One particular comment from Emmert annoyed me,
"As a criminal investigation, it was none of our business," he said. "And if, back in 1998, Penn State had heard about it and put a stop to it, it would have never been any of our business. When they didn't do that, it became our concern."
I have a problem with that statement.
I don't think there's any question the administrators at Penn State covered up a pedophile but the one thing I just don't understand is how Emmert feels the university's responsibility goes back to 1998. The police were involved and dropped the case. A year later Sandusky left their employment. Some may conclude from that the university strong armed the local DA and forced Sandusky to retire but there is no proof. Yet the NCAA dates their crimes from that date.
A real crime was committed and it occurred in 2001. Key administrators knew about Sandusky's past and any slight suspicion should have set off alarms. Instead it was never reported and the guilty will be prosecuted.
As a fan of Ohio State, I am very aware of the passion Penn State fans have for their team. I am surrounded by fans with similar types of fans as is Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma and countless others. College football is based on the passion of fans and if you penalize one then shouldn't you enact legislation to penalize them all? Instead they make periodic examples to try to control the beast as the monster that has become college football pays the bills for NCAA athletics.
I do think Penn State should have gotten penalized but something more like vacating their wins since 2001 and a 5 year probation which would be the time they had to enact the proposals in the Freeh report. Instead they got penalties that will cripple the program and take it out on the current athletes that were in elementary school when the crime occurred.
The worst thing about this whole ruling is by doing it many think they are getting tough when in fact, college football is as out of control as ever. Money does that and until the college presidents accept that college football has grown to big and is now a professional enterprise, then then we will continue to see hypocrisies like penalizing Penn State back to 1998 to give the impression they are actually in control.
I don't think there's any question the administrators at Penn State covered up a pedophile but the one thing I just don't understand is how Emmert feels the university's responsibility goes back to 1998. The police were involved and dropped the case. A year later Sandusky left their employment. Some may conclude from that the university strong armed the local DA and forced Sandusky to retire but there is no proof. Yet the NCAA dates their crimes from that date.
A real crime was committed and it occurred in 2001. Key administrators knew about Sandusky's past and any slight suspicion should have set off alarms. Instead it was never reported and the guilty will be prosecuted.
As a fan of Ohio State, I am very aware of the passion Penn State fans have for their team. I am surrounded by fans with similar types of fans as is Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma and countless others. College football is based on the passion of fans and if you penalize one then shouldn't you enact legislation to penalize them all? Instead they make periodic examples to try to control the beast as the monster that has become college football pays the bills for NCAA athletics.
I do think Penn State should have gotten penalized but something more like vacating their wins since 2001 and a 5 year probation which would be the time they had to enact the proposals in the Freeh report. Instead they got penalties that will cripple the program and take it out on the current athletes that were in elementary school when the crime occurred.
The worst thing about this whole ruling is by doing it many think they are getting tough when in fact, college football is as out of control as ever. Money does that and until the college presidents accept that college football has grown to big and is now a professional enterprise, then then we will continue to see hypocrisies like penalizing Penn State back to 1998 to give the impression they are actually in control.
The comment from Emmert that you highlighted points out a disturbing trend I have noticed among Americans. That is, many believe that we have no business investigating the affairs of others. It goes beyond Penn State to foreign policy. There are people who say we have no business with what's going on in Syria. They say we have no business with human rights abuses in China.
ReplyDeleteThis isolationist attitude is bullshit, and I think they say these things because 1) it's a lot of work to get involved and 2) it probably costs money to get involved and 3) the people who ARE involved won't appreciate you butting in.
But it needs to be done. I'm sorry but abuses by anyone in any corner of this world are everyone's business. We shouldn't allow genocide to run rampant in Africa and ignore that 4 million people are butchered. We shouldn't allow a pedophile to go unchecked in any school.
Both of these things are just at different levels of the crime bar but each is worthy of attention and exposure.