<p>It clearly did afford Penn State an advantage. Sponsorship advertising.
I know locally business sponsor little league teams, pay for their uniforms, etc equipment, etc. Frees up other monies to pay for defensive coordinators bad behaviors.</p>
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<p>I don’t understand this argument at all. The NCAA always punishes the institution–and more specifically, the athletic department-- when there are rules violations. And there is always collateral damage. They imposed a bowl ban and scholarship restrictions on USC because Reggie Bush and his family took oodles of improper benefits from an agent while playing football at USC. Was Reggie Bush hurt by those sanctions? Not in the least; he was making millions of dollars playing pro football. Was his USC coach, Pete Carroll, on whose watch the violations occurred, hurt by those sanctions? Not in the least, except perhaps reputationally; he was long gone, earning millions of dollars coaching in the NFL. Who’s hurt? Well, the current coaching staff, current players, current students, current fans, if anyone–people who had nothing to do with those rules violations. There is always collateral damage when an institution is punished. There is nothing unique in the Penn State situation in that regard. Not in the least.</p>
<p>And let’s be clear, there were NCAA rules violations at Penn State. No, the rules don’t specifically say “Thou shalt not harbor and cover up for child rapists and pedophiles and allow them to commit their heinous crimes in your athletic facilities, using the name and reputation of your football program and access to your coaching staff, players, and facilities to lure and groom their victims.” But the NCAA rules DO prohibit failure to maintain institutional control over the athletic program, and they further require coaches and other athletic department personnel to maintain high ethical and moral standards, recognizing that they are, above all else, teachers and role models for young men and women. And anyone who thinks the Penn State administration, its AD, and its head football coach satisfied THOSE NCAA rules is . . . well, is perhaps as morally obtuse and ethically bankrupt as JoePa himself.</p>
<p>I will grant that this case is unprecedented. It’s unprecedents because, so far as we know, no NCAA athletic program has gone this far off the rails before, and the NCAA couldn’t just stand idly by and say, 'Oh, no recruiting violations? Then it’s not not our department." In my book, the sanctions in this case were not only warranted, but they were way on the lenient side The NCAA DID take the collateral damage into account, and decided not to impose the death penalty. Instead, the games will be played, the stands will be filled, the saloonkeepers and restaurateurs and innkeepers will get their 7 nights of profit per year. And Penn State will lose some football games. Whoop-de-do.</p>
<p>Time to stop crying about it and take the punishment. Penn State got off easy.</p>
<p>There are plenty of quality U.S. universities that operate just fine w/o gargantuan football revenues</p>
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<p>Teams win and lose together. They experience success and failure together. They are celebrated and punished together.</p>
<p>NCAA punished USC after the coach had left and Reggie Bush was long gone.</p>
<p>By choosing to play college football, you are choosing to be part of something that is bigger than just you.</p>
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<p>No, I think this is mostly just more Penn State narcissism. The rest of us don’t actually think about you that much, and have no reason to hate you. </p>
<p>Seriously, why would anyone hate Penn State? I’ve always viewed it as sort of just this plain vanilla, better-than-average public university in a region of the country where public higher education is generally not highly prized. Its public image is defined by football, but does it even really have any longstanding football rivalries? Pitt, maybe? I never hear it mentioned among the great rivalries, not like Michigan-Ohio State, Alabama-Auburn, USC-UCLA, Cal-Stanford, Yale-Harvard. It’s sort of an afterthought in the Big Ten, probably because it was just this odd recent graft-on to a conference that already had longstanding rivalries and traditions. I know at my alma mater, Michigan, there are two big rivalry games every year–Ohio State and Michigan State, but the Ohio State game is far more important. Most years Notre Dame is a third. A lot of Ohio State people hate Michigan, and a fair number of Michigan people reciprocate. A lot of Michigan State people hate Michigan, and for the most part Michigan people don’t care, which just makes the Michigan State people seethe. Penn State? Meh. Just a game. Like playing Wisconsin; they’re usually pretty good and you need to be good to beat them, but historically we have more often than not, except we haven’t been playing them as long.</p>
