At Penn State, whom is the NCAA punishing?
For sexual abusers and their protectors in Pennsylvania, it’s been a summer of reckoning. The sentence for Msgr. Lynn was announced today. Last month Jerry Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of heinous crimes at Penn State. Others directly involved in the Penn State scandal have lost their careers and their credibility, and some may have criminal charges of perjury forthcoming. For their crimes, prosecutors will no doubt seek the fullest punishment allowable under the law — and rightfully so.
Students react to sanctions (Craig Houtz/Reuters)
That’s what’s happening in the criminal justice system. So far, the guilty have been and will be tried and convicted.
But in the alternate reality of the NCAA, it’s not the guilty who are being punished. Rather, the entire Pennsylvania State University, and in some ways, the economy of the region, have been hammered with shocking sanctions by the NCAA. I would never presume to have moral clarity on the unprecedented crimes and cover-ups at Penn State, and more details are sure to come to light in the future. But today what does seem clear is that the NCAA has punished thousands of innocent people through economic sanctions.
Through the unprecedented $60 million fine, the 4-year postseason (bowl) ban, the scholarship reductions, and the freedom for students to transfer immediately and play elsewhere (without the customary one-year waiting period for transfer athletes), the NCAA has ensured that Penn State will lose football games. The NCAA wanted Penn State to lose on the field for years to come, and they will.
That’s not what bothers me, though. If Penn State loses to Temple on the field, no one but their diehard fans will care. What bothers me is that the NCAA’s punishments — and recall that no NCAA rules were broken by Penn State — are endangering the entire institution and its local economy. Big-time college football is a major revenue generator for large public research universities, the same universities that have received substantial budget cuts in recent years due to states’ financial crises. Beyond the basic numbers of lost revenue for home games, merchandise, TV contracts through the conference, and bowl revnues, college football is far and away the largest source of alumni loyalty and financial contributions at such universities. As Kristi Dosh runs the numbers at ESPN.com, the alumni giving rates at peer institutions are tied to football at a stunning rate: Michigan (80%); Ohio State (86%); Florida (94%). At Penn State’s closest peer, 86% of alumni giving is in some way tied to football.
There are purists about higher education who want to wish these numbers away, but the facts are the facts. Yes, we have our University of Chicago, which nobly disbanded football in pursuit of truth (or at least its social construction). Yes, we have our liberal arts colleges which cling more tightly to those past ideals of renaissance men and women of ideas, sport, and leisure. But at many large public universities, which do most of our educating, college football revenues pay for lots of other things: all the other sports, which run significantly in the red; faculty research facilities and budgets; capital expenses, such as new educational buildings; and more. Much of the credit-worthiness of institutions such as Penn State depends on successful generation of revenue through football, which is why Moody’s warned this morning that it may lower Penn State’s credit rating. If that happens, and Penn State wants to build a new biology building, it will come with a higher interest rate and add to the already balooning long-term costs of these crimes.
The local economy will also suffer, which uses its 6 or 7 precious home football weekends to generate the tourism revenue that keeps small businesses afloat for the rest of the year. If the fans don’t come, some of the hotels, bed and breakfasts, restaurants, and stores may need to close.
In conclusion, along with Michael Weinreb at Grantland, I’m not sure “whether this litany of punishments lends any sort of moral structure to a situation that is entirely devoid of it, or it just piles another useless layer onto a patchwork of ethical failures.” But moral structure or not, it seems to me that the punishments do not affect those who perpetrated and covered up the crimes, but they certainly harm several concentric circles that surround the football program at Penn State. The criminal justice system has and will punish the criminals. The NCAA has decided to punish everyone else.
“But moral structure or not, it seems to me that the punishments do not affect those who perpetrated and covered up the crimes, but they certainly harm several concentric circles that surround the football program at Penn State. The criminal justice system has and will punish the criminals. The NCAA has decided to punish everyone else.”
Who are the courts punishing when they levy large fines on Catholic entities to pay for priestly sexual abuse claims?
I know little about football, but don’t quite see why the NCAA deserves that 60 million. And what is the point of sending Penn State into a possibly irreversible downward financial spiral at a point when they might reasonably expect to be sued by quite a few survivors of abuse? If the institution can legitimately cry poor when hauled into court, where will that leave their victims?
Good points but let’s look at this from other vantage points:
- Jim’s comment is apropos. Catholic bishops continue to ignore, cover up, and deny abusive situations and when legally caught, who pays? Not the abuser and not the bishop who covered up but the People in the Pews or insurance companies which eventually come back and raise premiums that the PIPs pay for again. But, how else do you begin to exert influence and control?
