because some players traded their bling for tattoos and such. The NCAA needs to send a strong message to other programs about policing the behavior of ALL who are associated with college athletics. What purpose do they serve that could be more important?

They can penalize the Penn State football program without unduly punishing the players by allowing the players to transfer to other schools without the requirement that they not play for a year after transfer.

Penn State, it's Admins, Alumni and those in Pennsylvania weren't so focused on having a winning football team, no matter the costs.

The idea that somehow the ball players and students are the victims is unmitigated bullshit. It's those children who were raped, repeatedly and the fuckers who were running Penn State, including Paterno, were responsible for not putting an end it to when it was first reported.

We saw what the "students" did when Paterno was fired, they rioted.

Universities exist to provide an education to their students, not to act as the minor leagues for the NFL and NBA.

This country has it's priorities totally reversed when it comes Education vs. Football and Basketball.

I think a 20 year death penalty for the Penn State football program is completely appropriate. Or at a minimum 1 year for every year the Admins at Penn State knew what Sandusky was doing and did not stop him.

Should be an OP.

Higher education is for education, not for acting as a farm team to big sports.

but the truth is that Universities do act as a minor league for professional sports.


I just think the focus should be on the adults and not on the student athletes. 20/20 hindsight isn't helping anyone. Destroying the dreams of student athletes isn't helping anyone.

Vengeance and justice are not the same thing.

one weekend game in solidarity with the victims and to show their good intent. Well, I hope those DUers eat crow. it was disgusting. King Football needs to go suck an egg.

A crow's egg.

Not this one.
A scalpel won't do when that attitude of entitlement and denial metastasized.

While JVP was in charge, other coaches had clues. One was given explicit info and he ignored it because Jerry had a heart of gold. Another coach walked in on Sandusky and a boy in the showers. Nothing was overtly happening, but that coach wouldn't leave until they did. He had to have felt there was something wrong, but he didn't follow it up.

There were hints and people wondered for years.

And yes there are people who don't, won't or can't see what happened. I heard one sportswriter refer to it as one little mark in Joe's career. I have read and heard too many minimizers and apologists.

Shut it down and let the mist over Happy Valley dissipate. Make them concentrate on the great part of PSU that is there in many other areas. Make others see that there is a lot that PSU has to be proud about. If not, there will be a cloud over them for a long, long time.

The people who really don't deserve the stigma are the ones who work in other areas and have produced a world class university.

I was in high school in the late 70's. Just then we were starting to see the effect. Before that kids played whatever sport was in season. By the time I was a senior, only a couple of schools in Idaho could beat us. Those were in Boise and had gone to a year around training program.

After I graduated my old coach quit and was replaced by a guy that started running things like some of the other big schools. To play football, you had to be hitting the weight room year around to compete. That was driven by schools that focused on preparing their kids to play college ball.

I had serious knee and shoulder injuries my junior and senior year that kept me from being a serious prospect for any big schools. Still I had the U of I, Boise State and Washington State sniffing around. For a lineman I didn't feel like I was quite big enough to really get to play and was too beat up. I really didn't want to.

I shudder to think what would have happened if I had gone somewhere where they were pushing the steroids to beef guys like me up. I had the potential to get over 260 lbs and a lot of guys screwed themselves up trying.

All the money and power at the top has ruined it for so many of the kids anyway. I'd say about half of those guys in the PSU program are just meat. You aren't hurting them all that much by shutting it down. They might not admit it but it's no fun. Some of those guys are crazy for not going to a smaller school where they would have at least got to play in some of the games.

let the players transfer or stay in school under scholarship.

the upside is the big ten won`t miss psu because nebraska is now in the big ten.

The corruption and cover-up knowledge seems to go VERY deep, and that along with Paterno's culture of the football program doing whatever they want, needs to be investigated. Shut down for at least a couple of seasons. I also think the Feds need to get involved in the investigation.

Players' scholarships can be honored, unless they want to transfer.

Many students went to colleges and universities without football team, and we managed to survive.

At the time we had a most awesome tennis program, men & women, and that was about it.

That was it. For both men and women.

... at which they committed their crimes.


----Shut down the football program because that's where it happened.

----Shut down the University because the U "owned" the football program.

----Shut down the State, because the State "owned" the U.


Where do you stop? Seems we should be punishing the people who committed or covered up crimes, but not every organization with which they were ever associated.

The lack of sensitivity by those close the the football program is offensive, but I don't see how punishing the innocent will improve matters.

