<p>What shutting it down would do is abolish the conditions and mindset in which people get so devoted to the team’s prowess, invested in the program’s continued glory, and convinced that the coach can do no wrong that they lose their common sense. Mindset and conditions in which it becomes okay to protect the football program instead of protecting children.</p>
<p>But I don’t favor shutting it down entirely. I’d say just reduce it to the point that it gets the same level of attention and funding as say the Penn State women’s rugby team. Then people would feel a lot more confident that these sorts of sordid crimes won’t be swept under the rug should they happen again.</p>
<p>I don’t think ending PSU Football would be helpful to the victims. There needs to be a thorough cleaning out process, and who knows if that is possible.</p>
<p>Frankly unless PSU creates a climate in which a true house cleaning happens where the victims are truly treated with dignity, I would think the victims would otherwise not want further connection with PSU.</p>
<p>I think if PennState said it was suspending its football program because of the scandal, it would give people cause to look at PSU with great respect. I know this because I have heard people say there should be no more Penn State football. Granted, these are people with no vested interest in Penn State, but it’s a reality nonetheless.</p>
<p>Again, I’m just speaking from a victim’s perspective. Shutting down the entire league where it happened to me would have been killer to me. Yes, something terrible happened but the WHOLE organization is not terrible. I would NOT have wanted to be responsible for affecting the lives of many other children, adults, athletes, etc by taking away their opportunities to play and have careers simply because of what a handful of bad people did. THAT is why I have an issue shutting it down. </p>
<p>Yes, college football is put on a pedestal. But I truly think that had relatively little to do with why there was a cover-up. There are cover-ups in all sorts of insignificant leagues as well. People just don’t want to get involved. People would just rather close their eyes. It doesn’t matter if they play football or rugby. It’s just easier to say nothing.</p>
<p>I go to a rival Big 10 school and I’m still saying to keep it open. That’s all I’ll say on this, I just wanted to throw it out from my perspective.</p>
<p>Its bad enough that Joe Pa got fired and HE KNEW what was going on, but now; PSU will not be even close to what it used to be. I mean as in the feeling. My older sister goes there and everytime i go up with her- it feels different. </p>
<p>I feel like people wont want to come up anymore, like i feel like PSU should stand for Pedofile’d State University. Im just glad he was proven guilty…but now his stupid attorney keeps saying he has “historianic personality disorder.” I feel like they just pulled that one outta their ass. </p>
<p>It’s true that coverups can occur in any sport, in business, in charitable organizations, in churches, in politics. But in this case, it was football.</p>
<p>Curious – does anyone see any evidence that the culture of “football first” has changed at PSU? If a new program-threatening situtation occurred, would it now be handled correctly? Or would their instinct be to handle it internally, as they always have?</p>
<p>Any program that was so big, and put a sport and grown ups ahead of children needs a few years to chill out. I don’t follow football in the slightest and am not pro/con college sports because I just don’t care - however if there is some sanctioning board of some kind of college football (please don’t skewer me, I honestly don’t know if it exists) - the program needs to be put on ice for a few years until they can prove that it’s not too big to fail. It did fail, in a big huge way, and tons and tons of administrators let things go by for the almighty football team to get this kind of culture where people were afraid of turning in a known pedophile. What else was going on that wasn’t mentioned for fear of upsetting the football program? This has nothing to do with justice for the victims, this is a school needing to admit they got their priorities screwed up and need to back up, reflect and take a few years out of whatever league they are in.</p>
<p>I’d like to see the rest of them who knew and did nothing face some consequences as well. My sil is a dr. During rotations through specialties she went through a psych rotation, in a state often made fun of for incest - she said the problem was these perpetrators knew society saw it as wrong - but they didn’t, and she didn’t believe there was hope for even getting someone like that to understand that it was wrong. I can believe S didn’t believe what he did was wrong. However - all these other people don’t have that excuse. They knew. </p>
<p>Personally, I’m glad my kids had no interest in that school. It will effect the student body for years to come and they will live under this shadow, not of their doing.</p>
<p>summerallday - I was on campus in March, walking around and talking to people, and I felt no difference. I also have a very close friend at Penn State right now. Her son will be applying next year and they are visiting the school and meeting with faculty. He is also attending a sports camp. After 3 days on campus - he loves it and PSU is now at the top of his list.</p>
