Were the sanctions against Penn State appropriate?
Don Quixote on Jul 24 2012 at 8:04 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
While they are understandable on an emotional level, the sanctions do not make sense. Every decent person abhors what Sandusky did and the cover-up that followed. Sandusky had been a coach in the football program and the head football coach and his superiors engaged in the cover-up. Some of the molestation took place at the football facility.
Nevertheless, the acts themselves had nothing to do with what happened on the football field. Penn State did not violate any recruiting rules. It did not play kids who were ineligible to play. It took academics seriously and graduated a high percentage of its football players. Nothing that has anything to do with this tragic affair contributed one whit to Penn State’s success on the field. If Penn State officials had acted absolutely properly and turned Sandusky in the moment they heard about him the results on the field would not have changed one iota.
For the life of me, therefore, I cannot understand the logic behind taking away the wins from years that Sandusky was not coaching, and did not contribute to the success of the program. Doing so penalizes all of the players who fought hard and honestly to achieve those wins and who had nothing whatsoever to do with Sandusky or his crimes. These players have done nothing wrong. Why are they being punished? The punishment going forward, banning from bowl games and championship games and such, make somewhat more sense so long as the NCAA allows the current players and recruits to go elsewhere without penalty (as it has done). Of course, Sandusky richly deserves his criminal punishment. Those who helped him cover up his crimes may deserve criminal punishment as well. Paterno deserves to have his statute taken down (though at some point I do think we will come again to acknowledge that the good he did for Penn State at least partially offsets the evil he had done here). Penn State deserves to pay a large fine.
But why take away the wins? It’s like saying that because a former teacher committed a crime, and the principal and superintendent covered it, up we are going to take away all the A’s earned by all the students during the years of the cover-up. What do you think? Can you explain this logic?
Email This Post To A Friend
19 Responses to “Were the sanctions against Penn State appropriate?”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I agree. Taking scholarships away from students just penalizes the students for something they didn’t do and had no control over. I think the better course would have been to fire (with no severance package of any kind) anyone who was complicit in the decision to not turn Sandusky into the cops.
I keep hearing comments that this had very little or nothing to do with the football program. Let me ask this: what was the reason for covering this up if it wasn’t to protect the football program? The cover up had absolutely everything to do with the football program. The other crying I hear is about the kids today that had nothing to do with what took place. Over 90% of the players at SMU had nothing to do with those infractions, yet the program was shut down. Until the NCAA can go after the actual offenders (often times, professional athletes and coaches by the time a “sentence” is reached), and punish them in some way, this is the only punishment the NCAA can impose. The concept of vacating wins was simply a formality. Again, what other form of punishment can the NCAA dole out? Suggest any other form of punishment that the NCAA has at their disposal today that would NOT affect those who “didn’t do anything wrong”. Anything suggested will result in “collateral damage” any way you look at it.
Hi Moose and thanks for commenting. I never said this had nothing to do with the football program. I said this had nothing to do with the success on the field. You ask me to suggest other forms of punishment that the NCAA has at their disposal. Some of them they used here — fines, banning from future bowl games (while allowing the players to transfer without penalty to minimize “collateral damage” effect). The NCAA could also bar any coach who took part in either the crime or the cover-up from coaching ever again in an NCAA sponsored program or event. As you point out, the NCAA can impose the “death penalty” (again, minimizing the collateral damage by allowing innocent players to transfer without penalty).
Of course there is always some collateral damage in any punishment. Whenever any person is sent to prison, that person’s family is profoundly damaged. But the point should be to minimize the collateral damage, not to maximize it. You state that “The concept of vacating wins was simply a formality.” Perhaps. But it was a completely needless formality that maximized collateral damage and served no useful purpose.
Agree, wholeheartedly. But this is a situation where it is difficult to know where to apply the proper punishment, and to whom, and in what degree without harming those under their direction. Certainly those who had nothing to do with the crime do not deserve any punishment. In the muddled thought processes and lack of moral clarity of today we are rapidly approaching a society such as in Fahrenheit 451, where the firemen start the fires and the police commit the crimes. What good does a huge monetary fine do when the culprits will not be the ones who pay it? Joe is dead and beyond reach in this world, Sandusky is in prison, and others soon may be also. The president of PSU is fired and disgraced. The fans, students, alumni, PSU associates, merchants, etc. are all innocent. All too often in today’s society it is too difficult to get the criminal, so the authorities just settle for the easiest target to punish– the innocent.
Don, thanks for your response. Quick question: how do you know this didn’t have anything to do with the success on the field? This cover up was done to keep parents of highly touted football players in the dark about the dirty underbelly of a football program that ran the school. How many of those highly talented football players would have gone to Penn State if the parents knew about this? From my perspective, the cover up opens for debate the result of every game played from that point on, therefor, the logic behind vacating wins.
Don, thanks for your response. Quick question: how do you know this didn’t have anything to do with the success on the field? This cover up was done to keep parents of highly touted football players in the dark about the dirty underbelly of a football program that ran the school. How many of those highly talented football players would have gone to Penn State if the parents knew about this? From my perspective, the cover up opens for debate the result of every game played from that point on, therefor, the logic behind vacating wins.
