4um: Shutting down Penn State football not the answer

This might not go over well in Korea or editorial boards around America, but can we lay off Penn State for a minute?

Please folks, take a deep breath before somebody calls for the entire school to be bulldozed. We’re all disgusted by the sexual-abuse scandal, but the torches and pitchforks are getting out of control.

Major newspapers, websites want the season cancelled. Joe Scarborough, normally a voice of reason, called for the football program to be shut down for a year on his MSNBC show.

The Korea Times has even weighed in, saying the NCAA should immediately hit Penn State with the death penalty. It somehow resisted the temptation to call Joe Paterno the Kim Jong-il of college football.

The main thing all that would accomplish is punishing a whole lot of innocent people. Which brings up the obvious qualifier:

The agonies of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged victims far outweigh whatever is inflicted on players, fans and alumni. But that 99 percent has been caught in a hell created by far less than 1 percent of Penn State people.

The school has become an international symbol for shame. A degree is suddenly a ticket for ridicule.

People whose hearts belonged to Penn State two weeks ago are suddenly ashamed to be associated with it. Cheering for their team is now seen as cheering child molestation.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum is a Penn State graduate. He said fellow alumni and strangershave been engaging in “group therapy” since the scandal broke.

“They just want to talk about it because they are so hurt by it,” he said while campaigning in Iowa. “It is so personal. You feel betrayed that something like this could happen.”

The initial outrage sparked a student riot. Now even the knuckleheads are attending candlelight vigils.

Santorum says the Nittany Lions should bypass a bowl this year. That makes sense considering bowls are supposed to be celebrations, and nobody feels like celebrating. Bypassing next season is another matter.

High-minded folks think it will send the proverbial right message. They see Paterno as a mere fall guy for a corrupt system. They say it’s too early to move on.

They should realize Penn State can’t move on. There are years of criminal and civil trials ahead. Every time Sandusky takes the stand it will remind people from San Jose to Seoul that Linebacker U. was allegedly Pedophile U.

The people who let it become that have already faced justice. Penn State’s Board of Trustees has fired the president and football coach.

The athletic director and overseer of campus police have been arrested. The grad assistant who supposedly walked away from a horrid shower scene is a national pariah. If there are other guilty parties, they will hopefully be held accountable.

Critics think everybody at Penn State is accountable. By supporting the football team they supported the monster that allowed a Sandusky to roam free. There’s no doubt officials wanted to protect the athletic program, but they reacted like most in child-molestation cases. They went into denial and damage control.

We’ve seen it thousands of times in churches and boardrooms. Not that I expect the critics to buy that excuse.

“Clearly the PSU program is totally out of control and has been for well over a decade,” said an editorial on Diverse Issues in Higher Education website.

Actually, Penn State is one of four schools to never have a major NCAA violation. It won’t this time, either. The NCAA manual may be 10,000 pages thick, but nowhere in there is a rule against assistant football coaches showering with 10-year-old boys.

That’s because such things are patently obvious. The Sandusky cover-up didn’t spring from our football culture, it came from our culture.

Slapping Penn Sate with the death penalty is not going to make the next pedophile think twice before taking a boy into the training room. It won’t make colleagues less likely to turn away.

It also won’t make the next Nevin Shapiro any less likely to throw a party for recruits on his yacht.

What is the reformers’ plan to get things under control? Take money out of football? Pay players? Make them all have 1600 SAT scores?

Then there is the matter of money. Penn State football generated $72.7 million last year, with a $53.2 million profit. In ivory towers, that is proof business had encroached on academic purity.

In the real world, that pays for baseball, track, lacrosse, swimming, gymnastics, hockey, tennis and women’s fencing.

We rail at the injustice when the NCAA imposes sanctions on schools like USC. Reggie Bush and Pete Carroll are making NFL millions, while the innocent players left behind are penalized.

In this case, the (alleged) bad guys are not getting away. Yet we still want to hammer the innocent athletes left behind? We’re OK that everything Penn State has been irrevocably tainted?

Whatever pain players, students and fans endure is nothing compared to what Sandusky allegedly inflicted. But all this righteous outrage is only producing more victims.

ok. why? if this were UT, would you feel the same way knowing how it would affect everyone and everything past, present, and future not associated with the scandal?

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832

ok, that's a different matter. but first, let's have a complete investigation and trial.

This was an institutional breakdown. Yes, Sandusky is the primary perv that we can clearly identify so far, but his predation was enabled by the school.

There appears to have been a systematic attempt to NOT report the incidents but to instead cover them up and this extended, minimally, into the office of the President of the University. This left Sandusky free to continue preying on young boys.