<p>I don’t agree eyemamom. I don’t think this should or will affect the student body in a significant way, nor should any students be living under a shadow. The professors and the students clearly had nothing to do with this and this should not be promoted on this thread imho. If my son or daughter were there I would support them as I would anywhere and help them to find all the healthy and positive elements of the college.</p>
<p>I think that there is going to be a lot of pressure on Curley and Schultz to plead guilty and not go to trial. A trial will bring up all sorts of evidence about a much bigger cover-up–very likely including Paterno and his history of sweeping crimes and infractions under the rug along with his demanding the firing of anyone who blew the whistle on what was going on in the football program… PSU supporters are going to want them to take the fall–claim total responsibility for allowing Sandusky to continue with his crimes–and thereby, save the reputation of their beloved St. Joe.</p>
<p>How do we know that JoePa was the one responsible for the cover up? How do we know that the Board of Trustees didn’t just make him be the fall-guy? Evidence?</p>
<p>The fact that he knew what was going on is why he got fired. He did the bare minimum in reporting the problem and took no serious action to stop the continued abuse. In fact he allowed Sandusky access to the football facility for years after he knew there were crimes being committed. It’s not a bad thing that Paterno got fired. It’s a good thing, a small first step of many that Penn State needs to take to clean all this up.</p>
<p>Paterno was just lucky in a way that that he died before he could be be brought fully to account for his actions and inactions. Firing him was the bare minimum. If he were still alive today the process servers would be knocking on his door any day now to begin hitting him with a dozen or so big bucks lawsuits for his role in this mess. The victims might still sue his estate.</p>
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<p>Not as far as I can tell. Remember when the students rioted in protest of Paterno’s firing? Remember last fall in the first big game after the scandal broke and all the Penn State boosters were so relieved that they won, that the team was apparently not adversely affected? Remember the big pro-PSU chants they shouted at the game? </p>
<p>Looks like most of them would consider it a great tragedy if Penn State lost its “Football First” mentality. It forms the very core of the school’s self-identity. That’s why I don’t hold out of lot of hope for any true reform coming out of this. A little window-dressing maybe - but then…“Game Time!” </p>
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<p>But you, as a victim, would not have been the least bit responsible. Victims wrongly blaming themselves is common in abuse cases. The responsibility for all those effects and all that loss would have been on those who committed the crimes, those who covered it up, and to some degree the whole Football First mindset that enabled the cover up in the first place.</p>
<p>cour, please don’t tell me about victim blaming. If that’s really what you got out of that then you missed the point either intentionally or accidentally.</p>
<p>There is a difference between blaming what happened (the abuse) on myself and knowing that because of my speaking out, a whole lot of INNOCENT people were affected. There is a huge difference.</p>
<p>But shouldn’t those innocent people, instead of taking the ‘it’s not fair, why am I being punished, this is all about me’ approach, instead take the high road, accept life isn’t always fair, and move on? Just saying hypothetically.</p>
<p>I understand the difference between the two different types and levels of blaming here, but when you’ve got a serious problem on your hands strong action is often needed. It’s unfortunate that innocent people suffer due to the strong medicine applied to the disease. But it’s sad fact of life that sometimes some situations are so ugly that they are better dealt with by a clean sweep rather than by trying to patch it up. </p>
<p>Was the woman exec at Enron who blew the whistle on her bosses responsible for all the innocent Enron employees who lost their jobs and pensions and all the stockholders who lost their money when the company was shut down? No, she was not. The people responsible were the senior execs who committed the crimes.</p>
<p>So if it turns out the strong medicine needed to cure Penn State’s problems is a shutdown or sharp reduction in the football program it will be unfortunate that the players and some staffers who had nothing to do with it will lose their jobs or scholarships. But such losses will most certainly not be the fault of the victims who came forward and spoke up.</p>
<p>“How do we know that JoePa was the one responsible for the cover up? How do we know that the Board of Trustees didn’t just make him be the fall-guy? Evidence?”</p>
<p>For starters, did you read the grand jury indictment? (That’s just for the little bit that he kicked “downstairs”.)</p>