<p>[Penn</a> State alum: ‘We are more than this tragedy’ – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs](<a href=“http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/25/penn-state-alum-we-are-more-than-this-tragedy/?hpt=hp_c2]Penn”>http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/25/penn-state-alum-we-are-more-than-this-tragedy/?hpt=hp_c2)</p>
<p>Michor2-</p>
<p>Nice post, and I agree totally, I don’t think employers, unless they are mindless idiots, would hold a Penn State degree against the student, any more then they would a virginia tech degree because of the shooting there or because Michael Vick and his brother went there… Penn State is a good school, it is respected academically out in the ‘real world’ and I don’t think the sanctions are going to affect a student coming out with a degree in economics. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the NCAA sanctions are not tarring the whole school, it is targeting the football program and there is a reason for that that goes beyond the usual BS of college issues, like kids trading gear for tatoos or whatever. Sanctions are a punitive tool, and in part they are used to try and be a deterrent to the very real problems with division 1 major sports, it is about power and abuse of power and that is what led to this problem happening, Paterno and the school and its powerful alumni saw Penn State exactly as people said it wasn’t, that “football was Penn State”, they acted in part to cover up for Sandusky because they were afraid of the stain it would put on the football program (not the school, the foootball program), and in doing so enabled abuse to go on. It is about arrogance/hubris (something Paterno, a classicist would appreciate the irony of, brought low by a classic fatal flaw of Greek tragedy) and it needs countering when anything in an institution thinks it is above reproach or acting correctly.</p>
<p>It hit them at one of the sources of the arrogance, the 65 million a year the football program brought into itself, and the conference, along with the NCAA, sanctioned Penn State as well, denying them a cut of the tv revenue that helped feed the program (and its arrogance). </p>
<p>Yes, kids who had nothing to do with the problem directly are hurt, sanctions do that, with the loss of academic scholarships (and talent) that comes with it, or the ability to play in bowl games, and it is unfair to them, but then again, what happened to those kids was unfair and in a sense, the football players on the team benefitted from the arrogance and single minded devotion to football that turned out to be unhealthy…and at the very least, the NCAA is giving them the ability to transfer. I sympathize with them, but things like this happen, countries that have economic sanctions put against them suffer when they had nothing to do with the issue at hand, where the elite who run the country tend not to suffer. </p>
<p>What does disturb me is those screaming about the NCAA denying Penn State the right to have a top level football program, that it denies the fans of the team the right to see a competitive football team, that by hurting the football program it is hurting all the people who love the football team…come again? So they hear what happened to all those kids, see what their great idol Joe Paterno and the university did to keep the program ‘safe’, and all they can think about is the team will suck? Those people I have no sympathy for, to put that much emphasis on a sports team is absolutely idiotic. I love sports, but if a sports team I love had acted like this, I would support whatever penalty it took to try and make sure it didn’t happen again. This isn’t just about Penn State, it is a warning shot to other programs that they aren’t above the law or accountability; maybe now if football teams turn out illiterate players or their players are accused of rape or shooting someone the school won’t cover it up. as they often do.Sorry, but the pain of the fan base is diddly squat compared to what the program and the school did. </p>
<p>As far as the Paterno family goes, I can’t be harsh about them, when it comes to family Joe Paterno was their father and grandfather, and while he screwed up, big time, much more then I originally thought, he also was probably simply dad or grandpa or dear…</p>
<p>I don’t think this diminishes Penn State, I think the administration actually has handled it well, they agreed to these sanctions, in part because I think they realized it was a tool to allow football to be put into proper perspective. I kind of wonder if this had happened at another big time school, identical circumstances, if Joe Paterno wouldn’t have looked at it as an outsider, with perspective, and understand the need for the sanctions, given that in everything else Paterno seemed to preach that football wasn’t life and had its place (he just couldn’t practice what he preached). For those going there, take pride in the school and do what you can to make it an even better place then I believe it is, and remember, out in the real world, no one cares that Harvard has a horrible football team or that other great schools have crap sports teams:)</p>
<p><<what does="" disturb="" me="" is="" those="" screaming="" about="" the="" ncaa="" denying="" penn="" state="" right="" to="" have="" a="" top="" level="" football="" program,="" that="" it="" denies="" fans="" of="" team="" see="" competitive="" team,="" by="" hurting="" program="" all="" people="" who="" love="" team…come="" again?="" so="" they="" hear="" what="" happened="" kids,="" their="" great="" idol="" joe="" paterno="" and="" university="" did="" keep="" ‘safe’,="" can="" think="" will="" suck?="" i="" no="" sympathy="" for,="" put="" much="" emphasis="" on="" sports="" absolutely="" idiotic.="" sports,="" but="" if="" had="" acted="" like="" this,="" would="" support="" whatever="" penalty="" took="" try="" make="" sure="" didn’t="" happen="" again.="" this="" isn’t="" just="" state,="" warning="" shot="" other="" programs="" aren’t="" above="" law="" or="" accountability="">>></what></p>