- Agree – NCAA is punishing PS outside of its limited regs, etc. OTOH, NCAA really does need to begin to address the 50+ years of making colleges their football minor league coupled with lots of irregularites, skewing the purpose of higher education, etc. If you don’t begin to take ethical baby steps, nothing will ever change. Is it really *purist* to want to see college football decoupled from higher learning? Even college sports experts have suggested that football be moved to a professional owned and operated minor league and separate from colleges. Yes, any transition i.e. donations, foundations, etc. will be impacted. But, to expect the US higher education system to be built upon football really makes little sense.
Punishment has two important purposes: (1) solace to present victims and (2) future, broad deterrence. These are not addressed in the present op-ed.
The op-ed notes the positive impact of a successful football program on local economy and alumni giving to the University. Penn State’s program will be impacted most visibly in the victory column. They’ll still have a team. The team will just lose more games. According to the logic of the op-ed, anything which negatively impacts the win column may be criticized; anything which positively impacts the win column can be defended — simply on the basis of economic impact on the University and community.
Frank Deford had a great op-ed on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/04/156210094/joe-paternos-legacy-protect-players-at-all-costs
Why was it important for the Catholic Church to have been required to pay out billions of dollars in settlements, despite the devastating impact that this is having on the good works of the Church?
Because economic considerations (and the economic surrogate “reputation”) can never be allowed to justify immorality — nor allowed to hinder necessary measures to protect morality.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Susan –
i’ve read that the $60M is the money Penn State expects from earnings for the games in the next few years. That makes sense to me, but I must admit that it seems that the NCAA is finding guilt in too many places.
It’s the same sort of mentality that blames all Germans for the Holocaust whether or not they knew it was happening. It results, I think, from viewing groups of people (whether corporations, the Church, universities, etc.) as a “person”. I suspect that the NCAA has turned Penn State into a person. But there is no such thing as corporate guilt. There is only inndividual guilt, though there can be degrees of guilt. (And neither is the NCAA a person. But its board members who must have approved this are responsible for the outcomes.)
The problem of “subsistence” has reared its ugly head again.
The NCAA exists to prevent its members from cheating at football. Penn State did not cheat at football, and it should not be punished by the NCAA. The NCAA is punishing Penn State for public relations reasons.
About Msgr. Lynn –
The Penn State is an instance of the fallacy of composition — judging that what is true of a part (the football coaches, etc.) is true of the whole (all the other parts of Penn State). Because a part was guilty, the whole is being held guilty.
Fr. Lynn’s case is logically somewhat different. .Judge Sarmina says the sentence is proper because he aided “monsters in clerical garb”. Notice the plural “monsters”. Sounds like she was sentencing him for (similar) crimes he was NOT accused of — he was accused of aiding only Fr. Avery. At the sentencing she seems to be assuming that he is guilty of all the individual similar cases because he was guilty of one of them (an instance of hasty generalization). Or so I see it. I predict Lynn will win on appeal. He was found guilty of only one crime.
Here’s another viewpoint on this:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169002/why-ncaas-sanctions-penn-state-are-just-dead-wrong
Hi Ann, Of course there is corporate (or institutional) guilt. Google “Tort Law” — or “BP oil spill,” for that matter.
Hi Thorin, The NCAA doesn’t simply exist to prevent members from cheating at football.
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/20120723/21207233
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Very clearly, PSU’s VIP administrators acted as they did at least in part to avoid fall out from scandal to the program’s reputation. Ergo, forcing the occurrence of that fall out is, indeed, a just penalty. Furthermore, they (Paterno and the AD) did what they did because as football honchos they could protect one of their own and did so — again, because of the power that their involvement in the PSU football program gave them over the university as a whole.
Unless you think the modern university exists to maximize the opportunities of football players and spectators I fail to see how they are being punished for anything — they still get to play and the fans still get to see football — it just won’t be of the caliber it might have been. I went to two schools that had awful football programs even though Div I — it didn’t seem to knock us out of the academic or local economic arena.
You are definitely reinforcing my commitment to avoid all Div I schools for my next to leave for college child. What a travesty.
The values of capitalism pervade our social and religious lives. I came across this snippet in a book I’m currently reading (Sacred Hunger, by Barry Unsworth):
“He had always been impatient of opposition, but of late years with all of his opinions confirmed by increasing wealth – *that infallible testimony* – any slightest criticism drove him to anger.”
To obtain and accumulate wealth is even viewed by many as a sign of God’s favor. Do pastors of Catholic Churches that are burdened with debt the ones who advance up the ladder, or does that happen only to those who leave a debt-free parish and money in the bank?
