Last Friday the NCAA rescinded its 2012 consent decree against Penn State. That decree had levied harsh punishments against PSU in light of the University’s failure to act on information pertaining to the child abuse perpetrated by former coach Jerry Sundusky.
Courtesy philly.com
The settlement includes a number of provisions including restoring 111 victories on the record of former coach Joe Paterno and releasing $60 million dollars in fines for use by Pennsylvania-based child abuse programs. The settlement enables Paterno to regain his status as major college football’s all-time winningest coach (409 wins) and bolsters Pennsylvania’s capacity to combat child abuse.
By reaching a settlement (it would have gone to court otherwise) each side claimed that justice had been served. “I think what the NCAA did is unforgeable,” said William Oldsey, a PSU Trustee. Harris Pastidies, who serves on the NCAA’s Board of Governors, felt that further delaying a settlement “would undermine the very intent of the fine.” (Read additional comments about the settlement from Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Jake Cormin, a plaintiff in the law suit against the NCAA, and by the NCAA).
Courtesy lostletterman.com
But “justice” was not the interpretation made by a number of sports journalists.
Jim Litke, ASSOCIATED PRESS: “Feckless, arrogant, self-aggrandizing, inept—if you needed just one episode to illustrate everything wrong about Mark Emmert’s tenure as NCAA boss, he just handed it over, tied up with a bow.”
Nancy Armour, USA TODAY: “Blaming Sandusky’s crimes on the Penn State “culture” and saying he got away with sexually abusing children for so many years because the football program held special status was easy. Too easy. It allowed Emmert and the NCAA to look tough and decisive, while quickly washing their hands of the disgusting situation at the same time.”
Keith Olbermann, ESPN: “It is hard to believe that the NCAA and the school could take the most nauseating, the most horrifying, the most indefensible institutionalization of corruption in American sports—the Jerry Sandusky scandal—and make it worse, but today they just did.”
Other published responses were expressed just as harshly. Mark Sedor of PennLive made a list. Among the headlines were
CNN: “Penn State still doesn’t get it.”
Huffington Post: “Give the NCAA the death penalty.”
Philly.com: “Is Paterno’s legacy all that matters?”
Public responses to the settlement were expressed just as viscerally. A significant vein of public feedback included strong support for Joe Paterno and his players.
Jim Welch: “God must have looked down and realized what vicious outright blasphemy was going to be heaped on Joe Paterno and called him home early to spare him the undeserved indignity he would have to endure.”
Michelle Warner: “I always looked up to JoePa as the dad of State College, and having those wins back is good for his honor.”
Vince Weaver: “Even if you want to believe JoePa was complicit, it doesn’t take away the fact that those wins were earned by hundreds of young men who put in their blood, sweat, and tears to play for a great coach.”
Karen Rishar (#joepaterno): “Why would you take the teams wins away? It was soooo stupid and unfair! Where do you draw the line here?”
Courtesy pennlive.com
Others focused on non-football matters.
Ron Ostrosky: “Many of us cannot forget or deny the reality of the documented evidence of his poor judgment and indifference regarding the sexually abused children—the real victims. It seems that money, muscle, political influence and idolatry win again. But what a shallow victory.”
One public comment stood out for me. It came from a Facebook Friend, a current Penn St. graduate student:
Glenn Sterner: “By levying harsh sanctions against Penn State and Joe Paterno, the NCAA sent a message, nationwide, that the victims of criminal actions mattered, and that a university, its sports program, and coach that knowingly withheld action should be held accountable. This is the first time I’ve been embarrassed to be a Penn Stater; the celebrations about the relinquishing of these sanctions demonstrates that a football program’s and coach’s reputation is more important than preserving the dignity of the victims of sexual abuse.” #wearemorethanfootball
First response, posted 11 minutes later: “Thank you for saying this.”
Second response, posted 3 minutes after the first response: “Wow. You could not be more off base, buddy. I’d be happy to talk to you about it if you are interested in seeing the other side.”
Another Facebook friend, also with PSU connections, had this to say:
David Connor: “Not sure if this makes the NCAA look smarter or dumber, more or less corrupt, stronger or weaker. The whole affair was rotten throughout. Hard to find any good guys anywhere.”
Here’s a response to that post: “The cover up and complicity with Sandusky’s crimes were perfectly appropriate reasons for harsh sanctions. They knew what he was doing, and they chose to ignore it. I know this will not be a popular opinion, but the school should have had it’s (sic) NCAA charter revoked for 5-10 years. Vacating Paterno’s wins is a vaporous sanction. It’s like saying that on account of slavery, colonial powers forfeit all their war victories between 1500-1865. It’s an absurd fiction.”