While more investigation needs to be done the appearances are that Sandusky was not the only predator, nor even the highest, in the "food chain". While at this point most of what we know is anecodotal or rumor there appears to be some substance there. So, the real prospect is not that this was a lone predator but that the one identified predator was acting as a procurer for monied individuals hiding in the shadows.

The citing of Reggie Bush and Pete Carroll is a Strawman. I say that not to offend you but it is a Strawman argument. The two situations are not comparable. The USC situation was money and recruiting violations. It did not involve using a front organization to give well heeled pedophiles access to children.

The reason that Penn State should be subject to the strictest sanctions is not to punish the innocent but to demonstrate that such behavior is so unacceptable that the penalties for NOT reporting far outweigh the benefits of covering up. What is being penalized is not the actions of one lone pedophile but the actions, or inactions, of people having a responsibility to take effective action and report the criminal activity so as to protect children. What the administration at Penn State is most guilty of is being derelict in their duties and responsibilities and DOING NOTHING. That was a consciously made decision. Excuses and justifications for inaction are just that excuses and justifications. The behavior cannot be justified and can only be categorized as moral cowardice and dereliction of duty.

The problem remains that we still don't know what we don't know. How high did the ring go? Is there still a cover being put into place to protect the high power big money pedos?

Were any of the Trustees involved and were the firings of the president and coach simply damage control done in the hopes of limiting who gets fingered?

Were it limited to just those already outed then it would be one thing. It would still be bad and still merit more than a figurative slap on the wrist, but we do no know that to be the case, and the rumors are that it is not.

At the beginning of this week, it was safe to say that many of the people following the Jerry Sandusky story figured they knew exactly what they thought of Mike McQueary, a Penn State assistant coach of whom they'd probably never heard one week prior.

Perhaps it felt like a fully formed opinion. It was strong enough, after all. McQueary was the guy who said he witnessed the rape of a 10-year-old boy in 2002 and did nothing more than go tell a football coach the next day.

By Tuesday, that image began to change shape. That day, purported fragments of emails sent by McQueary surfaced in which he maintained to friends that he did, in fact, go to police to tell them what happened -- and that he didn't leave the sordid scene involving Sandusky until he "made sure it was stopped." A source corroborated that latter portion of McQueary's account to ESPN.

On Wednesday, another shape shift. Wednesday was the day on which both the Penn State campus police and the State College police said they had no record of any such conversation with McQueary. For that matter, there was no mention of McQueary contacting police in the grand jury's presentment of the case.

And with that, it is official: Public ignorance has become the currency of the Sandusky scandal. Not willful ignorance, although surely there have been ample amounts of that, but a more ordinary, everyday, lack-of-basic- information, we-just-don't-have-it-yet type of ignorance. It is terrifyingly obvious that many people are operating off shards of factoids and little else, and drawing broad conclusions based upon those shards, and generally not knowing very much with absolute certainty, because the case so far doesn't allow for that.

And now, a history lesson, meant not as a parallel but only as a reminder. In March 2006, a woman told police in Durham, N.C., that she had been beaten and raped by three members of the Duke University lacrosse team during a party at which she'd been hired to perform as a stripper. Slightly more than a year later, after the accuser changed several key details of her account in subsequent interviews, charges against all three athletes were dropped by prosecutors who said the men were "victims of a tragic rush to accuse" by an overreaching (and soon disbarred) district attorney.

Those are the bookend facts of the Duke case. But it was what came in between the initial accusation and the ultimate legal finding that bears recalling here. All questions of the lacrosse players' guilt or innocence aside, the story quickly morphed into a national referendum on the Duke lacrosse team, on the culture of the sport in general, on the insularity of athletes at a big-time sports university. It was a story of entitlement and rampant disregard, of arrogance and power.

It was a story that wound up being wrong in several very particular ways. Still, the public had its answers. It had its opinions, formed early and very concretely. And when the gray edges eventually encroached on what many wanted to see as a black-and-white case, it got very messy and stayed that way. It remains so.

Back to the now. Did McQueary go to the cops? Maybe. Quite possibly. Or perhaps not at all. Perhaps McQueary is trying to revise history. Perhaps the campus police kept no record of the unhappy conversation. Perhaps there was no conversation. Perhaps there was.

What we don't know about this story could fill a book. And, probably very soon, it will.

So there is something to be said for caution here, for moving carefully toward final judgments. I don't know what happened to Mike McQueary, although Wayne Drehs' brilliant piece on McQueary's situation lays out a possible scenario that might help explain how the story got to where it is … if indeed the story is where anyone thinks it is just now.