And all college football is very big business.The way you punish the wealthy, and big business, is hitting in the place they value most, which is their pocketbook.

Penn state got wealthy off it's endowments, and the money they made from a winning football team. They made money from licensing their logo and products and TV air time payments for ballgames added to their wealth. The winning ball team attracted more donations and endowments. If they don't have a winning ball team making money for them, they are going to have to rethink their priorities.

Universities exist to provide an education to their students, not to act as the minor leagues for the NFL and NBA. Students not having a winning ball team does not decrease the quality of their diploma. Students not having a winning ball team does not make them victims.

This country has it's priorities totally reversed when it comes Education vs. Football and Basketball.

I'm not defending the spectacle of college sports. Just saying that only the guilty deserve punishment.

Who is being punished? Many of us went to colleges without football teams, and still managed to have fun. The players can have their scholarships upheld unless they want to transfer, and the NCAA can give them a transfer waiver.

You cannot cut away the rot when the rot are still in charge.

at PSU. They were above everything.

The school did not enact the Clery Act which is a federal law that mandated the reporting of crimes on campus. Think about that and the implication for all students.

PSU was given an exemption by the legislature that shields them from disclosing info or documents. People are still fighting to get access.

The Feds are investigating PSU and Second Mile. They have the authority to get those documents and to compel people to testify under oath. This isn't over by a long shot.

In addition, there are people who are working in the athletic department and have been there for years. Several assistant coaches have been there for a long time. I do not believe that they had no clue. They might not have known the extent, but there were rumors for years. You do not ignore possible crimes especially those involving kids.

Break up that system completely. Shock that athletic department and that university into reality. Those innocent football players can transfer and they will live. Their inconvenience is not even comparable to what happened to those kids.

The statements by those current players show just how little they know or care. Get them out of there and away from the altar of JoePa now.

Hmm, I wonder if anyone is gonna make "Obama killed Penn State football" a campaign issue?

The football players who can't play ball at Penn State? The students who won't have a football program to cheer on?

Kill 'em all, let god sort 'em out. Anyone who ever enjoyed a Saturday afternoon at Beaver Stadium, are sympathizers for pedophilia! PSU is the only school across the land where coach hero worship has ever occurred. Death to the infidels! This post is definitely going before a jury. Wo is me!

And everyone with a stake in their program needs to be made uncomfortable, stressed, and unhappy for awhile so they'll put in place rules and disclosure to prevent crime and criminal coverup.

The students will be fine. Lots of people attend colleges without football programs.

I hope the athletes can either transfer out to another school or remain there on scholarship if they so choose.

Penn State Football revenues contribute more to PSU than the state does...shutter football knowing Pennsylvania is not in a position to pick up the revenue-gap and the university will quickly fail or will be forced cut down to the level of being a 3rd-rate university. Those donations and endowments are not unconditional...most of them revert if the school fails to live to their conditions and those conditions are tied to football.

NCAA major sports are minor leagues for the pros because it's how they keep the lights on. It's not priorities-refocus...it's a matter of knowing what keeps them financially-sustainable and advancing-in-academic-quality in the first place. PSU without football is not a world-class university and is not capable of being a world-class university. They're not U of Penn, PSU is only a viable university because of football. Every student in every major and degree-program at PSU benefits from that football program. If PSU kills its football program...they might as well cancel 70% of merit-based aid, kick out 50% of the remaining student body, sell 10 dorms and 80% of the open-space on campus, eliminate 35 majors and academic programs and concede that they're now a university on par with most diploma-mills. You'll be able to buy a PSU Ph.D through do-nothing correspondence school...U of Phoenix-style.

I'm all in favor of making the people responsible for this culture of corruption suffer but not at the expense of those who did nothing to create, sustain or obfuscate that culture as it was occurring. That includes today's students and even today's football players. The past AD OTOH should be sharing Sandusky's cell and the statue of JoePa outside the stadium should be torn down along with scrubbing his name from every honor bestowed upon it upon that campus. They should be forced to pay restitution for their crimes out of the budget of the football program...and maybe the next school to find themselves in a corrupt culture will remember PSU and how doing nothing in the face of evil laid that program low.

I was intentionally not responding to it until you called attention to it. Personal tragedy does not make extremism or absurd positions noble. Suffering doesn't make one right. I'm sorry that happened to them, but it doesn't make your shared position any less ridiculous.

Who is being punished by shutting down the football program? A bunch of kids who had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Several coaches and staff who have been hired in the past few years and who never knew anything about this.

