<p>Here’s the rub. From what I have read the NCAA can only issue the “Death Penalty” for repeat offenders. Penn State is not a repeat offender. If true, then Penn State will have to institute the “Death Penalty” on its own. While that is what I think should be done in order to show that the University is more than its football program, I have little reason to believe that Penn State will do it. I believe that Penn State will conclusively prove by inadequate action that its football program is more important than the rest of the University. I hope I am wrong.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why this is about “football” and not about the men involved. Forget Sandusky and Paterno and all of them…why is this about football? Why would they deny the marching band to not march next year, why would they deny the young men who do love the sport the inability to play or the cheerleaders to jump up and down? Why is this about the sport and not the men. I agree, the best thing would be to put the statue in storage for a long time, clean up the staff and rebuild a sport that was beloved in Happy Valley and so much part of the Big 10… why would they punish the kids a goodly chunk of them who weren’t even on campus when all this happened but were looking forward to their college year and Big 10 football?</p>
<p>Because the scandal has shown that Penn State’s football program’s reputation had become more important than the lives of crime victims or of the University as a whole. The only way to solve that is to bring the football program back down to earth.</p>
<p>Because it was the football program that was put above the victims. Because it was the football program that was deemed more important than the victims. </p>
<p>It’s only football. So the marching band gets involved with something else. So the cheerleaders jump up and down for something else. It’s a message that will say, loud and clear, We Are Penn State and we don’t need a football program to make us great. And, believe me, people across the country will take notice and cheer. And everyone going there will feel proud to be there. That’s my opinion.</p>
<p>Why should they? Because it is the right thing to do. The NCAA could allow all the boys transfer to other teams without penalty of sitting.A roster of 50 or so could easily be absorbed by other DIV 1 schools.Kids do it all the time because of no playing time, and first year freshman rarely see any game time and sit out anyway. Football isn’t the only sport the band/cheerleaders can perform for.</p>
<p>Sadly it was repeat offenses. Year after year after year. If they can show Sandusky brought his victims to games under the eyes of paterno…that’s a repeat offense. Every time they saw him w a little boy.</p>
<p>^^that is a pretty thin argument and could be made about many things about more than a handful of universities where the university reputation rides on the coat tails of someone, of some program. This is different than a college athletic team that hands out bribes to students who TOOK the bribes. These issues fall on the administrators and probably coaches. This is about pedophilia and administrations lack of attention over a long period of time. You could substitute tennis, or gymnastics or swimming or any other sport. you don’t have to blow up something and start over. The problem was not pervasive within the kids and the tangential programs that are interwoven in the sport, not the college kids, not the boosters, not the regional attendance at the games, not the business of the television revenue…it was squarely the people in positions of authority.</p>
<p>I’m not a football fan, far from it, but I do understand why it is so intrinsic in the American university system from the statues of the scholar and the athlete at the entrance to the Union at UofM to the thousands and thousands of kids who choose SEC, Big 10 or Pac 10 schools because they want that tradition. it’s a choice Americans have to pick a college for whatever reasons they want to pick “that college.” It feels foolish for me for the NCAA or the college to blow up a program because of a few evil people and no misdoing on the part of the kids. The “program” is already down to earth and broken, it will take years to revive the goodwill without blowing it up completely. Not even to mention the reverberations throughout the Pennsylvania state universities financially, emotionally etc. And to think there aren’t reverberations throughout the college leagues is foolish. It does no good in the long view to take it away from the kids completely and really punishing them for things in which they had no involvement.</p>
<p>Have you taken into consideration the total destruction of these CHILDREN this program’s LEADERS ALLOWED under their watch? I know my son threw out his PENN state jersey and hat and he is only 14. He gets it. He said he wouldn’t play for them given the choice,neither would his friends when asked. Wonder how many other future recruits they can get?Program might be doomed anyway.</p>
<p>Let’s remember that Sandusky recruited football players while Professor Emeritus (an ACADEMIC title), and with his young charges in tow at various hotels (not clear whether PSU paid for the hotels). And, according to the Freeh report, there were other COACHES who saw Sandusky in the shower with young boys at least as early as 1994. (None of them apparently reported anything). They used a known pedophile to recruit football players - STUDENTS - to the university.</p>
<p>The football team “gained” from the actions of Sandusky and those who protected him. The university gained (it is said) as much as $50 million a year as a result of the football team’s activities. The President of the University, who sets the standards for integrity at the university as well as overseeing the budgeting process, was part of the coverup. And the university gained in reputation from its association with Second Mile.</p>
<p>No part of the university is without taint. And every day the statue remains up, and the library uses JoePa’s name (the LIBRARY, for heaven’s sake!), the university (the entire university, not just the football program) chooses to inflict further wounds upon the victims and their families.</p>
<p>Aren’t there any tenured faculty members out there - perhaps in the English Department where Spanier’s wife teaches - with any guts? How about a librarian?</p>
<p>This is completely about football - and the role it holds at Penn State.