<p>A lot of Penn State people seem to think people who are not part of Penn State are envious of the glory that is Penn State. Really, we’re not. You’re way low on our list of things to think about. It’s not that we dislike you; we just don’t much care, one way or the other.</p>
<p>I do think a lot of people hate hypocrites, though, and that leads to a certain fascination with Joe Paterno and his role in the Sandusky scandal. As we all know, JoePa carefully cultivated an image of virtue and impeccable and unrivaled moral and ethical standards, and he sold his recruits, players, students, alums, fans, and pretty much the entire sports media establishment on that image. So when it all turned out to be a filthy, rotten lie because (if the Freeh report is to believed) JoePa and other top people at Penn State were for many years knowingly harboring and shielding a child molester and thereby enabling his ongoing atrocities against children, all in the name of not sullying the reputation of the program and the institution by publicly putting a stop to it—well, that just invites a lot of attention. And disdain. Not disdain for Penn State, but disdain for the hypocrisy of those men, JoePa chief among them, who turned out to be just the opposite of what they had portrayed themselves to be. And revulsion that they could place the phony image of their football program ahead of the safety and well-being of disadvantaged 10-year-old boys who would be scarred for life by Sandusky’s depravity, under JoePa’s protection.</p>
<p>Hate Penn State? No, no reason for that. Hate Joe Paterno? Well, I never had a reason to until now, and my religion teaches me that it’s wrong to hate, so I try not to. But I do think what he did was despicable and morally depraved, and it ought to bring shame and revulsion to the entire Penn State community that he did it in their name. But I have a sense that a lot of people there are having a hard time getting over their Paterno-worship. Which is why I thought the death penalty would have been the better course, to just give them some time to think about it.</p>
<p>I have empathy for Penn State students, parents and alumni, and recognize that it was a minority of students who protested, and those who do so are often the loudest and most noticed. I never knew much about Penn State and surely have no hate towards the university whatsoever. I think those of us who are not affiliated with PSU were able to see how rotten things were more easily than those who are. </p>
<p>I think the sanctions make sense, and do think they were required, but honestly, while football was central to the coverup of Sandusky’s abuse, I continue to feel outraged that the president of the university is still without a speck of a consequence. I absolutely hold Paterno responsible for his role but honestly, if Spanier had simply been an actual leader, he could have overruled Paterno.</p>
<p>Furthermore I can understand that innocent students, parents and alumni who hopefully are also outraged at Spanier’s actions (and continued arrogant denial of any knowledge of Sandusky’s sexual assaults), are angry that they are experiencing consequences when Spanier is for the moment scot free.</p>
<p>My d has a long time childhood friend who had an older sibling who went to Penn State, the only direct relationship we had with a Penn Stater. The younger sister disliked going to Penn State visiting older sibling while a student, said it was weird/strange environment, again out of the mouth of a 13/14 year old at the time of this, so never paid much attention to the reason the kid gave. </p>
<p>Years later, sib still camped out at “paternoville” for football weekends. For several years it was EVERY home game,still think is still doing it, not sure. About a 6 hour drive one way without any traffic To each his own I guess.</p>
<p>My d said they had a summer internship engineering thing at her school which many Penn state kids attended. She said the Penn kids did nothing but run down where they were, saying Penn was better at this, better at that. Can get to be a bit much for 8 weeks of a summer.</p>
<p>Like the above poster stated, not much thought is given to Penn State until the faithful start worship services.</p>
<p><<my d="" said="" they="" had="" a="" summer="" internship="" engineering="" thing="" at="" her="" school="" which="" many="" penn="" state="" kids="" attended.="" she="" the="" did="" nothing="" but="" run="" down="" where="" were,="" saying="" was="" better="" this,="" that.="" can="" get="" to="" be="" bit="" much="" for="" 8="" weeks="" of="" summer.="">></my></p>
<p>When I went to geology field camp years ago, the kids who were attending our camp from other schools commented all the time on how their schools were better (better campus, better academics, better sports, etc). When my younger son went to a geology field camp last summer, the kids from other schools did the same thing.</p>
<p>I think this is perfectly “normal” (okay, not nice, but not unexpected) and is certainly not something unique to Penn State students.</p>