Joe is dead. Most of the others responsible have been fired. Fire anybody remaining who is culpable.

Ban them from working at any capacity with any NCAA program.

How is anyone being punished if this happens? No one.

Being banned from ever pursuing your chosen line of work (coaching or athletic administration) is punishment. In addition to that, those responsible may be subject to criminal penalties and civil lawsuits.

And the twenty-year-old linebacker from Aliquippa, who had nothing to do with it, is left out of the mess.

And that linebacker should be in school for a degree first and sports second. If it's the other way around and he's one of those C-for-Convocation types, he's taking up a seat that could have gone to someone who wanted an education instead. It's not like there's a shortage of people like that getting screwed over by the emphasis on Holy Mother Sports.

I with everyone could benefit from having you tell us how to live our lives. Thanks for telling the kid from Aliquippa just how wrong he is (and how right you are). So a kid who wants to be a professional athlete and maybe a coach later on in life is just "taking up a seat" from a kid who wants to be in the Business School and become the second coming of Walter Madoff? How nice of you to make that determination for us all.

How can I possibly assail that?

Joe Paterno is dead. Jerry Sandusky will spend the rest of his natural life in prison. Others who are culpable for allowing this nightmare to continue will most certainly be either imprisoned or sued into bankruptcy (or both). All involved should be banned from having any future connection to NCAA athletics in any capacity and I would add the State of Pennsylvania should ban all of them from having any employment by state institutions of higher learning (that would include members of the Board of Trustees). I'll also add that Penn State should be come the national LEADER and model in policing the activities of its athletic program by putting in place stricter controls and stiffer penalties for even minor incidents of non-compliance.

What you're suggesting is that we should punish hundreds of innocent people because you're furious about actions taken by others.

Not the individuals, the entire institution. PSU doesn't get to wipe this away by having the minimum number of rapists or their numerous defenders individually dealt with. The university itself needs some punishment, and I don't particularly care if a few other people get inconvenienced because their "alma" mater thought the football program was more important than kids' lives.

Given that a sizable chunk of the student body actually agrees with that, given that shameful display after Paterno was sacked, I do think that extends well beyond the administration and sports program, and that a nice humiliating stretch in the wilderness is exactly what will have to happen to that university before it drops its fetish of football being the most important thing in the world.

If football's that important to the players, then they can transfer somewhere else and hope that those schools learn a lesson or two by what happened to this one. Other people working in the program - the ones who aren't tainted and deservedly so by this - will have options too. The fans and the administration, I couldn't give two shits about.

They should be punished collectively, and if a few other people get hurt in the process, well that's their own fault for supporting a corrupt institution. People who don't hold our values are simply not worth caring about, right? Or as you say, giving "two shits" about.

So here's what we should do. Fly an airplane into the side of Oswald Tower, the tallest building on campus. Shit, they even named the fucking thing after Lee Harvey Oswald, so they've got it coming, am I right or am I right?




And your next morally indefensible suggestion would be....

There has to be a violation of NCAA rules, which, for the most part, have to do with recruiting, unfair advantage, etc.

Unfortunately, unless there is an NCAA rule that deals with not reporting a crime, there may not be much the NCAA can do.

that speak directly to ethical behavior and lack of institutional control.

As far as unfair advantage, what do you think they had for years because they covered up the abuse. If the better than thou attitude of JoePa and PSU had been exposed, it would have put recruiting on more of a level field.

Because of their supposedly pristine reputation, they had advantages. They refused to lose that golden image in the name of the FB program and left kids who needed help at the mercy of a monster.

reporting of crimes and the lack of institutional control as shown by the actions, or rather inactions, taken by Spanier, Scholtz, Curley and Paterno demonstrated a failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance, this does breach NCAA rules.


""Like everyone else, we are reviewing the final report for the first time," said Bob Williams, the NCAA's vice president of communications. The "university has four key questions, concerning compliance with institutional control and ethics policies, to which it now needs to respond. Penn State's response to the letter will inform our next steps, including whether or not to take further action.""

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/ncaa-statement-penn-state-free-report-punishment_n_1669666.html

How can Penn State deny there was a gross lack of institutional control when the President of the University, the former Vice President, the Athletic Director and the Coach all refused to act to protect the victims of Sandusky and protected Sandusky instead? They can't.

getting an architect and revamping the joint?

Yes, that is sarcasm.

Not your post, but Penn State doing that, at this time!

The football program, per se, was not involved with this. There were no players implicated. This has come down to a handful of people -- all are no longer at PSU for various reasons, with some still facing legal consequences.

