by talesin 33 Replies latest social current
It would be good to see cupability travel UP the chain of command.
wasa -- I think that the issue at hand supersedes any 'hurt' feelings of the football community. Poor Michael Robinson (not!). This implies that covering up child sexual abuse by the administration should have no consequences, and I cannot sympathize with these people. They did not have their lives destroyed - what exactly are they whining about? Lost glory? ppfffttttt!
tal
Lavar Arrington agrees with me in his article in the Washington Post:
I have to swallow the fact that as of today, I have no wins as a starter for the Penn State football team. And you know what? It doesn’t matter.
The penalties handed down by the NCAA are harsh enough to bring down an entire football program. But they are not enough to bring down Penn State. Many may feel that football defined us; we know different.
Our way at Penn State is education first, and everything else after that. It’s our task as alumni to make that message clearer than ever before.
There was a failure by individuals in powerful positions at the school, and it has impacted everyone from Penn State, including those who played on its football team. We shoulder those mistakes because we must; it’s the right way. We didn’t make this mess, but we can now start to fix it.
Like it or not, Monday’s action by the NCAA against the school bring this entire fiasco a step nearer to closure.
I believe it is the duty of the Paterno family to continue to fight for Joe Paterno’s reputation. If they are successful, they will have their moment to set the record straight about why Joe should not have been judged the way he was. However, that’s a war for those who were closest to him and the situation surrounding his demise. Same goes for Graham Spanier or any other school officials that are fighting for vindication. That’s just the reality of this, nothing personal.
As for the punishment handed down Monday, my thinking has been this: Whatever the punishment, get it over with so everyone involved can close this chapter and begin the rebuilding process. A strong punishment was necessary. Otherwise I don’t think it would have been accepted by those looking on from around the country.
Now the school, students and the State College community can face the dawn of a new day. Sure it won’t be easy moving on from here, but sometimes turning away from the past is the only way to see a bright future.
As an alumnus of Penn State, I’m not turning my back on my school. I believe responsible Penn Staters believe we serve each other and our institution and that to me means always striving for excellence, having integrity, respect and dignity in our daily approaches to life. I really think it’s important that it’s understood that we acknowledge horrible things happened at our school. We do so in order to make it clear that we don’t condone these actions or blindly support our school.
Sure Joe Paterno was the catalyst in keeping us all motivated to be great Penn Staters, and it hurts to see all the failures and bad things that have happened. It’s sad to know so many suffered and now many more are suffering in the aftermath of what took place.
If Penn State is to ever have a chance at restoring its reputation it starts with one positive action at a time.
Change obviously needed to happen and from this point on I think it’s clear that the representation of Penn State falls on the ones who matter the most an entire community and student body, not a coach or a program but everyone.
Everyone won’t be perfect. People will still fall short of representing themselves and our institution the right way. Yet those who are truly committed to good will stand in there through the good and the bad.
Right now is the time for the Penn State community to stand up for its principles and beliefs and impact change so that things like this don’t happen again. It’s time to restore the pride of our school.
I suppose the professors will be grousing about the next four years of lower enrollement- stagnant pay, layoffs of nontenured staff and loss of prestige. If there are successful multi-million dollar civil lawsuits the university will have to deal with continued negative publicity- harmful to the bottom line in terms of attracting freshmen- right now, 4 years of penalties could equate to 8 years of stifled revenue, as each incoming freshman year is a potential income producer for 4 years -and I agree that Paterno should have retired years ago. The college kept him on for a financial reason- how much actual work he did is anybody's guess.
Sorry left the link off.
Anytime the NCAA brings sanctions against a school program, innocent players are impacted. Yet, that's the only way they can police their sport. Because if you just throw out the kid that accepted the alumni payment or the coach that engaged in the improper recruiting practice, you do nothing. The head coach will assign that duty to an expendable assistant. Players are a dime a dozen and can easily be replaced. And if you're good enough like Cam Newton or Reggie Bush, no worries there either. Nothing will happen while you're in school. But, if you hammer the whole school, then you get peoples attention and the cost of getting caught becomes high enough to dissuade some.
With the state of big time college sports, the NCAA has had it share of issues. They gave the dealth penalty for 3 YEARS to SMU for paying their players. 3 years!!! I'm sure there were freshmen there who didn't break the rules but ended up not playing.
Was that fair? Probably not. But, it was really the administration that failed in the SMU case and the Penn St case because they allowed the bad behavior to continue.
Most of this was a reaction to the many scandals that the NCAA has been faced with over the last few years. It's a PR move and a multi-million dollar enterprise that doesn't give a crap about any college kids ability to play a sport.