As Napoleon is reputed to have said by Voltaire, “In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.” Pour encourager les autre…
He was referring to England’s execution of Admiral John Byng for his dereliction of duty (and cowardice) in allowing the French to capture the Island of Minorca during the Seven Years (French and Indian) War.
The NCAA sent a signal to all other football programs: this is what will happen to you should you be so derelict in your own duties.
Good for them.
The NCAA voided Penn State’s wins in order to remove Joe Paterno from the top of the all time wins list. It was directed at Paterno’s legacy, not the players during those years. The players won the games on the field; the NCAA is taking them away from Paterno’s record.
The NCAA is allowing all current Penn State scholarship players to transfer without penalty to minimize the collateral damage on their varsity careers.
The vacation of the wins was odd, there is no evidence the rape of small boys in the team showers and at the team hotels had a material affect on the performance on the field.
More appropriate would be to mandate that a plaque be put in the showers and sauna stating “On this spot, one of many small naked boys took one for the team.”
Plus, the Paterno statue should be returned with a small naked boy lying on the ground behind him, beseeching him for help but obviously to be trod under the feet of the football program.
I’d also say, that any team with any decency should refuse to set foot in the Penn State stadium for say 10 years. Play the Penn State team but never on that field.
gpc31
Ding! Correct. Since there was no way they could dig up Paterno and sanction him, putting an asterik next to his name was the only option and removing his statue. I still have a qualm or two with former president Spengler, and Curley, who both resigned. The grand jury is still in session and hopefully there will be another page or two to add.
IMO, they drove the “get-away” car and enabled Sandusky.
Interesting responses.
gpc31 and Sadie, I agree completely as to the motive for throwing out the wins, but it is ill thought out. Why not simply remove Paterno’s name from the record books? Why punish the kids who earned those wins on the field.
Moose, if the adminstration has acted properly as soon as they heard about Sandusky (the first time!) how much of a dark underbelly would there have been? There would have been a single pervert, properly dealt with by a program that could have served as a model for how programs should deal with such things. How much would that have hurt the program? Of course there is no way to absolutely predict what would have happened, but I strongly doubt that would have had a negative effect on the field and it might even have been spun into a positive.
Danny, sure, send a message. Heck, the death penalty would have sent an even stronger message and would have been fairer than taken away past victories.
Penn State’s endowment is $1.83 billion; $60 million is about 3% of that. It’s not much of a fine, really, though I am not actually advocating a larger fine. Any fines are paid by shuffling around money, and everyone’s nose get skinned to pay it. Let me rephrase that: every students’ nose gets skinned to pay it. Because it will ultimately by carved out of their hides, in the firm of higher fees, ticket prices, fewer services, etc. Because administrators’ salaries shan’t suffer–they will continue to ne overpaid. And odds are, the football programs’ funds will nary be cut, but the, oh, let’s say classics department will have to pay up. Because any funding cuts usually wind up hurting the smaller, less popular departments that are not revenue genrating departments.
I find the NCAA kind of useless. They love the money, but love portraying themselves as politically correct. And get to tie themselves in knots trying to do both. Their “title-nine-ing” of sports* (with the complicity of the federal government) is riduculous, Miles Brand’s vendetta against any school with an Indian mascot (whether tribes agreed or not) was also riduculous. (He was such a uselss waste of space.)
But I do not have a better suggestion. I think “sudden death” would’ve been a good idea. What Penn State officials did was on a scale worse tahn that of, oh, SMU. If the president has any spine, he will do what Tulane’s pres did in the eighties and self-impose it. Something does need to be done about all who were involved in the cover-up.
I still wonder if it had anything to do with Ray Gricar’s disappearence…. Hmmmmm…
* – This is NOT refering to the initial implementation of TiTle IX (whcih was a good thing) but refers to the recent-ish interpretation of Title IX as it applies to collegiate sports, where the only way compliance is adjudged is by the ratio of female to male athletes matching the overall ratio of female to male students enrolled, without considering the actual interest level. And men tend to, in larger numbers, be more interested in intercollegiate sports than do women. So this is why mens teams are being cut. Why Cal’s baseball team was almost cut–until they had the audacity to do well in post-season. (It wasn’t only about money, or even primarily about money. It was about the fact that college baseball fields about 24 players. And add that to the large roster on football teams, in order to maintain 54% of athletes as female with female sports tending to be a money drain…. well…. you get the pciture. BTW, I am a female.
DQ
Why punish the kids who earned those wins on the field.
The players will not be punished and will not have an asterik next to their names. They are simply footnotes that no one will read. The players going back to 1998 have long ago gotten on with their lives and the current crop have the option of getting out of Dodge before the next kick-off. Of the hundreds of players 1998-2011 – can anyone remember a name.
I’m with Moose on this one.
I also LOVE the vision of JoPa’s statue out there with the little naked child beseeching him for help. Thanks for that, JKB.
As for financial “penalties”, I wish they’d take every penny that Penn State makes on the football program and establish the Joe Paterno Center for Fighting Child Abuse, so his name is forever tied to this outrage.
