<p>The “culture” argument (as it relates to universal punishment for everyone guilty by association) is interesting to me. I get what you all are saying. If we take that argument seriously, though, does that mean we should turn our wisdom to Mardi Gras? Surely the culture there has led to crimes that have put people in jail, but why aren’t we punishing New Orleans for “contributing” to the hedonistic culture, even inviting people down to party? What about Daytona Beach/spring break? What about New Year’s in NYC? These places aren’t covering up their enabling of behaviors, they are using them as enticements. </p>
<p>Americans vote with our money, and we reap what we sow. An ugly harvest of skewed priorities, violence, inequity, and imbalance, because our society as a whole values fame, glamour, power, ambition, and a me-first attitude.</p>
<p>p.s. mini: your continued insults about the faculty – most of whom are not currently in class or on campus — doesn’t add much to your arguments. I would really like it if you would stop calling people you haven’t met names.</p>
<p>Naturally, I’m somewhat confused. You say that the students and community aren’t necessarily at fault as they did not know what Sandusky was doing; yet, you contend that the students and alums loved football above all else. </p>
<p>I guess I’m wondering … using that logic, if they (the students and alums) loved football above all else, then wouldn’t they also be willing to allow a child molester to continue predations? Just trying to understand “the students loved football above all else” comment and its corollary ramifications.</p>
<p>Let’s suppose this wasn’t a child molestation scandal, but a recruiting scandal that clearly, unequivocally fell in line with what the NCAA works to prevent. Players being paid to attend, gifts of wine and women and song, blah blah blah. </p>
<p>Shutting down the football program in such a case would have equally hurt the local economy - but no one thinks that a program affected by a recruiting scandal shouldn’t shut down because “think of the local businesses.” We understand that the impact on the local businesses that didn’t do anything wrong is unfortunate, but we also hope that it provides the people who did wrong something to reflect on - maybe dirty recruiting is a “victimless crime” in one sense, but if you’re caught and your program can’t operate, then guess what, you have hurt the local merchants, etc. We hope that people have senses of shame.</p>
<p>Sorry, I find the “impact on the local economy” to be a completely worthless argument. It wouldn’t fly if it were a recruiting scandal, why should it fly here? By that token, no one should ever be punished or sanctioned for anything since there’s always fallout.</p>
<p>rcefn, I am sorry to hear that. Really. It is a sad indictment. </p>
<p>When Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault two years ago, some were ready to throw him under the bus while many refused to believe or chose to victimize the victim. Hey, but it’s all good now. The stadium’s filled. As an aside, there are numerous names you could substitute for Ben’s.</p>
<p>Obviously.<br>
And I disagree.
Happy Friday. I’m going to spend my day watching my son practice for the San Antonio show tomorrow night. Can’t get better than that.</p>
<p>It’s possible that where the divide is that some see this primarily as a “football” problem and some see this as primarily a “poor administration” program. I side on the “poor administration” side of the coin. It is my assertion that a stronger and more involved administration would never have abdicated authority to people in the athletic office. There are many, many high ranked, large Div 1 football programs whose athletic departments do not have the influence on the university administration that must have been occurring at Penn State. That is the primary reason I do consider “impact on the community” as just one of many factors in why I think the punishment should fit the crime and be focused on the administration.</p>
<p>A co-worker and I were discussing this situation today and contrasted it with the handling of Bobby Knight at IU (our mutual alma mater). While we are both Bobby Knight fans, we understood that he had gotten out of control and wore out his welcome. He got booted and it was a very unpopular decision. At many institutions (e.g. Penn State) Knight would have been untouchable. The IU administration did not let itself be controlled by the basketball culture at IU. For some reason, I also feel that the basketball culture schools are not as out of control as the football culture schools and I’m not sure why that is.</p>
<p>Grcxx3 - Have you actually heard even one Penn State person explicitly advocate for cancelling football? I don’t mean vague general comments like “Something should be done” or “Changes are needed at Penn State.” I mean direct, unambiguous support for dumping football.</p>
<p>If so that would be a welcome development. I wish those lone voices would speak up, because I have yet to hear even one Penn state booster willing to embrace the idea of cancelling even a single game, much less a whole season or a multi-year “death penalty.”</p>
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<p>I don’t find it to be a worthless argument so much as it is a decoy or surrogate argument. Some Penn State boosters perhaps sense that, given the current scandal, it may be inappropropriate or at least unconvincing, to argue in favor of football for its own sake. So instead they substitute the economic impact argument as a way to hang on to football without being seen to so directly support a program that tolerated such depravity.</p>
<p>Yu can’t separate administration from the athletic specifically the football department. They are intertwined. The administration, members of the board of trustees, the former president, etc. Neither should be let off the hook. And amnesty should be given to profs who come forward even privately and talk about grade fixing and pressure from the football program re it’s players</p>
<p>MoRe dirt will come out. There was no checks and balances at Penn state w regards to football, well except for the bully paterno</p>
<p>Grcxx3 is not obligated of course, but I sure would like to hear more reasoning behind his/her point of view. Merely saying “disagree” when the other party says why they feel what they do is not convincing.
Would like grcxx to flesh out the argument so I can understand better. If such an argument has value, does grcxx3 use it for arsonists, rapists, embezzlers, and others, so that their punishments do not negatively affect innocents around them? If not, and it is used only for football, then the argument would indeed appear to be a decoy as posed in post 6651.</p>
<p>^^^^I agree. But you might as well be talking to a wall. All the people saying the program shouldn’t be sanctioned refuse to acknowledge the truth of your last statement. If hurting “innocents” contraindicates action, then no athletic program may ever be sanctioned, no matter how egregious the violations. Because by the nature of sanctions, they always occur after the fact, usually not until many of the key players are gone and new “innocents” have arrived for their turn. </p>
<p>These programs are part of the NCAA voluntarily. They agree to abide by the rules in order to participate. They are well aware that if they are found to be violating the terms of these agreements, they will suffer potentially severe penalties. Programs which don’t want their schools and peripheral communities to be harmed, whether economically or otherwise, should not be violating the NCAA rules and local, state, and federal laws (not to mention laws of human decency). Those that do and end up causing harm to their constituents are the ones who should be doing the apologizing and explaining, not the NCAA.</p>