<p>Absolutely. But I hope we will find that most of the fans understand that attending games is a show of support for the university and the team, not a winning endeavor. After all, despite the hoo-hah about PSU’s grand football tradition, the team has sucked quite a bit the past 10 years and it wasn’t the end of the world. It’s just football, people. As the new coach said today, let’s just turn the page and make a new beginning, and stop whining and moaning about the sanctions.</p>
<p>I also have no dog in this fight and I can’t even think of anyone I know who went to Penn State (though this is probably due to faulty memory) and only visited PSU once when playing in a varsity sport. </p>
<p>Recovery? How about focusing on doing the things high class universities do that make them universities – teach, prepare students to play constructive roles in the world, generate and disseminate knowledge, … ? You can be a fine university whether or not you have a good football program – indeed whether or not you have a football team at all. </p>
<p>The current administration may well understand this. </p>
<p>I suspect that the people who need to recover are the students and alumni (other than the football players) for whom the existence of a winning football team has some meaningful and lasting effect on their lives and thus for whom the sanctions are a problem. At one level, the cause of the problem may indeed be the incredible importance some non-football players place on the quality of the football program (I always love the fact that schools have football programs and not just football teams). The administrators and coaches didn’t want to alienate their fans by harming the program (and, in some cases, cut the school’s cash flow) and thus unwisely and immorally decided to cover up heinous crimes against innocent boys (and I’d guess many other less toxic but nonetheless unethical activities over the years). </p>
<p>I’m not criticizing sports or athletes, but wonder whether deeply passionate fans like those quoted need to think about what they/we contribute to the mix.</p>
<p>Maybe this is a good opportunity for PSU to become rightly confused with Penn. If UM and UVa can be that good, why can’t PSU?</p>
<p>^@lake42ks - of course, why not? It’s already confused with being a state university. It’s not, it’s state-Affiliated. It’s a private university with state affiliation and gets VERY LITTLE state funding. Otherwise, tuition would be half the cost.</p>
<p>I think Penn State has to start with a public acknowledgment of wrongdoing.</p>
<p>jamiehunt. PSU can’t do that now with civil and criminal litagation pending. A big question is will insurance cover these costs. Insurance usually will not cover a company if a crime was the cause of litagation. This would leave PSU on the hook for settlement costs and legal fees.</p>
<p>"How about focusing on doing the things high class universities do that make them universities – teach, prepare students to play constructive roles in the world, generate and disseminate knowledge, … ? You can be a fine university whether or not you have a good football program – indeed whether or not you have a football team at all. "</p>
<p>I was an engineering student at PSU, albeit many years ago. It was my state school - that is why I went there. Fortunately, I found PSU indeed did all these things. I had excellent teachers. I was well-prepared and have had a great career as a result of my education. I have also recruited at PSU and continue to be impressed by the high calibre of engineer produced by PSU. I can’t speak to other disciplines, but the existence of the football program did not preclude focusing on the things that high class universities do, at least those universities with engineering programs as strong as Penn State’s.</p>
<p>I completely agree that what happened was awful and should be punished, but the people involved should be punished, not the institution. The students are being harmfully affected by this. Why would we punish the institution as a whole? The students had nothing to do with this… it was the individuals involved.</p>
<p>The problem is the “few” involved with the scandal were the leaders of the institution. The President, Vice-President, Athletic Director, Head Football Coach, and the BoT of PSU were involved and did what they did to protect the institution (and it’s profits). In a school, company or government when the leaders do the wrong thing the people suffer. It’s not fair to the students, faculty or staff but at least they have options.</p>
<p>The Board of Trustees apparently were not told much at all, so it hard to put too much blame on them. However, when they were eventually told bits and pieces that an investigation was underway, they apparently made little effort to ask more questions.</p>
<p>
Athletics and Academics is not an either/or decision. A good athletics program can affect the amount of revenue a school has, the quality of students and faculty attracted to the school, and how likely the school is to draw public interest. </p>
<p>That being said, who knows what this will actually do to football attendance. I think it would have been preferable to focus on punishing all those involved in the cover-up rather than current and future athletes and students. Once everyone involved is charged and tossed in jail (which better be what happens), the punishment will really come down to setting an example for other programs who think they can let athletic interests override basic human decency.</p>
<p>[Trustee</a> Ryan McCombie plans to appeal NCAA’s sanctions - The Daily Collegian Online](<a href=“http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2012/08/06/trustee_ryan_mccombie_plans_to_appeal_ncaas_sanctions.aspx]Trustee”>http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2012/08/06/trustee_ryan_mccombie_plans_to_appeal_ncaas_sanctions.aspx)</p>
