<p>MOmofthreeboys, so if it wasyour son who was raped and it was covered up tom protect football program you would still say, eh, it’s Football!!!</p>
<p>Guess some don’t understand that football is not the be all end all for the vast majority of people. And that all kinds of things happen where athletes can’t do what they want. Ply a game. Play a game. If they can’t deal with not having football, there is truly a sickness at Penn state.</p>
<p>Oh good heavens Seahorserock… It will be interesting to look back at this thread in the future as was looking back at the Duke LaCrosse players thread and see what happened in the courts and in the court of public opinion and to the university administration.</p>
<p>Northeastern and Hofstra canceled their football in the same year. Not Penn State, but Division 1 schools with many players on scholarship between the two of them. They honored scholarships for players who wished to stay, assisted players who wanted to transfer, and nobody sued either of those schools about breaking a contract and we didn’t hear other schools crying about accommodating students.</p>
<p>You may be interested to know that athletic scholarships are assigned on a one-year, renewable basis. Nobody is guaranteed a four-year scholarship and somebody’s scholarship can actually be canceled any year for any reason – just not in the middle of the year.</p>
<p>Momof3–your comparison to Duke implies that nothing really happened at PSU, that it was an unsubstantiated story. I know you don’t believe that. So the comparison is puzzling.</p>
<p>I was referring to the thread and all the twists and turns it took over time, not the incident at Duke, Garland.</p>
<p>Yes, but the comparison still doesn’t hold. I highly doubt that most people are going to change their view of what happened at PSU, as they might have about Duke. The facts and evidence have followed a clear trajectory in one direction. There’s no gray area here. I just see no comparison at all.</p>
<p>Perhaps. I do agree that the facts in this case probably won’t change. I do believe Mr. Paterno knew what was going on and I do believe that the administration took the short view and acted unethically. I just have an opposing viewpoint to many about what the aftermath not directly related to the criminal courts could or should be.</p>
<p>“What makes you think the players knew about the criminal activity?”</p>
<p>Actually, we know (according to Freeh) that from 1994 to 1997, other football coaches and others, including students (likely football players) saw Sandusky in the shower with young boys, and didn’t report it. </p>
<p>Be that as it may, the $50 million a year is small potatoes compared to what the lawsuits are going to come to. If the university thinks it is worthwhile to maintain a fencing team without money earned from the tainted program, they’ll do it. If not, students and coaches will go elsewhere.</p>
<p>The time to start up the football program again will be the day the university is no longer dependent upon it.</p>
<p>Collateral damage happens all the time. Arthur Anderson went bankrupt due to the actions of a few partners in a Texas office…was that fair to the partners in other cities? If a plant is shut down due to environmental crimes many employees lose their jobs. So the concern is where will the seniors play football? </p>
<p>The powers that be in the football program concealed the systematic rape of children for over a decade! The program must pay for the crime and yes, some innocents will be impacted. The trade off is that all of the students at Penn State may see that there is a price to be paid for institutional indifference. Maybe some will end up being better citizens.</p>
<p>Unethically? They let a child rapist roam free amd actually facilitated that animal by giving him the appearance of normalcy and respectability while paying him.</p>
<p>That’s more then unethical, its pathetic, sad and hopefully criminal.</p>
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<p>So what if the other innocent football players don’t get to play football? So, they’ll just go to classes and study instead and they’ll play intramural football. Oh well. Football doesn’t HAVE to be part of college, and it’s really no great shakes if a football player doesn’t get to play football because the program needs to clean its act up. It’s a sport. It’s trivial. It’s unimportant.</p>
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<p>Because sometimes things are so broken that you have junk the whole thing and start over. Patching up the existing wreck will never be sufficient. This is clearly one of those times.</p>
<p>And also the argument about getting rid of the big-money football program will wreck the minor or non-revenue sports is bogus. There are dozens and perhaps hundreds of colleges that don’t even have a football team and yet manage to field plenty of competitive teams in the non-revenue sports. Penn State should seek to join that group.</p>
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<p>I had a friend who was on the Cotton Bowl team for SMU who wound up being affected by the SMU death-penalty scandal in the mid-eighties. So he didn’t get to play football. Big whoops. In case people have forgotten, that’s actually not the raison d’etre of a college campus. It’s no more “sad” than any other extracurricular activity that might lose its funding or not have enough players / participants to support it.</p>
<p>Momofthreeboys – did you really just compare changing schools to play football to a national disaster that killed numerous people and still, today, has left the homes of many people destroyed? </p>
<p>Wow. Just wow.</p>
<p>What is wrong with people tonight??? When Hurricane katrina hit, many college students had to quickly find new colleges. The colleges worked to help the kids get transferred, get financial aid, etc. Must be the heat.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys, I have a sincere question for you. Why do you think Spanier et al were willing to go to such extreme measures, for many years, at considerable risk to themselves and the university – all to protect one assistant coach?</p>
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Again, this is a cheesy argument. If it was your kid who was about to start his senior year as a football player at Penn State on an athletic scholarship, would you be so cavalier about the idea that it would be no big deal to pull the rug out from under him?</p>
<p>To expand: your argument suggests that the other person’s position would change if she were personally involved in the case–if she had a personal interest. That argument goes both ways, and it’s kind of insulting in the first place.</p>
<p>Because it’s not unusual for people in positions of power to try and minimize any risk. Whether it’s shareholders or alumni, employees or college students, sometimes people in power seek to minimize the “outside consequences” of anything negative. There is tremendous pressure on leaders - that’s why they make the big bucks. Poor leaders make poor decisions. I would be most interested if there are records of administration speaking with their legal counsel (since even the allegations had criminal potential) and what legal counsel advised. I highly doubt that would be uncovered. Generally if there is an issue of a potential legal nature with an employee the first step is to remove the employee (paid if necessary) quickly and the second is to call the lawyers who would advise if they should involve the police. It took them awhile to remove Sandusky and I wonder if they ever called the lawyers. Finally most people know to go up the ladder if they can’t deal with the situation within their scope of responsibility…so it does not surprise me that this "jumped’ from the athletic department to administration. It would have been a gigantic hot potato even a decade ago or more. Oh and in an ethical organization there would have been confidential fact finding to figure out who knew what and when to establish a record for the business of steps that were taken should the situation become a legal one.</p>
<p>Hunt, I don’t think anyone is saying it wouldn’t be a big deal. It would be a huge deal, obviously. But then, this is a huge tragedy.</p>
<p>Thank you Hunt for the defense on that point…no pun intended.</p>