Should Penn State Be Suspended From Football?

[MegalosSkylaki]

The Freeh Report is out today regarding Pennsylvania State University's alleged coverup by several high high-ranking officials over several years including probably the head coach Joe Pateno and reaching up to the then University President.

In order to discurage such actions in Big Time College Sports in the future--and encourage prompt and decisive actions when evidence shows misconduct by sports officials--what actions should organized Colege Sports take against Penn State?

Nothing is going to stop Penn State or anybody else in big-time college athletics from taking a route that is protect-the-brand, CYA and immoral. So we — NCAA, fans, impartial observers — must intervene.

Everything that has happened to Penn State so far is a half measure. And I do not believe in half measures for child rapists or institutions that harbor them. Neither should you.

What is a full measure, you ask.

The death penalty, as delivered by the NCAA, is a good starting point. I used to believe this was too harsh. After listening to those boys testify and then reading details in the Freeh reports like Sandusky having special seats to Paterno’s record-breaking game in 2011 and an email from then-athletic director Tim Curley saying, after talking with Paterno, he no longer believed reporting Sandusky to child authorities was the right course of action, I have changed my mind.

The football program needs to go away for a while.

A big reason this was allowed to happen was because the whole economy of Penn State was football. If you take that away, they might learn. And since almost every illegal and immoral decision made was done with the intent of protecting the reputations of the football program and Paterno, the best punishment is one that severely diminishes.

Then, maybe, next time the evidence will not clearly show what Freeh himself called in his news conference Thursday “ . . . an active agreement to conceal” by Paterno, Curley, former senior vice president Gary Schultz and former president Graham Spanier.

The death penalty is a good place to start for Penn State football - College Football News | FOX Sports on MSN

The Freeh Report >> http://www.thefreehreportonpsu.com/R...NAL_071212.pdf<<[LONG]



A) No suspension of the Football Team. Why penalize college athletes for the sins of administrators and coaches?

B) Suspend the Football Team as a fitting punishment given that the rationale--or rationalization--of the involved parties was to to "save the program" thereby eliminate any incentive for concealment by College Administrators anywhere.

C)Drop the Football Team from Division One to Division Three (err..does that exist in football?) so as to allow the sport to continue but with a penalty as was done with NYU's basketball program after a point-shaving scandal.

D) Suspend all sports at Penn State as the people involved go beyond Football and it is the culture of the sports program that allowed this to happen.

MegalosSkylaki

[Chuckiechan]

Absolutely there should be an investigation. But this isn't about football, it's about staff not reporting child molesting. Each person who was informed and did not report it to the police should be charged as an accessory after the fact.

I don't know why the first witness was too stupid to understand that he witnessed a crime, not simply a breach of a school rule, and as such he should have reported it to the police in addition to the school.

They are all guilty of "facilitating" via bureaucracy and internal politics.

[Whir]

I guess I don't understand why the football players and the college itself should suffer for the actions of a few bad men. Fire them, put them in prison for a few (or more) years, get new staff and keep going.

If the something had involved the program itself and not just people in it, like some kind of cheating or bribes, I could more easily understand suspending the program.

But to be fair, I don't follow college, or any other sports, nor do I keep on an eye on which higher educational facilities are good year to year.

[MegalosSkylaki]

For some bizarre reason, Sports seem to be given a priveliged position in regard to acts that would otherwise be consider covered under the criminal law. I posted a Thread about the New Orleans Saints and how the deliberate paid criminal maimings hould have drawn criminal prosecution instead of NFL sanctions. I believe there are at least two other PennState individuals under criminal investigation and are named in the Freeh Report which runs 267 pages. See PDF above for Table of Contents and names of high University officials and positions.

MegalosSkylaki

[Pexster]

I am sad that such an exalted program has been revealed to be so sick. Joe P. was an icon, and now he is just a sick, sick loser. How sad for EVERYONE involved . . . .

[pickel]

Remove the showers from the locker room. Have Chaperones from Black Water on hand at ALL times !
Wear your uniform from your apt. to the stadium. Etc., Etc. and Etc.

The athletes who spent all their formative years playing and excelling at the game of football should NOT be penalized for the acts of these low life bastards. Let the regulating authorities decide how the Penn State football program should be administered.

[Epidemic]

A) No suspension of the Football Team. Why penalize college athletes for the sins of administrators and coaches?