<p>This type of thing will not help with recovery.</p>
<p>I agree, the action by McCombie will not help. Even assuming that Erickson did not have authority, I think the subsequent board meeting and public statement makes pretty clear that a majority of the board ratified his action. Because Penn State agreed to the sanctions, a challenge based on lack of due process, unreasonable reliance on the Freeh report, etc., will fail. These arguments will be losers with the NCAA and with a court. I believe that the sanctions are harsh, but I think that Coach O’Brien’s approach is the correct one–we have restrictions, we all know why they are there, we are going to move forward and do the best we can and be the best we can.</p>
<p>VMT and DavidSSabb, I don’t disagree that having excellent academics and a strong athletic/football program is not an either or choice, but you need to do the academic stuff to be a university. Whether or not you have a good football *program<a href=“and%20I%20think%20the%20word%20is%20an%20interesting%20choice%20relative%20to%20the%20word%20%5Bi%5Dteam%5B/i%5D%20since%20it%20implies%20an%20institutional%20choice%20about%20maintaining%20a%20level%20of%20football%20excellence”>/i</a> is entirely optional. In reality, I suspect that having a strong football program is perhaps negatively correlated with academic excellence for a couple of reasons:</p>
<p>First, if you rank schools in almost any of the suspect ways (USNWR, Forbes, the ranking of research that shows up periodically in the Financial Times) and if you also rank the top 100 schools by the quality of their football teams, I suspect that you’d find that there is a negative correlation. [Maybe one of the CC data-oriented folks has already done this]. I have Forbes in front of me (I actually subscribe) and I’d guess that roughly 10 out of their 50 schools have strong football programs (and in that 10, I’m including Georgetown and Vanderbilt in addition to Notre Dame, BC, UCLA and Berkeley). Schools that tend to focus on academic excellence tend not to also be able to deliver athletic excellence. So, they’ve probably made a choice, whether consciously or not.</p>
<p>Second, I don’t think that the evidence necessarily supports DavidSSabb’s assertion about the value of a good athletics program. According to an NCAA report (which I haven’t read but see the following [NCAA</a> Athletic Departments: College Football, Men’s Basketball & Revenue ? Sportsologist - Christopher Lee | Sports Marketing & Business](<a href=“Christopher Lee - Christopher Lee”>Christopher Lee - Christopher Lee)), “only 14 of the 120 athletic programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision made money. The Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) includes all BCS conferences (PAC 10, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, etc) so odds are your favorite athletic program is losing money.”</p>
<p>Please note VMT that this says nothing about individual departments – I take your word about the excellence of PSU Engineering – or individual data points like Stanford that manage to combine athletic and academic excellence. But they do suggest that an institutional commitment to athletic and especially football excellence is not obviously beneficial to the things that at the core make the university a university. So, I’m not deeply upset if the decision harms an athletic program to send a broader signal.</p>
<p>What’s missing from my standpoint on some of the posts here (and among some PSU alums/fans) is an acknowledgement that the school’s athletic officials and its administration choice not to act on reports or hearsay evidence of potentially criminal behavior, likely to avoid to disappointing fans and turn off cash flow, reflects a systemic or institutional problem and not an individual one. While the child sexual abuse was an evil individual act, the coverup by the school wasn’t due to bad apples or rogue employees. Everybody working at PSU probably knew implicitly that it would have been bad for them to go against the football program. That attitude was built into the fabric of the institution. (PSU is not unique in this: I’d guess the same is true at U of Alabama, U of Texas, Auburn, etc.). Until you punish the institutions that make decisions to cover up untoward behavior to protect their athletic programs, you will see coverups of charges that would hurt the football or basketball programs replicated elsewhere. [And, I suspect that coverups are not infrequent. How many of you think that sexual harassment of female students by athletes at schools with strong football programs frequently goes unpunished and covered up by the schools? When female students complain loudly enough to hit courts or the newspapers, the schools have generally tried to keep things quiet]. </p>
<p>When we fans/alums acknowledge that pleasing us was what drove the coverup (so that we’d attend games, attend the school, donate money, …), we should get that we need to send a message that we won’t tolerate unethical behavior to produce the results we want. If we as fans/alums send the message that dealing with unethical (let alone illegal and criminal behavior) shouldn’t get in the way of delivering good football teams, we are helping perpetuate the problem. </p>
<p>There is one group of people other than the abused boys who seem damaged by this but in no way contributed to the problem: The young men who chose over the last couple of years to attend PSU to play football. Their lives will be materially changed, and I wonder if the NCAA/school could make it easier for them to transfer.</p>
<p>@Shawbridge…</p>
<p>First, let me say that was one of the most thoroughly thought out post I’ve seen on this whole mess, and even went at far as to support you ideas with some facts. I can’t necessarily say that I agree with all of it, but it certainly adds to the discussion, rather than taking away from it.</p>
