant McQueary in 2002), he was in a position in which his alternatives should have been nothing but bad or worse. Here Sandusky was, again in a shower with a naked boy. No innocent person with a grain of sense would put himself in that situation again after the first accusation.
That’s where I think Paterno and others definitely went wrong. Whether Sandusky was innocent or guilty, Paterno and others were fools to allow things to go on unchanged at that point — as events proved. I agree that this was much worse than ordinary sports infractions. I just don’t think the NCAA is the proper organization to handle it. The courts themselves have enough trouble doing so.
Penn State is going to be punished plenty. Almost any family who had a boy who was around Sandusky is going to be able to make an accusation against him and get a large amount of money from Penn State (and, in effect, from persons who had nothing to do with it).
I still think my serial killer analogy holds. Any bad news about a university can harm recruiting, I agree, but I don’t think everything bad is the business of the NCAA. If Sandusky had been a serial killer — and his good buddy Paterno suspected him but said nothing — that would have been much worse than a sports infraction. It wouldn’t give them a competitive advantage against other teams, though (unless he were killing the other team’s players, and Sandusky’s victims had nothing to do with other teams).
On the other hand, if Sandusky had been kept on the staff, and his ability used to win more games, that would have fallen within the NCAA’s jurisdiction. That didn’t happen, though. He was forced to retire when he first came under suspicion.
It’s not a matter of bad or worse, but of who should be judging it. I think what Paterno and some others did — or failed to do — especially after 2002, was inexcusable, but in my opinion that should be handled in the courts (and, as far as reputation goes, in the metaphorical courts of public opinion). The NCAA has no power of subpoena, and isn’t in a position to handle really serious accusations. I think having it jump in and make judgments about things not directly related to competition would trivialize them.
‘As sports themselves’ should be ‘As for sports themselves’.
‘In retropect’ should be ‘in retrospect’. Sorry for the sloppy writing. I should have taken more time and gotten things right.
Coaches and players that didn’t have anything to do with NCAA infractions happens all the time. Just look at USC right now. That’s one of hundreds of examples. It is impossible to not “punish the innocent” when players are there four years and move on.
Agree with all except for five years. I’d do two but your comments on this being far worse than any recruiting scandal is accurate. the Freeh report mentions the “culture of reverence for Penn State football” several times. It’s that exact football culture that caused this to occur. That culture needs to be changed radically and shutting down the program for a year or two would likely reset it. Allow all players to be immediately eligible to transfer without sitting out a year (waive the 2 year Big 10 rule) so you aren’t “punishing the innocent.”
At the risk of putting words in your mouth I think the two points we disagree on are whether or not Penn State had an advantage as a result of the cover up, I believe they did, clearly you believe they didn’t and that leads us too the question of does the NCAA have authority to act? I think they do and you believe that it is strictly a criminal matter that is so far removed from normal NCAA matters that they should not be part of the process.
Presuming this is a fair summation and setting aside the matter of gain for a moment I would suggest that the crux of the matter is the question of the authority of the NCAA. I would suggest that the criminal actions at Penn State violated the NCAA Principle of Institutional Control and Responsibility. Clearly the football program was completely and totally out of control. There are only two organizations that can discipline the program, Penn State and the NCAA. Penn State is unwilling to do anything thing to alter football is king attitude. To be honest I wish Penn State would do the right thing: tear down Paterno’s statue, rip his name off the library and give his estate back the money he donated, forfeit all the games they won after the cover up, suspend their program for a couple of years themselves and ask that their players be allowed to transfer freely to other schools, pay the untainted coaches until they find other work, take all the money the team earned in the 14 years they covered things up and put that money in a fund to give to the abused boys. But they have show they won’t even take a tiny step like tearing down Paterno’s statue. Somebody has to send the message to schools that if they cover up serious crimes to benefit their cash cows, there are going to be terrible repercussions down the road. It seems the only organization that can fill that role is the NCAA. Will they actually step in and gore the gold cow that is Penn State football? I don’t know, but I really think somebody has to, and if it isn’t the NCAA who will it be? The next time a situation like this comes up I want the coach, president, vice presidents, and board to think, “We have to report this… we don’t want to end up like Penn State.” The punishment has to be that terrible. Not pay out one or two years of football earnings to the victims and act like nothing ever happened.
Some schools never get punished and break every law in the book.
Some schools never get punished and break every law in the book.
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