B) Suspend the Football Team as a fitting punishment given that the rationale--or rationalization--of the involved parties was to to "save the program" thereby eliminate any incentive for concealment by College Administrators anywhere.

C)Drop the Football Team from Division One to Division Three (err..does that exist in football?) so as to allow the sport to continue but with a penalty as was done with NYU's basketball program after a point-shaving scandal.

D) Suspend all sports at Penn State as the people involved go beyond Football and it is the culture of the sports program that allowed this to happen.

MegalosSkylaki

Wow i waffle between Choices A and D. I think enjoys way to high a position in college and society. In the name of winning, all sorts of sins are ignored. Money is rolled into sports programs at many schools with less than successful sports teams, that could otherwise go to education. Trained gorillas receive scholarship money that could go to worthy students.

however, I really do not fault the athletes for this culture they are. Blaming athelets in this situation would be like blaming a tire for causing speeding. So I can't see punishing them for the sins of their administrations.

[zen]

I am sad that such an exalted program has been revealed to be so sick. Joe P. was an icon, and now he is just a sick, sick loser. How sad for EVERYONE involved . . . .

Seriously? Would you like to be judged solely on the worst thing you have ever done?

[Chuckiechan]

I expect to see a lot of indictments coming down like "failure to report", etc.

Sounds like half the school administration was at fault, but the school will survive.

And again, it's not a "football problem", it's a legal problem. The football program will be a wreck for awhile and that should be good enough.

[MegalosSkylaki]

I'm wondering when the lawsuits startor kick into high gear and other alleged victims step forth?

With so many people involved, Penn State should be in the Courts for years-unless it goes out and settles them real quick or the Pennsylvania legislature passes some laws to somehow reduce the court exposure of the University--if that's at all possible.


The Paterno family has been quite defensive about Joe Paterno in the media.

It smacks of the Theatre of the Absurd to first erect a statue to the guy while he's still alive.
And then there's talk about tearing it down now like in the Soviet Union and the "cult of personality" while he's dead.

MegalosSkylaki

[pickel]

to first erect a statue to the guy while he's still alive.
And then there's talk about tearing it down now like in the Soviet Union and the "cult of personality" while he's dead.

MegalosSkylaki

I think the statue should remain and painted YELLOW!! As a reminder to the present and future generations of the Cowardice of the Athletic Dept and the whole Penn State sub-culture.

[MegalosSkylaki]

How would they remove it anyway?

In the middle of the nite and unnaounced?
Joe Paterno and the whole Football program has many partisans for whom the Games the Thing.

Imagine the conflicting camps assembled for its removal.

DOOG

[Chuckiechan]

Well, we can't "airbrush" everyone out like the Russkies used to do!

[Gomer]

How would they remove it anyway?

In the middle of the nite and unnaounced?
Joe Paterno and the whole Football program has many partisans for whom the Games the Thing.

Imagine the conflicting camps assembled for its removal.

DOOG

The same way they removed Paterno. Just do it. To hell with the partisans. Pull a pickup next to it, sling a chain around it, and hit the gas. Done.

Should the athletics programs be disbanded? Certainly!

This whole thing was allowed to happen because the football team became too significant a part of the prestige of the university. Joe Pa was deified and his program was sacrosanct. His successes brought great amounts of money and publicity to the university. Money and publicity that the university valued more than they did doing the right thing.

This must be met with the swiftest and most severe of punishments. The negligence, duration, and heinousness of their inaction warrant it. It should and will serve as a reminder to other schools that 12 Saturdays a year are not more important than doing the right thing. It should serve as a wake up call that the athletic department's primary function is not to make as much money as possible for the school.

Is this punishing the student body? No doubt. Is this punishing the "student" athlete? No doubt. But this can be minimized by waiving the rules that apply to transfers. Let them play whatever it is they play at some other school.

The cumulative "punishment" felt by those individuals is orders of magnitude less than the damage done to the unnumbered children whose molestation was facilitated by the administration of PSU.

[MegalosSkylaki]

The bizarre part is not the removal of the statue, but why it was put up in the first place? What was going on in that place?

Does anybody else get a statue in their own lifetime?

Did Jonas Salk? Alexander Fleming?

Who put it up? The University? Some local fan?
Did Joe Paterno protest at the notion?

