What next in Nittany Land?

On the Fly (as published in The Democrat July 24, 2012)

This is the sports scandal of my generation; the one there’s no doubt that I’ll be telling my grandkids about one day. (When they’re old enough.)

The fallout still unfolding in State College, Penn. surrounding Penn State University will no doubt be looked back on as an event that changes college athletics forever.

Former football Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky was accused and found guilty of sexually assaulting ten boys during his time with the university. In June, Sandusky was found guilty on 45 of 48 possible charges and now faces a maximum sentence of 442 years in prison.

Joe Paterno, the university’s head football coach from 1966 through 2011, and the all-time winningest head coach in major college football history with 409 career wins, was fired as a result of the scandal, an event that evoked rioting in the streets by outraged students and alumni.

Also forced to resign in the aftermath of the allegations was school president Graham Spanier, while athletic director Tim Curley remains suspended following an indictment for perjury related to the scandal and senior vice president Gary Schultz resigned as well.

Louis Freeh, a former director of the FBI, lead an internal investigation into the scandal and his 267-page report, released on July 12, concluded that Paterno, Spanier, Curley and Schultz were complicit in “concealing Sandusky’s activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community and authorities.” Freeh’s report said that the men were concerned that Sandusky be “treated humanely” but that the same feelings had not been expressed toward the victims.

According to the report, the four men “exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky’s victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well-being.”

As far as the governing body of college athletics, the National College Athletics Association is concerned, no punishment for the university has to this point been determined.

I suggest handing Penn State the “death penalty.”

The NCAA has handed out a “death penalty” only once, in 1987 to Southern Methodist University, citing a lack of institutional control due to disregard for the NCAA’s rules and regulations.

A lack of institutional control? Sounds pretty familiar.

The lack of institutional control exhibited by the leadership at Penn State in covering up a decade of the sexual abuse of young boys reaches a level never before seen in college athletics.

While SMU was punished for, among other things, a “slush fund” resulting in under the table payments to the school’s athletes. I’d argue that these allegations, the ones at the root of the most severe penalty ever handed down by the NCAA, seem rather mundane, and pale in comparison to troubles facing Penn State.

The death penalty for SMU resulted in the school’s cancellation of its 1988 football season. Every player on the team was granted permission to transfer to any other institution immediately and forego the typical rule requiring transfers to sit out for a year before playing for their new school.

Penn State fans would argue that it is not fair to punish the players on the team for crimes in which they had no part, but I would argue in turn that it was even more unfair for ten young boys to be put in such a heinous, despicable situation and have to spend the rest of their lives coming to terms with it.

I’d also argue that even though the offending parties at the leadership of the institution are no longer in power; Spanier and Schultz resigned, Schultz is on administrative leave, and Paterno was fired and later passed away in January at 85, the NCAA’s precedent for a lack of institutional control was set with SMU.

And I agree that it’s a shame.

It’s a shame that Paterno, college football’s winningest coach, has had his once great legacy tarnished, because rather than stand up for justice, he cowered to protect a friend and valued his football program over human decency.

It’s a shame that the student athletes on the football team, who had nothing to do with the scandal, would be put in the position of not knowing whether they would even be allowed to play again due to circumstances beyond their control.

It’s a shame for the university’s fans, who are known as some of college football’s most passionate, that they are forced to confront the harsh reality that all of the good times they’ve shared with a man they’ve revered for 46 years weren’t with the same man they believed him to be.

The greatest shame, however, is that the victims must live with the experience for the rest of their lives, because no one had the courage to step in and put an end to Sandusky’s reign of terror.

I love football more than almost anyone I know, but football is a game. A game should never have been allowed to trump a real life terror, and it should never be allowed to happen again.

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