This should, however, open up serious discussion about how sports are viewed at the collegiate level, in terms of how they are treated as opposed to any other campus program.

But to penalize an entire program for the actions of a few -- I can't sign on to that.

The PSU football program was used as leverage against these boys so the rape could continue. If you paid any attention to the trial at all, Sandusky threatened to take away access to "cool" Penn State stuff in order to make those boys compliant. When the University failed to do anything substantive with the investigation, further allowing Sandusky to rape those boys, they broke the law and the ethics of the NCAA Clery Act (as stated above by others).

Think of all the football programs across the USA... if nothing happens to PSU over this, what message does that tell other programs? It tells them there are no real consequences for doing nothing. These big football schools couldn't care less about legal implications, lawsuits, etc., but they DO care about the NCAA and the money that comes into their universities and colleges because of the NCAA.

Does it suck for the guys signed on to play ball at Penn State? Sure it does, but there are bigger issues and morals at stake than playing football.

kid to the Alamo Bowl on whose dime? That alone is damning to the program.

the victims are victims for LIFE.

Every university athletic department needs to feel the pressure from this. The athletic culture at many universities is so deeply ingrained as the "most important" program at those schools that similar failures of oversight are common all across the country. It doesn't always involve pedophilia. Sexual assault against women that is covered up because an athlete or staff person is involved is a commonplace at colleges and universities.

That pressure should filter down to the high school level, as well. The celebrity status of athletes in the major sports has led to overlooking serious transgressions and covering up terrible behavior by athletes. Ranging from hazing, both sexual and other forms, and what amounts to a gang-like attitude by athletes at some schools, to other flaws, this is all part of the sports culture.

Finally, professional sports also needs to feel the pressure, since the same attitudes carry across to that level, too.

The problem is the athletic culture, as it has festered and rotted over the decades. It needs to be sharply criticized and closely observed, and violations of the rights and persons of others should be punished harshly when they occur.

Seems misdirected.

Penn State is a great school academically. No one is being punished. Getting a college degree at a great school isn't being punished.

Financial analysts have examined the two options: 1) a new super, squeaky clean coach and staff, focused on a new dynasty, or 2) discontinue the football team for X years. And, the result is that Option #1 will make so much money that it must be selected. Everybody will feel squeaky clean.

And it's not just sometimes - it's all the time, every time. Penn State can't afford to lose their football program so they'll pick option one for sure and advertise that the Paterno era is over - or they'll completely wipe any memory it existed in the first place.

What really bothers me about this whole thing is that what Sandusky did is completely inexcusable and they'll be citing every reason they can think of in order to keep football going despite that a serial child predator used and abused the system for several decades and covered it up. The cover up is just as bad if not worse than the crime itself.

That includes the Chancellor.

They took Paterno's name off the Big Ten Championship trophy.

Will that be it or will they toss them out of the conference?

Pending a decision by the NCAA of what actions they will take concerning Penn State this season.

I was listening to some sports talk show on the radio yesterday where the guy just could not get the concept of sending a message, and all he could focus on was how the innocent students at PSU would suffer.

Many callers had good points, but I didn't hear one express the analogy of a criminal parent and how much the child has to suffer when that parent is incarcerated.

How is this different?

They would have to completely change their rules in response to this situation, and emotional responses to highly unusual situations never make for reasonable and appropriate rule changes.

The primary offenders are in prison (Sandusky) or dead (Paterno.) Remaking the culture is something the school has to do, and it's something that would have happened even without this horror in a post-Paterno era. Taking an opportunity away from the kids and a huge economic engine away from a rural community without much else to fall back on is punitive, and it won't undo what was done to the victims.

Their rules are subject to interpretation and to sudden changes. They will use what you cited if they want to. If not, they will make up a rule or interpret one already there in a differnt way.
They are idiots.

But arbitrary rule changes and collective punishment are poor ways to handle most any situation.

I'm not talking about the coaching staff, I'm talking about the janitors, the secretaries, the groundskeepers and all the other people who work weekly and/or weekends doing all the things that need to get done behind the scenes to put on a football game or support the program.

And don't forget the money that gets pumped into the local economy every time a game is played be it in gas and food and other things.

You can't just wipe out a multi-million dollar enterprise without putting a lot of people out of work and the vast majority of those people had zip to do with this. I'm all for banning for life those who were involved, those who knew about it or should have known about it, and did nothing. However, I'm not for throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

... who "gets in the way" of a high-school or college football program.