Because of Americans’ sign of success is financial success, to have that taken away is a blow to one’s sense of self-worth and public persona. It is a sign of failure. God no longer favors the “loser.”
I think agencies like the NCAA and the courts have learned that lesson well. They know that financial penalties are some of the worst things they can impose as a form of punishment, irrespective of who is affected, to organizations (corporations, universities, churches) and have no qualms at taking these actions.
Michael Peppard, when I read your piece, I was reminded of my time in boot camp 42 years ago: When one guy ‘effed up, EVERYBODY PAID.
And it worked!
Nothin’ like peer pressure (and perhaps a bit more :-) to get somebody back on track.
If the powers-that-be at Penn State are smart, they’ll make sure nobody — and I mean nobody! — is gonna’ do something that everybody else has to pay for.
Larry –
The law is full of all sorts of fictions. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.
The all important thing is someone is finally sticking up for the defenseless and powerless–the children. Penn State is severely punished even if football remains. Anyone who seeks justice has to rejoice at this ruling. Because what Penn State, countless organizations have done with impunity. The church, the school, the parents must be protected over the children. In the Third World the powerless are still treated like animals. Even in this country we have a long way to go. There are so many examples. One blatant one is how court appointed lawyers treat innocent people who are accused. They the charges increased and threaten the defendants with more severe penalites if they decide to fight for their innocence. So the vast majority end up plea bargaining to get a “lesser” sentence.
The important thing to focus on is that the children and downtrodden have found advocates. No doubt there should be efforts to help innocent victims of the Penn State punishment.
“Very clearly, PSU’s VIP administrators acted as they did at least in part to avoid fall out from scandal to the program’s reputation. Ergo, forcing the occurrence of that fall out is, indeed, a just penalty. ”
Istm the just penalty would be to punish the perpetrators of the injustice – in this case, the VIP administrators. What punishment does the NCAA sanctions impose on them? I’d think it’s the job of Penn State’s board of directors and its government masters to mete out justice to the administrators. If they fail to do this because Joe Paterno and Penn State football are still beyond reproach to large sectors of Pennsylvania residents, then the voters undoubtedly have political remedies that can be pursued.
I agree with Michael, Thorin and Bill deHaas. These sanctions miss the mark and punish the innocent.
I trust the parallels to dioceses being assessed fines or forced into settlements for the misdeeds of its clergy is clear.
A small update, that I have already received many strong counter-arguments, mostly over private emails, that sounded one note: deterrence. I am beginning to be persuaded that the unprecedented level of punishment here (just short of the “death penalty” that SMU received in 1987) has the primary purpose of deterring megalomaniacal football coaches. In short, people have argued that only a truly shocking set of sanctions could ever “get through” to such self-possessed and perhaps delusional men. It’s an argument based on the particular psychological features of these coaches, and it’s not possible to prove. But I’m beginning to be persuaded by the deterrence argument, despite my lingering sense that the wrong people are being targeted with the punishment. Thanks for thought-provoking comments both on and off the comment board.
As a survivor of sexual abuse, I was paralyzed by fear for four decades. Today my heart is more healed and my voice becomes stronger when I hear the truth. The NCAA did the right thing and Penn State will be a better place in time. And, the church will truly embrace the mystical body of Christ more deeply with Monsignor Lynn spending some time behind bars. The core of the “Good News” is about justice. I and countless victims have touched the raw wood of the cross. It is time for our institutions and all those associated with them who fail and harm innocent children, to face the same shame they brought to the vulnerable in their midst.
What if a consequence of the sanctions is to turn Penn State into a worse university because of lack of funds? And what if it turns the area into a poorer one? Doesn’t that *also* affect the children in the area who were planning on going to a decent school? (I assume Penn State is pretty good generally — I know that the philosophy dept. is, or at least used to be, quite good.)
No, punishing the innocent makes no sense. It isn’t fair. But how to punish the guilty and discourage further crimes?
Couple points: The $60 million will go to abuse prevention programs.
And this penalty is not much at all to Penn State, which is a state university and has tons of money. The financial effect will be almost imperceptible.
But, how else do you begin to exert influence and control?
Perhaps that is the wrong objective. It seems to me the correct goal is to teach the institution to make better decisions, and the NCAA sanctions are at best piling on, and at worst punishing innocent people for their association with the university. Furthermore, control does not prevent future problems; it just moves the locus of responsibility to a different focal point subject to the same human proclivities and mistakes.
Punishment has two important purposes: (1) solace to present victims and (2) future, broad deterrence.
1) Solace to present victims is revenge. That is not the point of the ‘criminal justice’ system which is to punish perpetrators. It is not called the ‘victims justice’ system for a reason.