Courtesy espn.go.com
Those posts (save one) abandon the all-too-familiar “institution-first” perspective so commonplace in collegiate sports. Critical analysis of Alma Mater is difficult for fans under any circumstance, and it’s especially difficult for Nittany Lions fans. They’ve been pressed to the limits by the Sandusky scandal—the most egregious circumstance in the history of American collegiate sports—a matter that became the focus of national discourse, not just for days but for months. Last week’s settlement re-ignited earlier emotions, similar in genre to what happened with the release of “the second elevator film” in the Ray Rice-NFL domestic assault case.
Whenever a situation like “Penn State” arises a number of questions need to be answered for fairness and justice to be served. What did key figures know, when did they know it, and what actions did they (or didn’t) take; what can and should a governing body (the NCAA) respond, administratively and legally; and what penalties (if any) should be levied, against whom, with what severity, and for how long.
Last week’s settlement is a step toward answering those questions. But no matter how questions are answered ultimately (court cases are pending), there’s still the lingering question of why “Penn State” happened. I thought a lot about that question after reading Sterner’s post. It made me think about why “bad things” happen in our personal lives and how we sometimes respond. Might these personal lessons apply to institutions, too?
Here’s what I know from personal experience. Downfalls are infrequently without precedent or predisposition. Bad things are sometimes self-inflicted—caused (or at least precipitated) by prior actions and/or inactions, such as an auto accident caused by drinking then driving; a heart attack stimulated by lack of exercise, poor diet, and obesity; and a job loss resulting from drug use. Sometimes bad things happen to us because of lifestyle—the way we live our lives, including the people who surround us and the influence they have on us. We’re birds of a feather.
If and when things get bad enough–when we’ve had enough—we decide change is needed. The first step is acknowledging the problem, to proclaim to ourselves and significant others: “I can’t live like this anymore!” You look in the mirror and don’t like what you see. So you decide to make life-altering changes. It’s not easy, but you do it, often with help from professionals, family, and friends. You persevere and, over time, you become a changed person.
Courtesy: huffingtonpost.com
I don’t know—for sure—whether this analogy applies to either the NCAA or Penn State—and, if so, if either organization has gone through the cycle I’ve just described. But I do know this: “a bad, awful thing” happened. I also know there’s no vindication in awful. It’s time to take a deep breath and move on. You’ve been humiliated.
Have you been there in your life? If so, then you know what I’m talking about. And there’s another (very important) phase of this cycle: what can happen if you don’t learn from “awful,” if you decide not to make big changes in your life. Odds are that awful will happen again. You’re lucky if it doesn’t.
So here’s what I think. Next time “awful” may not happen at Penn State. Next time it might not be child abuse. But I’ll bet it will be something. Somewhere. It will be something very bad. Something that will hurt people. Something that will bring shame to the NCAA, higher education, and college athletics.
Something … that might be avoided with moral leadership. Something that puts the public good before institutional good—it’s image and “brand.” Something that elevates public trust above money, media, and mania. Something that’s bigger than big-time sports.
Why do I say this?
What happened at Penn State, and how the NCAA responded, is indicative of the larger circumstance in America’s contemporary collegiate sports. It’s what can happen when “big” becomes outsized, when it becomes very difficult to manage and control, including those circumstances that cut against the grain of higher education’s core mission. Take, for example, the issue of academic fraud. The situation at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill—one of America’s best public universities—was thought (hoped) to be an isolated instance. But now the NCAA is investigating accusations of academic fraud at twenty schools.
Just about all the good things that come from athletic competition—life lessons that sport teaches players—is available ubiquitously in team sports. It comes from playing in Division III as much as it comes from BCS play. It’s a matter of what happens on the field and, more so, what happens in the locker room, the training room, and all the other dimensions of the getting prepared for, playing games, and participating with others in a shared pursuit with a clear goal.
The problem today is that big-time college football is an industry. It’s about TV contracts, marketing, media, large donations, big coaching contracts, facilities expansion, and myriad other “business” aspects. The recent move by the NCAA to give the Power 5 conferences more authority in rules-making certainly includes positive aspects but there are built-in challenges, too, not unlike what might happen if the Federal government were to authorize self-governance for the U.S. banking industry. It’s not the answer to the issues I’m writing about in this column,
We may never know for sure why Penn State happened. And there may never be consensus about how the NCAA should have responded. But the overarching issue is whether any of this would have happened years ago—at Penn State or anywhere else—when big-time college football seemed to mesh more reliably with higher education’s purpose and environment.
That circumstance has changed markedly. And while it’s easy to uncritically accept the adage, “you can’t go back,” there are steps that can be taken. I’ve outlined a game plan for college sports reform.
The NCAA-Penn State settlement needs to be a wake-up call for change—big, meaningful change. But what are the odds of that happening, especially in the near future? It’s zero.
Neither the NCAA nor its member universities seem to be the point that many of us have reached in our personal lives: “We can’t live like this anymore!”
Until then ….
