Warner2BruceTD
2011 Poster Of The Year
I get W2B's point of saying that "Well, this was making sure athletes at the school could play, making it so they were just athletes and not student-athletes, so this has more to do with football." I understand his point, but I don't agree with it.
People are trying to attack W2B by pointing out the child molestation, but in terms of sports, that isn't the part you should be focusing on. Instead, it should be the recruiting and lack of reporting by the Penn State athletic department of crimes within the department, not just by Sandusky but also by many athletes.
If Penn State hadn't covered up Sandusky, they wouldn't have had nearly the recruiting that they had during the last 14 years. This was a decision ingrained in sports, if not, why would they even ask JoePa his opinion on whether or not to report the crimes?
But this goes to an even deeper problem with Penn State and that was the underreporting of crimes within the Athletic Department. JoePa had hold over his team so much that Student Affairs could not touch his players, regardless of any crimes they committed as students. This control was flexed during the Sandusky situation, but this allowed JoePa to have players commit crimes without being suspended a single down from the football team. In this case, they were placing being a good player over being a good citizen.
In both cases, players were seeing the field even though they shouldn't have. However, in the case of Penn State, the image of the university and the football program was allowed to continue its facade for 14 years.
I respectfully disagree with the bold. To me that's conjecture and my feeling is PSU would have been business as usual, with Sandusky being painted a villain, and the train moving along. Paterno would have been lauded as an even bigger hero, too.
Good post.