<p>Gee, Sax, the fact that when a serious issue was brought up, even though Paterno was theoretically lower on the totem pole than Curley, Schultz, and Spanier, his opinion on next steps was seen as more important and trumping their own judgment. Wouldn’t want to displease the football coach, nosiree.</p>
<p>sax- I posted her opinion much earlier in this thread. She loved PSU and enjoyed the football aspect for her first year or two, then she said it got old. She said the players were Gods and ruled above all others on campus. She lived near the stadium (I forget if that was when she was on or off campus) and she said that was awful. She’s an athletic young woman and her degree is in civil engineering. She had said way before any of this stuff came to light that she was ready to get out of Happy Valley by her senior year and that it was just all too much.</p>
<p>MOWC - I, like the majority of PSU students, rarely saw a football player on campus. None were ever housed in East Halls, the housing closest to the stadium. As a Computer Science major, I never had a football player in my classes. I’d be interested to hear how many were civil engineers. Where and when was she being ruled by these gods?</p>
<p>I should make it clear that I, personally, regard the Vanderbilt basketball players as Gods! :)</p>
<p>Funny–I always thought of the folks who handled handing out merit aid as the “true Gods”</p>
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Interesting … when you were there was there a dorm or dorm floor specifically for athletes?</p>
<p>When I was there, those living on campus were housed in the same dorm area. I don’t know if they were all in the same dorm or not. Just googled and found that there are about 44,000 students on PSU main campus and about 100 football players. Needle in a haystack.</p>
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Most football players were (and probably still are) housed in Nittany Apartments, a set of four-person suites located on the Southeast corner of campus - not particularly close to the stadium, but right next to the pratice and training facilities where they spend the majority of their athletic time.</p>
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<p>They aren’t needles in haystacks if it’s important for the remaining 44,000 students to come out and cheer the football players. You can’t have it both ways.</p>
<p>NCAA outlawed the athletes-only dorms in 1991. Back when I was in college it was routine for major Div I schools to house all their football and basketball players in special primo dorms with special food, etc. NCAA ruled that such dorms must be open all students, not just athletes. Many schools today get around that rule by housing all their stars in a few special dorms but allowing a few of the real students to live there too. I don’t know what the practice is at Penn State.</p>
<p>Then if it’s just affecting 100 people put of 44000’ k we will say 200 with coaches, then how bad can the sanctions really be?</p>
<p>collegekidsmom- Are you seriously trying to say that the football players and program did not have Godlike stature on campus? I’m a huge college sports fan, and I would never try to make that argument! Last night at Vanderbilt (yes, Vanderbilt) hundreds of fans turned out for an event just to get autographs of the football players and take pictures! That’s VANDERBILT! Are you telling me the Penn State players just blend in with the crowd? Uh- no.</p>
<p>The issue becomes how the coach, players and administration manage that God-like status!</p>
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Much the same - the residential suites nearest the football practice facilities are open to everyone, but preference is given to athletes, upperclassmen, and probably a few other categories.</p>
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I had a couple of classes with football players (including some future NFLers) and never observed any preferential treatment on the part of the faculty, nor any particularly noticable fawning on the part of the students. I think that there will always be a certain segment of ANY campus that has an unhealthy obsession with some team, that is not necessarily the majority or even a large portion. For every person at the game half-naked and body-painted there are a hundred more dressed sensibly and enjoying the game sensibly and hundreds MORE who just had better things to do that day.</p>
<p>MOWC - I was responding to your comment - “She said the players were Gods and ruled above all others on campus”. These players didn’t/don’t rule the campus. They may be gods to some but are completely invisible to others. If you don’t seek them out you might never even see them.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl - Beaver Stadium has about 22,000 student seats. These are for the main campus as well as the many commonwealth campuses. More than half of the students on campus aren’t at the game cheering for these “gods”.</p>
<p>My daughter went to a school with a marginally good basketball team. Her roommate was dating one of the team, and she said every time the team went out at night, they would call the place they were going to ahead of time to say they were coming. And once there, they never had to pay a dime. And this was a team that made the NCAA tournament only twice, and both times was knocked out the first round.</p>
<p>It’s not true about not seeking out and thus never seeing, or being affected.</p>
<p>And if anyone really thinks footballmor basketball players on certain campuses aren’t given deference, and that deference doesn’t affect others is willfully blind to the reallity of college sports.</p>
<p>This isn’t about whether individual student-athletes / football players were venerated as they walked down the street. It’s whether the football program (and coach specifically) had more power than a coach / athletic program should have, when a university is supposed to be dedicated primarily to academics.</p>
<p>“It’s whether the football program (and coach specifically) had more power than a coach / athletic program should have, when a university is supposed to be dedicated primarily to academics” </p>
<p>In other words, college football. Wait, this describes many high school programs as well.</p>
<p><<in other="" words,="" college="" football.="" wait,="" this="" describes="" many="" high="" school="" programs="" as="" well.="">></in></p>
<p>Exactly.</p>