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<p>+1.</p>
<p>In addition, on cc there is definitely an anti-sports/college athletics crowd, and since football is the money king, it it a really easy target…</p>
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<p>If the cover up has had such a smallbenefit/impact on the Penn State football program, then why, why, why would grown men in high leadership positions risk so much to perpetrate this cover up? Obviously they thought the impact would be much greater than you think.</p>
<p>The worship of the football program at Penn State caused one of the most egregious failures of institutional integrity. I think the NCAA should have imposed the death penalty to help PSU start afresh.</p>
<p>Seriously, college football is an easy target? What about the kids who were abused and no one protected them.</p>
<p>I mean really.</p>
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I agree here, and would have said so earlier, but I feared I would be subjecting everyone to yet another bloviation by AdvicePlease about how well-bred, well-adjusted, well-paid (s)he and everyone (s)he knows from PSU are, all the while insulting everyone who has a different opinion.</p>
<p>“Paterno and his ilk covered because above all paterno was all about image.”</p>
<p>We won’t know why until someone actually follows the money. (I suspect we will find out that while image was important, it wasn’t the key issue.)</p>
<p>" NCAA couldn’t just stand idly by and say, 'Oh, no recruiting violations? Then it’s not not our department."</p>
<p>It was the dirtiest recruiting program in the history of sports, using a coach (and then former coach) to recruit at the very time (and on the actual trips) that he was engaged in child sex trafficking.</p>
<p>So, Mini, you think they should follow the money? LOL…maybe if you say that one more time, they will listen to you! </p>
<p>JK, I actually agree with you. And like so many others, I don’t think this process is over. I would guess someone already has the money bloodhounds out there.</p>
<p>This whole thing is just disgusting.</p>
<p>I LOVE college football—I am a life-long, third-generation Alabama football fan, so I completely understand that perspective. I can only imagine how awful and, in many ways confusing, it must be for Penn State fans to suddenly be faced with the notion that someone they have followed and admired for so long (Joe Pa) was, in fact, a sleaze. It’s like finding out your beloved relative committed some awful crime, I’d think. So I GET that.</p>
<p>But I would also hope that I would be able to put all that aside and look at the bigger, more important issues and then support efforts to make sure these kinds of things never happen again. Which, of necessity, requires the imposition of enormous consequences…</p>
<p>Just my two cents.</p>
<p>“lot of Penn State people seem to think people who are not part of Penn State are envious of the glory that is Penn State. Really, we’re not. You’re way low on our list of things to think about. It’s not that we dislike you; we just don’t much care, one way or the other.”</p>
<p>Exactly. Get over yourselves, already. No one “hates” you. No one “hates” PSU football. What we hate are child molesters and those who enable them in the service of Almighty Football.</p>
<p>"
So sanctions should be modulated or adjusted according to the size of the town that a university is in, and/or how dependent that town is on revenue from the college?</p>
<p>To a certain extent, yes."</p>
<p>So SMU’s death penalty was ok since SMU is in a large city? Good grief, the arguments get more and more desperate.</p>
<p><< No, I think this is mostly just more Penn State narcissism. The rest of us don’t actually think about you that much, and have no reason to hate you. >></p>
<p>Whether you want to call it “Penn State haters” or not, there are so many posts on this thread with words similar to what you just wrote - “Penn State narcissism”, “cult”, “drinking Koolaid”, etc. etc. etc. It seems that for some it’s difficult to have this conversation without name calling, generalizing, and putting down. </p>
<p>You say that the rest of you don’t actually think about Penn Staters that much (although many of you have been posting here for months) - but there’s pages and pages of posts here with personal attacks against Penn State. That’s fine if you all feel like you need to do that - but don’t deny it. Go back and read through the posts and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.</p>
<p>There has been a lot of contention, it seems, between those associated with PSU and those not. But I really think hate is a strong word. Speaking for myself, my outrage is directed towards the fact that money was put before the welfare of little boys. This debacle at Penn State is just the current issue grabbing everyone’s attention at the moment. In the heat of everyone voicing their opinions, sometimes insults get hurled. But I don’t think there is a hatred for all things Penn State.</p>