<p>When people argue that the revenue sports (men’s hockey, men’s basketball and men’s football) support other sports on campus, they overlook the fact that in big athletic powerhouses, the sports facilities are athlete-only palaces, palaces only made possible by the big money from the semi-professional teams. But why should we assume that those palaces are necessary? A swimmer or a soccer player doesn’t need a training facility appropriate for the New York Giants. </p>
<p>Post-college amateur sports don’t cost anything like as much as college sports, yet the athletes still play and have fun. If we left professional sports to professional sports teams, then college sports teams might not have brand-new private facilities, but they could still play and have fun. We spend way too much on college sports.</p>
<p>Thanks bogney, I’m aware of which DIII schools are competitive in my daughter’s sport, and really, they would all die to have her. They’ve made that quite clear to us over the years. (DIII can start recruiting very young) and she has heard from all of them.</p>
<p>I think obesity is as huge a problem as illiteracy, if not bigger, in this country. I actually believe participation in an athletic endeavor, even if it is just yoga, should be required for all four years in order for a student to graduate college.</p>
<p>I think that would make athletes less rarified and would provide a better mind-body experience, which we need in this country. </p>
<p>But, now we are verrrry far afield.</p>
<p>I appreciate the football and basketball programs at the school my daughter will probably attend. They fund everyone else, including the gyms and pools and all the rest of it which is open to all of the students.</p>
<p>I did not mean to suggest that you were not aware. Just pointing out that in some sports, DIII is very high level, not simply participatory. I suspect that the level of DIII sports at top LACs will keep climbing since they offer excellent education / sport balance and an improving level of competition that may appeal to good athletes who do not intend to go pro.</p>
<p>I realize many of you keep saying there was this great cover up to protect football and that may end up proving to be true but right now that is just your opinion. Many of you see evil in big time sports programs. How do you know there was a cover up and just not men making errors in judgment having nothing to do with football? Do you honestly beleive McQuery saw a 10 year old being raped and in that split second said I need to protect the football program? Or if I cover this up I will go from grad assistant to assistant coach? At the time Sandusky was not even with the football program.</p>
<p>Well, Tom, I do believe there was a cover-up.</p>
<p>I don’t really think the thinking was “let’s protect penn state football.”</p>
<p>I think the thinking went more along the lines of, “We’ve got to get this guy out of coaching for us.” Then, “We’ve got to get this guy out of our locker room.”</p>
<p>It was all about what they needed to do to get him out of there.</p>
<p>I have yet to hear of one incident of a Penn State employee who called the police about this or went on the record with testimony to CPS. Nobody attempted to find the last known child assualted in the shower by Sandusky, and the first “sort of” police report was made on a Sunday by Paterno. The original rape occured on Friday. </p>
<p>Nobody tried to find the child. </p>
<p>I’m on the record as not hating big sports programs, at all. I don’t think they are any more or less susceptible to bad choices than any other organization with no outside policing body. JMO</p>
<p>Really? Unfair to the other kids? These are very good Div 3 scholar/athletes, not elementary school kids. There are always a small number of dominating athletes at this level. I’m sure they can handle being beaten/outplayed by your D. At my D’s Div 111 sport, there is usually at least one Olympian every couple of years. Believe me, no one feels slighted to be fortunate enough to have the gifted athlete on their team. </p>
<p>OK, your D wants to play Div 1. That’s OK. But it’s not a reason to have a few programs on the Div 1 level, full of athletes with scholarships not interested in going to college and really have no business being there.</p>
<p>I was just trying to be nice, but since you “came at me?” What I should have said is my daughter, like many top level academic students at tier 3 colleges, would be bored out of her mind playing even at the top DIII level. Sad but true, it is not only intellectuals who like a challenge. I say this as an intellectual, by the way.</p>
<p>ETA: I don’t really know why a few people think they get to decide whether or not there “should” be powerhouse athletic schools any more than a few people ought to be able to decide that all colleges should be academically open enrollment. There is a school for every kid who wants to go to school and some of these, mainly URM kids, have only this opportunity to go to college. Are we now too good for that, as well?</p>
<p>There are plenty of sexually predatory college professors, as we have been over on several threads in the past couple of years. and, Yale is being investigated for title 9 sexual discrimination violations, even as we speak. should we close all intellectually challenging schools because of the Yale cover up? No</p>
<p>poet- I agree with this- I’m on the record as not hating big sports programs, at all. I don’t think they are any more or less susceptible to bad choices than any other organization with no outside policing body. JMO </p>
<p>But JMO much of the bashing here has to do with this being associated with the football program.</p>
<p>barron- can you explain your cover up theory to me. Do you believe the president of the college was involved. That he knew the extent of the incident. That it involved child rape?</p>
<p>Poetgirl - I think that being challenged in her sport is a fine reason to play Div 1 and that is certainly not offensive. Your previous post seemed patronizing to me. I can certainly understand why an athlete would want to play at a level that challenged him/her. And, we should have athletic programs for the athletically gifted. But, IMO, college academics should come first. I think high profile football and basketball become the tail wagging the dog.</p>
<p>JoePa probably didn’t do anything illegal, so in the most narrow sense of the word, he didn’t do anything wrong. But he didn’t do the right thing. Do you really not see the difference? </p>
<p>As has been stated in this thread a number of times: “Character is what you do when no one is looking.” As JoePa confronted the situation in 2002, the right thing would have been to agressively pursue the inquiry with the Penn State police, and then, when nothing came of it, to contact the state police, the DA, the feds, child welfare, the media – ANYONE who could have gotten the ball rolling to put a known criminal behind bars. He did none of that. Why? Well, when no one was looking, his character was revealed.</p>
<p>Well, McQueary could have gone directly to law enforcement at any time. He witnessed a felony. Surely he must have noticed at some point that there had never been an arrest or a trial or a jail sentence for the man he knew to be a felon. </p>
<p>What’s your explanation as to why he never contacted the authorities?</p>
<p>What part of HE DID HIS JOB don’t you understand? </p>
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<p>He contacted his superiors. And yeah, let’s contact the media. They NEVER blow things out of proportion. They NEVER get things wrong. Yeah right. If you believe that, I have a bridge for sale.</p>
<p>Remember there are no “known” criminals here. There are accusations. But you have already convicted everybody involved FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY.</p>
<p>I am not saying I believe this is the way it happened, but one possibility that makes some sense of the conflicting testimony is that McQueary was more ambiguous in his reports to Paterno, Curley and Schultz than he led the grand jury to believe. All we know is that the grand jury found him credible. Many here have said he’d have no incentive to testify to something that was not true. But what if the incentive was simply that he couldn’t live with the knowledge that he had let a serial pedophile off the hook? In the absence of any previous allegations about Sandusky ( I agree it’s far fetched Paterno never heard about the 1998 investigation, but who knows about McQueary) , he may have somehow convinced himself in 2002 that he might have been confused about what he saw. But over the years, other credible accusations and stories began to pile up. So following this theory, when he was called on to testify, he decided to testify without equivocation, in order to right the previous wrong and take a predator off the streets. In other words, “the ends justified the means.” </p>
<p>Of course, this doesn’t take into account the fact that even a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing by Sandusky should have been investigated.</p>
<p>LasMa you wrote-What’s your explanation as to why he never contacted the authorities? and my answer is at this time I do not know. I am taking the novel approach of waiting till as many of the facts come out as possible before I form an opinion.</p>
<p>One opinion I have formed is that several posters here have decided if you are a football coach you will do evil things to protect your program. They know that without the entire story coming out.</p>