But the problem with Drehs' reporting, for some, is that it casts far too much gray area on a story they'd rather see in black and white. They want villains, not humans. As I said a minute ago, many people had made up their minds about McQueary by the start of this week. Joe Paterno, too, and Gary Schultz and Tim Curley and Graham Spanier.

It's that kind of a story. It is precisely heinous and despicable enough to demand a sort of instant accounting. But to what extent? Of how many? And on what basis of fact?

The scandal involving Jerry Sandusky and Penn State might not travel the same path as the Duke story did. It is not the same story. It certainly might not be subject to a legal reversal on the scale of the Duke case.

What the stories share, though, is a strikingly similar sort of venal public response, a certain "they're all guilty as sin" quality that permeates so much of the national conversation. If nothing else, recent history suggests that at least a modicum of restraint today might prove wise later on. Here's hoping it doesn't get lost in all the shouting.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832

I'm picturing you in one of those giant hoop skirt thingies, with a whale bone corset and one of those foofy little umbrellas twirling it in the sun in front of your Southern Manor house.

The only reason no one went to the cops when this kid was being raped in the shower was because of what would happen to their precious fucking football program.

The only reason why sandusky wasn't brought to trial long ago was because of their all-important football program, AND THE $$$ it brings in. imo.

Not true. But when an institution screws the pooch, everyone feels it. And PSU screwed the pooch. Big time.

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Somebody ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries. Politicians dare not. They would be defeated. Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose caste. Even clerks dare not, because they might be discharged. And so I thought I would do it myself... Robert Ingersoll

NCAA punishment is unlikely for Penn State

As the anger and outrage over the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal intensifies, so do cries that the football program needs be shut down next year or beyond. Many are calling for the NCAA to enact its so- called "death penalty."

But while the arguments are widespread and impassioned, there is no precedent for that based on the criminal allegations, and it seems unlikely the NCAA has the authority to act.

"No, I don't think they do," former NCAA executive director Cedric Dempsey said. "I'm not sure that it's an NCAA issue. I don't see how it would have any control over that."

University of Oklahoma law professor David Swank, a former chairman of the NCAA infractions committee, was even more definitive.

"This isn't an NCAA matter — at all," he said. "This is a matter of criminal law. There are no moral turpitude rules in the NCAA manual. There are rules that deal with how much financial aid you can get but no rules dealing with criminal (activities). It would be really inappropriate under these circumstances to take any action."

Swank said he understands the seriousness of the alleged crimes and the emotions they have generated, and he called the situation "very upsetting." But, he said, "It's something that involves the criminal justice system and then probably the civil system, but not the NCAA. You've got a problem of criminal law. The NCAA rules deal with something different from what we have here."

Last week, NCAA president Mark Emmert said the organization "will defer in the immediate term to law enforcement officials." He added that, as the judicial process runs its course, "we will determine whether association bylaws have been violated and act accordingly."

The NCAA has handed out the "death penalty" to Division I universities three times, but not since 1987, when it shut down the Southern Methodist football program for a year and canceled all home games the next year for major recruiting violations. The university then decided to cancel the road games, wiping out the schedule for a second season. It took several years for the program to recover.

SMU was considered a "repeat violator," having been placed on three years' probation two years earlier for recruiting violations. Penn State's situation appears vastly different.

"The NCAA," Swank said, "should stay out of it totally."

What would have been the reaction had this event happened in the School of Chemistry?

My guess is no, and since only the AD has been charged w/a crime, I suppose the NCAA would have to sanction all of the sports programs. And should the charge against the AD be tossed (perjury is a charge of last resort), the NCAA would be left to fumble around with a unprecedented "lack of morals" charge, which could open a Pandora's box to coaches who cheat on the wives, or those who file their taxes late? Interesting times ahead, and hopefully the guilty will be pay dearly for what they have done.

EDIT: Schultz was also charged w/perjury, but his position - vice president for finance and business doesn't involve the NCAA.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832

Thanks Jim. We're fine here in town, and in time the whores in the MSM will move on to their next pool of blood. I can see from the tone of yesterdays and today's articles, their claws are already retracting. I don't wish what happened here on anyone. My youngest daughter is in Princeton, NJ, and has PSU alum licence plates on her car. It's become a target for mindless oafs who are guided by the MSM and their own personal biases. She isn't alone. I fully expect some of these young men and women to become victims of violence, or to deal some out if attacked. I know I certainly will should anyone say something to my face, or in any way denigrate members of my family. To indict a 125 y/o University for the actions of what seems to be a handful of the most elite, speaks more to the character of the finger pointers, than 99.9% of the kids here. In short order their Universities could very well become a target, and I for one will be the very last to throw a rock, even in jest.

