NCAA Shows ‘Em!

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Chap

Today the NCAA captured the public’s disgust by going after the real culprits from the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal:

The President of Penn State?  The Board of Directors?  The athletic director?  Sandusky?  The ghost of Joe Paterno?

No, the NCAA reacted to Sandusky’s horrifying crimes dating back to 1998 by levying a $60 million fine against today’s Penn State:  the current teachers, the current students, the current athletes, the current community.

Let’s see … stripping scholarships, taking away bowl games and a $60 million fine for “educational purposes” to be paid by the students of a public university to a national sporting organization with no financial accountability.

Doesn’t that make sense?

In an act of extraordinary courage, the beneficiaries of today’s college football monopoly, i.e. coaches and athletic directors making million-dollar salaries (including the new coach of Penn State), rushed forward to praise the NCAA decision and thoughfully discuss the need for “better priorities.”

Some of these heroes even agreed to a voluntary salary cap to show their new-found sincerity.  (In related news, hell froze over).

The decision from the NCAA was handed down with out any hearing or opportunity for due process.  Unlike the defendants in the Nuremberg trials in 1945, the culpability of today’s Penn State students was clear!

Of course, the NCAA itself had no role in creating the culture that accepted the Sandusky crimes:  a culture that subordinates other scholastic sports to the football team, even if it’s no good.  See Maryland, University of.

I mean, the NCAA would never accept a football program being above the law!  (Unless it was Ohio State, Auburn, “the U,” Southern Cal, maybe a couple others …)

Going forward, we stand safe in the knowledge that the NCAA stands ready to act, but only when public outrage requires it to do so.  And only in the most arbitrary fashion.

For what it’s worth, Penn State plays UVa on September 8th.  Go Cavs.

 

 

 

 

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  • Whitney Wilson

    Well, I guess we can agree to disagree here Chap.

    As I understand this, Penn State agreed to the penalties, so it apparently didn’t feel as though it was being treated (too) unfairly.

    As far as the unfairness to current students/athletes goes, that simply comes with the territory. The idea of punishing the “program” instead of – or in addition to – the perpetrators of the offending activity is to cause future potential bad actors to strongly consider the consequences of what they are about to do, since such actions can severely hurt the football/basketball/whateverball program which the presumably/hopefully love/are fond of.

    In this case, Penn State covered up for Sandusky – at least according to the Freeh report – in order to protect the reputation of the football program/university. The consequences of this coverup seem to be that many more kids were sexually abused by Sandusky. This is why the punishment is so severe. (Of course the inevitable civil suits are going to take a pretty hefty economic bite, too). The NCAA punishment should serve as a pretty good warning to other schools that covering up a crime like this could really crush them. Hopefully this serves as a strong deterrent to future, similar conduct.

    There is no question that tons of people who had nothing to do with the cover up are going to be hurt. Its really unfortunate. But I don’t know how you get the deterrent effect without punishing the institution, which also hurts non-culpable parties. Hopefully the next school won’t cover for a slimeball like Sandusky.

    I’m not sure whether the NCAA should/can try to ban the principal remaining culprits (Spanier, Schultz and Curley) from employment at NCAA institutions.