How could American culture grow so corrupt as to value a game over protecting children?

DSGamer wrote:

...but a fluff piece after the first game seems a bit much.

Well, it is a story from ESPN who have ridden this story for all that it is worth.

I simply do not believe that you can have men in that kind of prolonged proximity without pretty much everyone in the group knowing who's banging whom. Gay, straight, it always gets out. Most people, especially young ones, pay more attention to that than anything else.

So, while I can't prove that any specific person knew about it, from my own experience with social groups, I know most or all of them did. And you would too, if you'd apply your own experience with tightly-knit groups, instead of making excuses because you really, really love football.

DSGamer wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I have an answer to the OP. It's provided by way of example by Ivan Mansel.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8332890/college-football-penn-state-nittany-lions-all-access

Penn State is now a human interest story. The players and coach, I mean. You know, the real victims. What a fluff piece. What a bunch of nonsense. I know sports adds meaning to life and heals wounds, but this kind of stuff drives me crazy.

Want to know how America lost perspective on football. Here you go. I understand that it might be moving and healing, in the sense of having normalcy in life, to have your team take the field after a school shooting, 9/11, or say your entire football team dying in a plane crash (Marshall). This isn't that, though. This is a team "maligned" by sanctions that were much softer than they could have been and media coverage that's been appropriate.

Well, what other kind of story do you expect from a sports website?

Sure. Every sports store has to have a human interest angle. I've been a sports fan long enough to know the triumph of the hard work, etc. is what they're always looking to highlight, but I don't see that story as being appropriate in this case. Someone could someday write a really interesting book about the players who chose to stay and how playing for Penn State in this period of time was, but a fluff piece after the first game seems a bit much.

I don't know how you get from "seems a bit much" to "how America lost perspective on football." Fact is, people are going to move on, even from the single worst story I've ever heard of child rape.

I guess to me, something like a human interest story on ESPN doesn't really matter much. I don't think it's just the Penn State supporters that lost perspective on football. I care a lot less about how ESPN or the NCAA or some other sports organization responds to this. The letter agency I want to know about is the FBI. I honestly think all this focus on football--including the hand-wringing over things like ESPN articles or NCAA sanctions--did a disservice to the victims. It made it about football, when it should have been about corruption that just happened to involve a football team.

I think the real evidence that America lost perspective on football is that we all sat here waiting to hear the NCAA's judgement of a football program. An organization in charge of handing out trophies was set up as the champion of children's rights and fighting institutional criminal corruption, and maybe even the corruption of the local civil authorities themselves. That's ridiculous. This is like waiting for canon law to resolve the Catholic Church sex scandal.

Malor wrote:

I simply do not believe that you can have men in that kind of prolonged proximity without pretty much everyone in the group knowing who's banging whom. Gay, straight, it always gets out. Most people, especially young ones, pay more attention to that than anything else.

So, while I can't prove that any specific person knew about it, from my own experience with social groups, I know most or all of them did. And you would too, if you'd apply your own experience with tightly-knit groups, instead of making excuses because you really, really love football.

So you are better than everyone else. You should rededicate your life to identifying pedophiles. Penn State has started a Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse. You should put in your resume and teach everyone your secrets.

Greg wrote:
Malor wrote:

I simply do not believe that you can have men in that kind of prolonged proximity without pretty much everyone in the group knowing who's banging whom. Gay, straight, it always gets out. Most people, especially young ones, pay more attention to that than anything else.

So, while I can't prove that any specific person knew about it, from my own experience with social groups, I know most or all of them did. And you would too, if you'd apply your own experience with tightly-knit groups, instead of making excuses because you really, really love football.

So you are better than everyone else. You should rededicate your life to identifying pedophiles. Penn State has started a Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse. You should put in your resume and teach everyone your secrets.

Dude, i hang out in lots of tightly-knit groups, and I don't know everyone's dirty secret. Tommy is hooking up with Jane is good gossip, because inevitably Tommy tells Steve over a beer his "secret."

Tommy is probably not going to tell Steve about his fetish with body building Maori canasta players. It is kind of a different thing.

Malor wrote:

I simply do not believe that you can have men in that kind of prolonged proximity without pretty much everyone in the group knowing who's banging whom. Gay, straight, it always gets out. Most people, especially young ones, pay more attention to that than anything else.

So, while I can't prove that any specific person knew about it, from my own experience with social groups, I know most or all of them did. And you would too, if you'd apply your own experience with tightly-knit groups, instead of making excuses because you really, really love football.

Wow, you had a lot closer relationship to your coach than I ever did with mine.

It's odd to see that ABC is still featuring Penn State games. What's the point of bowl sanctions if the team is going to be playing on national, network television every week?

As a serious question, do you believe the sanctions that Penn State faced were a stand alone punishment by the NCAA, or do you believe they should act as some ongoing mark or signal to other organizations and businesses to stop doing business with Penn State [question mark]

Jolly Bill wrote:

As a serious question, do you believe the sanctions that Penn State faced were a stand alone punishment by the NCAA, or do you believe they should act as some ongoing mark or signal to other organizations and businesses to stop doing business with Penn State [question mark]

Both I guess. Other organizations and businesses are free to do whatever business they want, but they probably should pull out.

Jolly Bill wrote:

As a serious question, do you believe the sanctions that Penn State faced were a stand alone punishment by the NCAA, or do you believe they should act as some ongoing mark or signal to other organizations and businesses to stop doing business with Penn State [question mark]

It depends on the nature of the business. We're not talking about an airline that sells tickets to Penn State to travel to a game, or the company that does the team laundry. (In other words, businesses that provide services to the team).