Regardless as to whether the NCAA imposes some sort of sanction or not is actually almost irrelevant.

The school is likely to be hit with millions to hundreds of millions in civil suit penalties (last I read the body count was up to around 40 counts involving 8 boys, and that is only what has been made public - this Ped was left to rampage for over a decade) and the recruiting for future players is toast. The football program is essentially dead for the next decade if not longer. Once the current crop of top level players "graduates" there will be none to replace them. Oh, I'm sure that the scholarships will attract some, but those with serious talent and aspirations will go elsewhere. The now disgraced Joe Paterno was one of the big draws for recruiting and the odor about this affair will drive potential recruits, at least the top ones, to other schools. Parents will slam the door in the face of Penn State recruiters.

Actually my biggest concern is that the deep cover for wealthy contributors/donors/souless perverts in high places is going to be put into place and they will be shielded from exposure/prosecution. While in my milder moments I would like to see Sandusky drawn, flayed alive, and then quartered the reality is that if the rumors are true he was not the only perv feeding on these boys. The level of outrage is something for which words fail me.

And it pisses me off. How fucking lame is it to literally blame everyone else but the perpetrators? Blame the culture. It was the culture that made these fucks unable to do what any normal person would do without a second thought. Shit.

Everyone seems to want to reframe this issue into "won't someone please think of the children!!!" Well, no one ever thought of the children, they thought of their football season(s) and all that lovely money. Why should they start giving a tinkers damn about the children now? I bet that they wish those kids were dead.

When those other spoiled brat "children" rioted because that old fuck (who happens to have a catholic/jesuit upbringing) lost his job, those children lost all credibility. AFAIK there have been no consequences for that. It is a total breakdown of authority.

And that is just PSU. The politicians that aided and abetted this are another matter.

Just an afterthought. The civil judgments are going to be much more extreme than any potential liability had the school administration and coaching staff not tried covering this up. I can't really speculate as to how much they are going to be stuck for, but a lot.

We already have that going on here in the United States. It's called NAFTA-GATT. You can thank George Bush Sr., Big Dick Cheney and Ronnie Reagan for that one!

You do realize that this is not just a local matter in your area? This is national. Those lawyers are not finished just yet. You can bet that members of the Board of Trustees and those in the higher ups were well aware of this despicable dirty laundry going on. A pimp can also be a member of the school administration regardless of their position. And believe me, just when you think that grand jury report was a shock to read, watch and see what happens when those victims start testifying and dropping names under oath. People are going to scramble like cockroaches.

You know what? One of the things that bothers me is that the debate on the Pedd State affair is coalescing into two camps:

1. Those whose outrage and primary concern is directed in favor of the kids who were abused by this sexual predator and any others to whom he was supplying nubile young boys.

And exactly what did the AG hope to accomplish by making public the Grand Jury's findings?

My guess, made earlier on another thread, is that it was to force it out into the open so that there would not be as much political pressure to keep it hushed and buried. I suspect that is likely because of the rumored links back to some wealthy and influential pedos. I think it was her insurance that it could not be completely covered up and possibly a life insurance policy given the murder of the D.A. who had previously investigated the case.

There is some very dark stuff here. Anyone who can whack a D.A. with impunity has some real ju-ju. As well is the curious fact that his hard drive on his laptop was completely wiped clean. That requires some real computer expertise.

Recalling again that this went on for over ten years that none of the "trustees" was aware of this evokes gales of cynical laughter.

Given the previous charges in 1998/'99 and the disappearance of the D.A. combined with the wiping of his hard drive that the Board of Trustees was not aware is so sickly laughable as to be beyond ludicrous.

As well this was known at the state level by the sitting governor who was, at the time the Attorney General.

This fiendishly criminal activity was well known, of that I have no doubt, among many of the political elite of the state. Who knows? Maybe some of them have other knowledge to hide? Other experiences? Hmmmmmmmmm?

While I admire loyalty in people, and loyalty to a school or team is not a discreditable thing, there is a line beyond loyalty that enters into blind loyalty and an unwillingness to examine and confront the realities.

Thanks, and you are welcome. I find the whole thing sad and sick at the same time. It is like watching a slow motion train wreck of a NAZI camp train. I have no sympathy for the guards but do feel for the passengers.

But there are - the boys who will not be molested and raped because this was exposed.

Also, from the right perspective, the university wins too as the festering rot that was growing out of sight can now be expunged. It will be uncomfortable but the school will be the better for it.

As with any major surgery there will be pain and time to heal, but the important thing now is to get ALL of the rot. Half measures will not do.