Unnecessary Roughness

While the late Coach Joe Paterno and several top Penn State administrators appear to be responsible for covering up unspeakable crimes attributed to Jerry Sandusky, I wonder why the NCAA needs to revise history.

On top of huge financial penalties, the organization has stripped the school of its gridiron victories between 1998 and 2011, the years when Paterno and others, according to the Freeh report, agreed to hide Sandusky’s child sex abuse activities to protect the football program from bad publicity. Perhaps someone reading this may have seen one of those games. Did Penn State win, or not?

Typically, colleges are penalized for recruiting violations, unethical favors for star players, letting team members skate on grades, etc. I’m trying to figure out how Sandusky’s alleged offenses, horrible as they were, affected the performance of Penn State teams.

Maybe you could say that if the crimes had been exposed early on, the coaching system would have been disrupted, as Joe Paterno would have been forced to name a new assistant and the school’s ability to field top teams in the wake of the publicity might have been impacted. So, continuing with business as usual would constitute an unfair advantage. That argument may work for you; I’m not sure it does for me.

The school has also been banned from bowl games and will lose scholarships, as well as shared revenue from college football seasons. And current players will be able to take their scholarships to other schools. Observers say it will be the better part of a decade before the football program is back on its feet again. Many are saying, “Fine, football’s too important in what’s supposed to be an academic institution.” Explain that to current students, faculty, alumni, and also the business people in a college town who depend on seasonal income from fans. And, of course, there’s the question of where the money’s going to come from to pay off the lawsuits. How exactly is the school supposed to recover?

All those former Penn State administrators who participated in this scandal should be stripped of all their assets; others who turned their heads in denial of the facts shouold be identified; and whoever’s in charge of hell can turn up the furnace in the section where Joe Paterno may be, and where perhaps Jerry Sandusky may join him. But once the cancer's removed, isn’t it time to stop the radiation?