TV networks promote and show games and provide football programs with revenue. If there was one relationship that you'd think the NCAA would worry about while sanctioning a team, it's that one.

Funken, I believe that's what the 60 million was supposed to cover. The revenue sharing agreements that the Big Ten, as well as other schools that play at Penn State or within the NCAA make it extremely hard to penalize an individual school through television coverage or some such without extremely hurting other schools. That's why the number penalty was so excessive, it needed to include the money gained from such things.

Jolly Bill wrote:

Funken, I believe that's what the 60 million was supposed to cover.

Sure. For a financial penalty, that's okay. But penalties aren't just supposed to be about the money or paying a fine. You're supposed to be hit hard so you feel it beyond the checkbook. Otherwise programs are just going to make a financial calculation when involved in wrongdoing.

There are other big ten teams playing at the same time on Saturday. Ohio State is on ESPN2 and Minnesota is on the Big Ten network. So given those alternatives, why is ABC showing, and promoting, PSU games so soon after the program was involved in a huge scandal? Ohio State is ranked number 14, and while the program has had some sanctions for rules violations, they're not coming off a scandal involving covering up child molestation. The only reason I can see is the rationale that PSU's brand is too important to let anything really bad happen to it over the long term. ABC is going for ratings, and the NCAA is fine with that because ultimately the NCAA is in the sports marketing business.

I've been cynical about the NCAA's involvement from the start. I figured they would be more concerned with keeping PSU's brand intact than really trying to change the culture. But I didn't expect everything to go back to normal so quickly.

Would you have preferred a smaller fine, but one that included a major media outlet blackout, even if the calculated total of money lost due to those sources was equal to the original 60 million [question mark]

[question mark]?

I just cleaned my keyboard and have somehow managed to get both shift keys to map to weird other areas of the keyboard. I'm adapting using caps lock and copy/paste where I can until I can figure it out. I'm open to suggestions. just not question marks or smilies using anything except brackets ;-]

But I didn't expect everything to go back to normal so quickly.

So, the fundamental message to other football programs: hide child abuse, because if you get caught hiding it, the penalties aren't really that bad, but if you get away with hiding it, the penalties are zero.

I just cleaned my keyboard and have somehow managed to get both shift keys to map to weird other areas of the keyboard. I'm adapting using caps lock and copy/paste where I can until I can figure it out. I'm open to suggestions. just not question marks or smilies using anything except brackets ;-]

You probably went into accessibility mode on your keyboard. Either press both shift keys at the same time or hit ctrl and shift at the same time. You can accidentally turn on accessibility mode or sticky keys by holding the shift key for more than 5 seconds or pressing it 5 times.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archive...

Reports that former Penn St. President Graham Spanier has been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice in the alleged coverup of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

Update: The AP is reporting the charges against Spanier are perjury, obstruction, endangering the welfare of children and conspiracy.

Additional charges of endangering the welfare of children, obstruction and conspiracy have been added against athletic director Timothy M. Curley and university vice president Gary C. Schultz, both of whom were already charged in the coverup of the case.

This is just so mind boggling.

Penn State Football would have survived coming clean in the early 2000's. The worst that would have happened is some off color jokes and a bunch of pundit commentary of a tainted season.

I really hope someone at Penn State is paying attention to more than just the immediate dollar costs. Because it is obvious to me that the cover up was not worth it. The real sickness behind the program is national news and has been completely laid bare.

It is obvious it is not being rooted out to the core, and all of this will endure for years.

Yeah. That was one of my arguments for not playing football for a while. Rip the bandaid off. Take your lumps. Root out the cancer and move on as a SCHOOL first. They decided against that.

IMAGE(http://zs1.smbc-comics.com/comics/20121029.gif)

fangblackbone wrote:

It is obvious it is not being rooted out to the core, and all of this will endure for years.

I disagree. Of the 4 people named in the Freeh report, only 1 has not been charged with crimes and he is dead.

Well then I think we see the root of the problem differently.

The real sickness behind the program is national news and has been completely laid bare.

And it was obvious from the start. There was simply no way that people didn't know what was going on. Athletic programs are much too intimate for any other outcome. Pre-scandal, I bet there was hardly a soul in that entire athletic program, from the janitors to the dean of the college, that didn't know exactly what was going on. If they didn't know about it directly, they'd have heard about 'that Sandusky guy' through the grapevine.

People got very upset with me for saying the school program should be nuked from orbit, but I was right to make that claim, and I stand behind it a thousand percent.

Malor wrote:
The real sickness behind the program is national news and has been completely laid bare.

And it was obvious from the start. There was simply no way that people didn't know what was going on. Athletic programs are much too intimate for any other outcome. Pre-scandal, I bet there was hardly a soul in that entire athletic program, from the janitors to the dean of the college, that didn't know exactly what was going on. If they didn't know about it directly, they'd have heard about 'that Sandusky guy' through the grapevine.

People got very upset with me for saying the school program should be nuked from orbit, but I was right to make that claim, and I stand behind it a thousand percent.

*escapes during the evil monologue*

Due process is damn inconvenient.

*escapes during the evil monologue*

Which is exactly what the people on that program were doing. They loved their program, and if Sandusky wanted a little on the side, well, so be it.

Jayhawker wrote:

Due process is damn inconvenient.

Due process only encourages child molesters.

Do we need to go through years of a trial and the subsequent appeals process to know that the football program was off the rails?

DSGamer wrote:

Do we need to go through years of a trial and the subsequent appeals process to know that the football program was off the rails?

It is just something people like to say when they lack a salient logic. And for me they add on "you are not much of a lawyer if..."

I then ask if they know what due process means, and they either shut up or are wrong.