Hi Sadie. I can tell you from the quotes I heard on Sports Center last night that the players certainly don’t feel that way. They will always know in their hearts that they won those games on the field fair and square. As Moose rightly points out, taking away those wins is a “formality.” But it is far more important to those players than you make it out to be. And it is unfair to them.
Don, I completely understand your position, but I can’t agree. The administrators were ready to report the incident to the authorities and didn’t after speaking with Paterno. Tell me, who was running that university. To look at former players and feel sorry for them losing the “official” wins in football games is a far cry form what those young men and boys lost. You know when a company goes under because of scandal, or just poor business decisions, there are many innocent people that pay a price for that as well. I have much more sympathy for them, than a football player that won’t have there games counted as wins in a record book.
That’s okay, Moose. Wouldn’t be much fun if we all agreed on everything.
So current players at Penn State on scholarship will be able to transfer out. Do you all think they will get playing time elsewhere at this late date? I don’t know all the ins and outs of this but I do feel for the current players who worked their butts off to now have to find somewhere else to play or wear the scarlet letter the rest of their playing days.
I disagree more or less completely with what the NCAA did, and kind of wonder from whence the NCAA gets standing – being an organization concerned with athletics – to do much of anything at all in such a case, frankly. Were I Penn State I would be perfectly willing to take the NCAA into a courtroom, and ask: (a) whence cometh the standing, and, (b) for the sake of the record, please point to which section, paragraph, sub-paragraph, or other clause in your rulebook of which in your considered opinion Penn State stands in violation – in this matter. I don’t think the NCAA could successfully do either.
The NCAA has stated, loudly and often, that they have no intention of punishing the innocent. I wonder just precisely who the hell they suppose they are punishing. In two weeks or so the football team will report to campus for early practice. This will include all the incoming freshmen: kids who’ve never done more than visit the campus, and likely never heard of the long-retired Jerry Sandusky in their lives, before his arrest. They have now been informed – by the head jocko at the NCAA, no less – that the careers they envisaged for themselves have no value; they cannot win a championship of any kind or go to a bowl; their chances for a future in the NFL are pretty much down to nil, and the only thing they could look forward to accomplishing at their chosen institution is to hurt themselves to no purpose whatsoever. If this is what is meant by “not punishing the innocent,” then I admit freely that I do not speak the same, or even a similar, language as whatever that is the NCAA is utilizing to express itself. It certainly isn’t English.
Going back and erasing the record, or “vacating” the wins is an exercise in futility, petulance, and vengeance masquerading as justice that serves no purpose – as the FIA, MLB, and FIFA could have informed the NCAA, having found it out the hard way themselves. Bobby Bowden will go to his grave not believing for a second that he is the winningest coach in college football; it will occur to him afresh every day that Joe Paterno coached more wins than he did and, as he is an honest sort of fellow, I have little doubt he’ll say so. Publicly, whenever asked about it – further making the NCAA board look like a roomful of braying jackasses.
Kids who played between 1998 and 2011 did not molest anybody of which we know, and they don’t deserve to have their accomplishments erased, either. For some of them the plaques, trophies, citations etc. are among the high points of their lives. The guy who, as a kid in 2003, came off the bench to replace the injured starter and made a key interception that turned the game around doesn’t deserve to have that taken away from him. (Speaking of “not punishing the innocent,” I mean.) It is not fair, it is an injustice, and it doesn’t do a damn thing to advance the cause of either the NCAA’s reasoning processes, or getting a grip on child abuse. It’s crap, and it doesn’t change a single play a single kid made. (Any baseball player will tell you to stick the ruling: Pete Rose belongs in the hall of fame because he hit the damn ball more than anybody else ever did, and the fact that he gambled does not take away a single one of those hits. Ask any of today’s real hitters about it. Ask Jeter, some time.) Taking the records away from those people who earned them stinks – and it won’t work, either. It’ll just make everybody look stupid – because the honorable people won’t go along with it. Bobby Bowden won’t, Lou Holtz isn’t going to suddenly cone to think his team beat Penn State in 2001; and neither is any other top-tier coach.
I am not hugely a fan of Joe Paterno, but taking down his statue smacks of something – a bunch of stuff, in fact – we don’t do in this country. America doesn’t create “unpersons.” Unlike the old Soviet Union we don’t change historical records or books, and we don’t tear down statues of those with whose actions and judgment we’ve decided to come into disagreement. Even Benedict Arnold remains as a hero in the first few volumes of American history – because that’s what he was right up until the time congress drove him into the arms of the enemy. (We don’t scrutinize congress with an eye nearly gimlet enough, either – never have.) When the prosecutor decided not to prosecute Sandusky in 1998, everybody probably assumed there wasn’t anything there – investigating that kind of stuff is why we have cops and prosecutors, isn’t it? If they’re not going to do the job, why bother paying them?
This look pretty poor to me – a poor performance all around. The NCAA is frantically pissing outside the tent to keep the entire rest of the world from pissing in on them – and maybe even taking their little tent away – and so of course they have reacted pretty much brainlessly. The whole thing is stupid, and – there being no one else – punishes exactly the wrong people. Precisely what the head jockjo said he wasn’t going to do. An exercise with no discernible point.