<p>I agree that the choices made by our leadership were likely motivated by ticket sales, and the opinions of the fans, but lets not forget who’s responsibility it was to keep things like this from happening in the first place.</p>
<p>However, I think we can all agree that their priorities were clearly in the wrong place. The question I would like to see answered is: how do we keep this from happening again?</p>
<p>Mandatory reporting laws are a good start, but all too often the “enabling” of a child molester, especially a coach such as Sandusky (or any public figure for that matter) is rather unintentional (as opposed to obviously deciding not to report it, which it seem is what happened at Penn State). People rationalize that “he would never do that”, and all the while, all the charity work he did may have been solely for the purpose of molesting children.</p>
<p>So what is the real solution to this problem? Is it stricter laws, public “awareness”, or supporting the victims? OR will it take more vigilance in protecting our (society’s) children from monsters like Jerry Sandusky? My guess is both, but I certainly don’t see that being discussed in the media, much less online.</p>
<p>shawbridge - thank you for your post. I appreciate all the thought you put into this, and the facts that you presented. </p>
<p>I am speaking for most of the alumni I am personally in contact with - we are all disgusted by the coverup. I don’t even understand why PSU felt the need to cover it up. Had the administration come forward, or pursued what they knew more vigorously in 1998, I don’t think there would have been significant repurcussions to the University or it’s sports program, if that is what they were protecting. I have stated from the beginning that I believe many (not just Paterno, AD, etc) knew what was going on. This kind of thing is known, people talk about it. It’s a small enough community. Whether it was inadvertent cover-up or intentional cover-up really doesn’t matter as far as the outcome. I also believe so many people along the way could have stopped this; I find it hard to believe that no one else in the lives of these boys, no police, no teacher, knew that this was going on - and over such a long period of time.</p>
<p>I don’t have a strong opinion about the sanctions. I don’t know if the sanctions will make the university better academically. And I don’t even know if it will result in the big culture change that the NCAA is trying to provoke. I believe it will help to clean up the athletic department. But, as you mentioned, this culture is unfortunately prevalent at other big sports universities. </p>
<p>My original post was addressing the bashing of the academics - some pretty strong statements have been made and I don’t think they are warranted. Is Penn State the same as Stanford - no. But, it is a well-respected institution, and that happens for a reasons outside of football. And I do try to remind folks from time to time that most people who attend Penn State do so because it is their state school and has a nationally recognized name.</p>
<p>From CNN.com:</p>
<p>“The organization that grants academic accreditation to Penn State has warned the school that it is in danger of losing that crucial status in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, the university announced this week. The move by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education is the latest blow for the beleaguered university, which has seen its reputation clobbered and its football program hobbled after investigators found school leaders did too little stop the abuse. Were the commission to pull Penn State’s accreditation – which it has not done – the school would face the loss of eligibility for federal student aid programs, guaranteed student loans, federal research grants and could lose eligibility for state aid, commission spokesman Richard Pockrass said in July. . . . Among other things, authorities say school officials failed to properly address a report that Sandusky had been seen in a football complex shower, apparently engaged in sexual contact with a young boy. . . . The commission also said it had insufficient evidence that Penn State officials had followed commission rules about how schools are to be governed and whether it had provided ‘accurate, fair and complete information’ about what was happening at the school, according to the letter. The commission asked Penn State to report by September 30 on the steps it is taking to ensure full compliance with accreditation requirements, as well as information about the school’s financial capacity to meet ongoing obligations considering the potential fallout from civil lawsuits expected over the scandal.”</p>
<p>While it is not likely that this will happen, if it did the football sanctions would pale in comparison. The trustees and alums who continue to fight the football sanctions are not helping the university that they say they love. The laser like focus needs to be on getting the house in order in terms of the internal governanace and compliance systems at the university.</p>
<p>nepop- I agree that it is not likely that the accreditation will be pulled, but I am glad that the commission weighed in. I suspect that they may put PSU on “probation”, if that is possible, after the report from them on September 30. Just to send a message. And I think it is an appropriate message. </p>
<p>The fact that the commission felt the need to do this sends a message to me that even those that oversee the academic part of the colleges have continued concerns for the integrity and actions of the admin at PSU. And they may also be trying to send a strong message to the board and Mccombie (and others with the same ideas) that they need to back off and wake up to reality. So it may be helpful in that respect.</p>