Every Penn State alum who hasn’t emailed the Penn state trustees and told them they need to take down the statue, and that they will back the trustee decision to take maximum action - ought to hide their heads.</p>
<p>Really, the trustees are afraid to take action because they are afraid of students and alumni reaction. That says it all right there.</p>
<p>I think the trustees are also afraid that whatever action they take would reinforce perception of legal accountability. They are covering their butts as well as protecting Paterno’s estate.</p>
<p>Said trustee Ken Frazier: “I think we have to take some time, some reflection and distance before making a decision on how we will think about Joe Paterno’s entire life and body of work.”</p>
<p>“According to the newspaper, the university’s full board of trustees were kept in the dark about Paterno’s arrangment until November, when Sandusky was fired.” arrangment = $3 million</p>
<p>This is a BOT in name only and this is just another of the myriad of problems at PSU. </p>
<p>It’s not just about football. It’s about a cover up involving the President of the University for Pete’s sake! Are people this dense?</p>
<p>momofthreeboys: This is the sort of thinking that allowed this scandal to fester for 15 years. Apparently you believe (like the participants in the cover-up) that PSU football is too big to fail. This is about changing a culture which says that the PSU football program is more important than children’s lives and the rest of the University. How do you do that short of blowing it up and starting over?</p>
<p>I am sure PSU football has a number of signed contracts surrounding its football team. </p>
<p>I would expect the board and the school attorneys to have a thorough understanding of their ability to cancel these contracts and the ramifications of canceling them before doing so.</p>
<p>Knee jerk emotional media driven decisions are not what is called for here.</p>
<p>I do not think “football is to big to fail” on any level, i went to a DivIII LAC BECAUSE i wasn’t that interested in football and rah rah but I think sanctions and actions belong where they belong…on the administration and the people that engaged and knew. There is no problem with football or marching band or cheerleading…there is a problem with certain people. I have no issues with the kids that were in the stands, on the field, in the band, cheering on the sidelines for the past 15 years…they are NOT the problem. Saying you’ll shut the FB program down is denying the kids on the field, the kids in the band, the kids on the sidelines cheering something for something they didn’t do nor did the 15 classes of graduates that preceded them. It’s typical mob mentality…they are bad therefore everyone is bad so we’ll just punish everyone then we can feel better about ourselves.</p>
<p>sax–for a long time you stated, you want to know who knew what when. ok, we now know that. now you say we need to give them time to adjust. frankly they had months to be preparing for this potential outcome and to have a sense of how to respond.</p>
<p>why do you think taking a stand as a university now, would simply be a knee jerk media driven response? why can’t it be a decision driven by, the right thing to do, plain and simple. and a teachable moment, an opportunity really as an EDUCATIONAL institution to demonstrate that they are sincere and dedicated to cleaning house. A fresh start.</p>
<p>and you state the statue will be gone by school’s start, have you seen my earlier (and others) post indicating the trustees are hoping to never take it down?</p>
<p>Like momofthreeboys, I’m still struggling with the response that “football culture” justifies NCAA sanctions and removal of football from an innocent team and student body. The majority argues:</p>
<p>Football should be taken away from PSU as retribution for the promotion of a culture of big-time athletics that enabled and protected these horrific crimes and also to deter other college sports organizations from continuing to glorify and use the American sports culture to shield all manner of criminal, immoral and unethical conduct. </p>
<p>That approach requires that we continue to tolerate a certain degree of risk to other young people with the hope that the future bad acts of other sports organizations will never amount to what PSU inflicted on these victims. The quantity and quality of bad acts that are tolerable is unknown. Is it okay that a young woman over here is enticed to play for Big U by a slush fund and a team over there is treated to a post-win night of liquor and prostitutes so long as no pedophile is ever again given the keys to the kingdom? Doesn’t this sound like the infamous Ford decision to go ahead and sell defective Pintos because the risk of wrongful death and personal injury payouts was calculated to cost less than the cost to install the $11 corrective part?</p>
<p>To me, it seems like stripping PSU of football is simply the most expedient way to meet emotional outrage and do something that hurts PSU yet preserves “business as usual” in the world of college sports. Because to call for the disbandment of college athletics as they now exist and a reinvention of a healthier, more appropriate placement of athletics alongside other ECs would require we turn sports in America on its head and examine our values and priorities as a society. Who wants to do that? And gosh, it would take time and hard work! It’s easier to just dump PSU and play ball.</p>
<p>I’m struck by the contrasting giggling reaction to Caltech’s self-reported NCAA violations. If you believe PSU should be punished to deter, then why isn’t there a call to celebrate Caltech to serve as a role model, even catalyst for systemic change?</p>
<p>“Is it okay that a young woman over here is enticed to play for Big U by a slush fund and a team over there is treated to a post-win night of liquor and prostitutes so long as no pedophile is ever again given the keys to the kingdom?”</p>
<p>PSU employed a pedophile to recruit students to the university, and then even gave him an academic title - Professor Emeritus - and then paid him an additional $160k. And then…</p>
<p>I don’t think a knee-jerk reaction is called for. What is called for is bold, decisive action - starting with bold, decisive words - to say that the university will no longer allow itself to benefit from the 14-year (perhaps longer) record of the football program.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Spanier is still** professor in the “College of Health and Human Development”. Let’s hear it for “academic integrity”.</p>
<p>It is the culture that surrounds football and the entire mentality that is pervasive from top to bottom at Penn state.
[The</a> woman who stood up to Joe Paterno - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/15/us/triponey-paterno-penn-state/index.html]The”>http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/15/us/triponey-paterno-penn-state/index.html)</p>
<p>Finally Vicky Triponey can speak of the “Penn State Way”</p>
<p>"She also heard the expression “the Penn State way” for the first time that weekend. Had she understood its significance, she said, she would have “quickly run in the other direction.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This isn’t just about four men; this is about the entire culture on the campus. Those four men avoided reporting Sandusky, let Sandusky do what he pleased, looked the other way while little boys were raped, because of what football meant to Penn State. And what it meant was EVERYTHING. “We are Penn State.” That surely was an accurate statement when it came to the football team.</p>
<p>Did you read the article about the statue where the trustee said they couldn’t take it down because . . . “we don’t want to upset the alumni”? </p>
<p>We don’t want to upset the alumni.</p>
<p>By taking down a statue.</p>
<p>Of a man who actively protected a child molestor.</p>
<p>We are not even talking about sanctioning the football team at this point, apparently even taking down the damn statue will cause the alumni to rebel. Something is rotten in the state of Pennsylvania.</p>