<p><<1moremom, serious question: Would you feel relieved in any way if they put football on hold at Penn State? Like now you can all move forward on this in a positive way. Or would it feel like something had been taken away from the PSU experience unfairly? I guess that’s a complicated issue.>></p>
<p>Absolutely. It is clear that the administration lost sight of the university’s mission and it seems to me that might be the most expeditious way to correct that. It should also help convince people like coureur who believe “the main reason pretty much everyone associated with Penn State fights so fiercely to hang onto football is that they cannot imagine the the place without it.” In my experience, that could not be further from the truth. The vast majority of people I know with ties to the university care very little about the sport. They do care about their teaching, research, supporting the Center for Performing Arts and Palmer Art Museum or whatever else interests them. (I am not saying there are not some crazed football fans but, contrary to the earlier claim, they do not include “pretty much everyone associated with Penn State”.)</p>
<p>The one concern I would have is that the loss of the football revenue could be career ending to student athletes in other sports. Considering the financial impact the scandal will undoubtedly have on the university, I don’t know how those programs would be supported. A number of Penn Staters will be competing in London. The fencing team has won a record 12 national championships since 1990 and the women’s volleyball team won four consecutive national titles ending in 2010. And then there are hundreds other athletes who play for the love their sports. Saying “Sorry for your luck” seems pretty callous to me, but perhaps those students will also have to suffer for the heinous acts of Sandusky, et al.</p>
<p>Saying for years, “Sorry for your luck, victims, but we’ve decided to protect your abuser instead of helping you” seems pretty callous too. Current athletes would not be the first group of people to be damaged by the culture of football at Penn State.</p>
<p>Maybe the Paterno family investigators will also find yellowcake in Nigeria and WMDs in Iraq. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Perhaps the alums of Penn State will rise to the occasion and donate $$ to the athletic program to make up for the loss, at least partially. That would be a worthy act.</p>
<p>Ain’t it the truth, Goingmyway. Professor Emeritus Sandusky’s (thanks Mini) addled and corrupt mind allowed him to believe that the PSU badge would continue to shield him. I’m guessing it’s one of the reasons for that bizzare interview with Bob Costas. Professor Emeritus Sandusky didn’t believe that THE QUESTION should apply to him.</p>
<p>On Sandusky’s emeritus status, here’s Penn State’s policy:
[Policy</a> HR25 Emeritus Rank Penn State Human Resources](<a href=“http://guru.psu.edu/policies/OHR/hr25.html]Policy”>http://guru.psu.edu/policies/OHR/hr25.html)
It appears that emeritus status is essentially automatic if you are old enough, have served long enough, and have high enough rank when you retire.
However, Sandusky was only an assistant professor, and so had to get his status through a special exception.
There is nothing in the policy about how to revoke emeritus status, but perhaps there is some way to do it. There is a mechanism for dismissing tenured faculty.</p>
<p>No one has even called for revocation from what I can tell: not a single faculty member or member of the faculty senate. No administrator. No coach. No member of the Board of Trustees. Not even the Governor.</p>
<p>Faculty are probably off campus for the summer and there probably are not faculty meetings this month. Revocation might be addressed by the faculty in the late summer or fall.</p>
<p>Fair enough, but here are some numbers for context. Enrollment at Penn State is around 45,000. The alumni association claims “over 145,000” members. Beaver Stadium holds more than 106,000 people. It would therefore appear that the football team must be drawing a significant fraction of students and local alumni to home games.</p>
<p>1moremom, My point is that the victims lost far more than the Penn State community ever could, including opportunities for players to play their sports. Where there are decisions to be made, IMHO consideration of the victims should far outweigh anyone else’s.</p>
<p>mini, that’s because, as a janitor said in the Freeh report, “Football runs this university.” And everyone – from janitors all the way up to governors – trembles before the mighty Penn State football machine. I have yet to see one shred of evidence that that’s changed.</p>
<p>Of course, I understand that and agree, LasMa. I said I thought the football program should be closed down. Isn’t it OK to wish there were a way for the other athletes to continue playing their sports?</p>
<p>If a convicted embezzler gets sent to prison, his family(in this example) suffers too. The wife and children lose income from his job, and any ill gotten “bonuses” and lose reputation, future employability, and much more. Generally, their loss and subsequent future hardship is not considered a mitigating factor at sentencing. Theoretically they are innocents, yet they pay a price for the perps’ actions.
The blame for their loss goes not to the court for imposing a sentence, but to the perpetrator that risked his freedom and their livelihood by choosing to steal.
We generally don’t see an outpouring of support for the retail stores, groceries, or trash hauler that now have a little less income to take in because the actions of a customer has reduced the income in the community.</p>
<p>One suggestion was close the football program but allow the players to stay with the scholarships. For a year. Clean house. Get all the dirt out. And see how Penn football state handles not having theirmfalse idol to worship</p>
<p>To those that want the statue up, and who don’t Penn should suffer any consequences, say this was you nephew, cousin,sons friend who was raped and people knew the rapist had serious problems but let him use Penn state as a shield of decency. </p>
<p>Would you be so forgiving and understanding?</p>
<p>My first thoughts on this were that five years without football would be about right, so that there would be no current student at Penn State that would remember how it used to be, so they could press the “reset” button. My second thought was 14 years, the amount of time that we know JoePa harbored Professor Emeritus Sandusky. But that doesn’t really seem right - from the Freeh report we know that there were football coaches (and others) that saw Professor Emeritus Sandusky in the showers with young boys, and didn’t report it, at least as early as 1994. But we now know that Professor Emeritus Sandusky was molesting young boys back as early as the 1970s, and if I am right, we’ll find out that JoePa knew about it as early as that.</p>
<p>Maybe football should be eliminated indefinitely, and a future Board of Trustees and Governor can, a decade or two from now, decide whether it’s time to bring it back, once they’ve learned to live without it.</p>
<p>Maybe that’s the just solution. Don’t consider having football until Penn State has learned to live without it.</p>