Paterno and the university reached agreement on the amended contract that eventually totaled $5.5 million in August, months before charges were filed against Sandusky, but they began negotiating in January, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The amended contract, which was reported on by The Associated Press in April, included a $3 million career bonus if Paterno retired at the end of the 2011 season, as well as well as forgiveness of $250,000 in outstanding indebtedness and an additional $100,000 in loans.

The package also included access to a stadium box for his family for 25 years as well as parking privileges and access to on-campus hydrotherapy equipment for his wife.

---from Report: Joe Paterno reached contract deal amid scandal - College Football News | FOX Sports on MSN with Video

Probably the University will backpedal on this and sell it to some "reclusive milionaire" and "use the money for a program to counsel children" or some such way out to appease the factions while saving face.

The whole scenario is something out of a Leslie Nielson Police Story movie where Lt. Frank Drebbin investigates why a statue appeared/disappeared in front of--who would have thought ?--Beaver Stadium. (Whose idea was to name it Beaver Stadium?)

In New York State there is a law that educators are required to report--mandated reporters--child abuse and should anybody try to stop them from reporting the law requires they be reported as well.One does not have to have absolute information of abuse--what one is reporting is a reasonable suspicion of abuse. Because Prinicipals liked to keep a lid on child abuse, the law made all Teachers and staff members mandated reporters and made it ilegal for a Principal to try to suppress a report. Every public school has to have a Child Abuse Coordinator. I don't know if this applies to private schools.

MegalosSkylaki

[MegalosSkylaki]

Penn State seems to be continueing its policy of talking its way out of its problems and quite frankly I don't see too many options open to it except the one it doesn't seem to want to take--which is to bite the bullit and admit the culture of sports had evolved into a cult of personality that decries the oldest of prohibitions about worshiping a graven image.

Maybe its time for the University to decide to invest it resources into stuff like Arts and Sciences so that one day people will consider it one of the major intelectual Universities and smile--or more aptly grimace--when they recall a time when the University had erected a statue to--of all things and people-- its football coach.


Airplane banner tells Penn State: Take Joe Paterno statue down - U.S. News

Time to move on and stop the prattle that leads nowhare except where it already is.

MegalosSkylaki

[MegalosSkylaki]

Statue taken down today and put in storage. The reason given? To avoid divisiveness.

Not exactly a moral position is it? Anyhow Paterno family complains he was not given due processs and the freeh report is more like an indictment--not a fair trial.

Anyhow the mantra remains the same: Why was Sandursky not expsed?
To protect the good name of the University.
Why is the statue taken down?
To protect the good name of the University.

Where is a decision made on the basis of right vs wrong?

MegalosSkylaki

[MegalosSkylaki]

The strangest thing --well almost the strangest thing--about the penalties is that Joe Paterno is stripped of victories from 1998-2011 knocking him out of College winningest Coach spot, as if thhe NCAA could re-write history. In effect, this creates an "asterisk decree" and a trivia question. All in all, this was a foolish move and only cements the view that nobody is really concerned in what happened at Penn State and why but in appeareances: Joe Paterno will no longer be Big College Football's winningest Coach. Officially.

Now Penn State quickly agreed to the sanctions and will not contest them probably for the same reason it decided to get rid of the public display of the statue and put it in storage. Not because it was anomalous to put up a statue to a living coach but because it looked bad to keep it up. This obsession with appearances is what caused this debacle in the first place. If just one person had stood up and said this was a matter of right and wrong, not of what looks good or bad ,this probably would have been stopped at or near the onset instead of perpetuated.

MegalosSkylaki

INDIANAPOLIS (AP)
The NCAA slammed Penn State for the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal Monday with an unprecedented series of penalties, including a $60 million fine and the loss of all the school's victories from 1998-2011, knocking Joe Paterno from his spot as major college football's winningest coach.

Other sanctions include a four-year ban on postseason games that will prevent Penn State from playing for the Big Ten title, the loss of 20 scholarships per year over four years and five years' probation. The NCAA also said that any current or incoming football players are free to immediately transfer and compete at another school.

NCAA President Mark Emmert announced the staggering sanctions at a news conference in Indianapolis. Though the NCAA stopped short of imposing the ''death penalty'' - shutting down the Nittany Lions' program completely. But the punishment is so severe, it's more like a slow-death penalty.

SE>>> NCAA hands down punishments to Penn State - College Football News | FOX Sports on MSN