2) There is little evidence that punishment of existing criminals provides any deterrance at all let alone ‘future, broad deterrence’. It merely punishes people for past bad acts.
Penn State budget is 1billion 687 million. $ 1,687,419,000
A fine of 60 million, all football money, will not destroy community or university. but they will lose games for years.. don’t cry a cloud over this.
I think the sanctions were fitting. For economic reasons, Penn State put protecting its football program over the safety of children. These penalties make it more costly for the university to cover up than it would be to disclose/protect.
Jim Pauwels, you miss the point: it was the prestige and importance of the football program that gave Paterno and the AD the power to pull the university in the direction that they wanted it to go. It is absolutely correct to devalue the prize they wielded like a club over the heads of innocent boys. Sorry, it’s absolutely correct in my book. This was as much an institutional as a personal failure.
it was the prestige and importance of the football program that gave Paterno and the AD the power to pull the university in the direction that they wanted it to go.
I disagree. It was the prestige and importance of the football program that made it a national news story. And it still punishes the innocent; that is not justice.
I’ve read that $60 million represents one year’s TV revenue that Penn State received from its football program. Is this correct, or is it mistaken?
The $60 million isn’t the issue. The issue is that Penn St. will take a decade or more to recover their status as a major college football program (if they recover at all), and this dramatically hurts many non-football-related aspects of the university (and those who surround the university) in dozens of important ways–many of which Michael mentioned.
For those who make a deterrence (as opposed to justice) argument…are you suggesting that it is justified to punish innocent people so that good may come of it? Or are you saying that those who are being punished are somehow guilty merely by being associated (sometimes in very, very distant ways) with those who made these horrific choices?
I think the judgment is that the university failed (badly) in its moral responsibility to innocent children, and thus the university has to pay. I agree that the responsible individuals should be especially accountable, but this was a corporate failure, as well.
I’m a faculty member at another state university, and the exaggerated emphasis on sports, to the detriment of the university’s real mission of education, research, and service, is a scandal. Does anyone imagine that the five most distinguished and productive faculty members at, say the University of Alabama, make anywhere near as much money as the football coach, or command a fraction of the respect from the community. The sad thing is that until this scandal broke, Penn State was one of a handful of schools that made it possible to think that big time college sports was not inevitably corrupting.
“I’m a faculty member at another state university, and the exaggerated emphasis on sports, to the detriment of the university’s real mission of education, research, and service, is a scandal.”
I totally, totally agree. You would think it had been the Philadelphia Eagles received these sanctions with all the fuss over it. Maybe Penn State could focus on bringing in the dollars through the quality of its academic programs rather than through games.
I confess. Ever since I was in sixth grade I have been a nutty, sometimes infantile, fan of Notre Dame football. In my saner moments, I have to admit that there is something deeply wrong with major college (Division I) football. I have a very high regard for Notre Dame as a university. One of my sons received a mostly excellent undergraduate education there, for which I am grateful. But its football program, like all big time college football programs is well nigh morally indefensible.
In my nuttiness, I follow the sports blog called “Inside the Irish.” It regularly reports the football coaches’ recruiting activity. This summer it has reported that Notre Dame coaches have secured verbal commitments from about a dozen youngsters to play football at ND. These youngsters will be HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS fall. This means that these coaches have been telling a bunch of 16 to 17 year old kids, and their families, that they are the cat’s meow, the hope of the future.
I realize that these verbal commitments are not binding and that coaches from other schools will continue to try to get these kids to change their minds. But is this any way to treat kids and their families? Frankly, I find this whole recruiting process to be a form of child abuse. The process cannot reasonably be said to have the kids’ education and emotional growth at the forefront of its objectives.
I’ll keep watching ND football on tv, I know. But I can’t do so without a guilty conscience.
Kevin Mulcahy’s comment above is right on target.
I agree with Kevin Mulcahy (and others) that “the exaggerated emphasis on sports, to the detriment of the university’s real mission of education, research, and service, is a scandal” — and I would add that this is true at non-state universities too, although to a lesser degree. But I don’t see how the NCAA’s penalties against the PSU football program are likely to prompt a reexamination of the system’s ills. Rather they seem designed to reinforce the system, and the power of the NCAA, by punishing one player in that system. Allowing players to decamp for other, now more competitive teams (er, I mean, to look for other educational opportunities), and thereby declaring open season for recruiters to pick over the Penn State roster, is a funny way to prompt introspection about the outsized significance of college football or the corrupting potential of a strong team that values wins over everything else.
To me this looks like a power play, one that conveniently deflects attention from some other issues the NCAA ought to be attending to. (See this pre-PSU-scandal article by Taylor Branch from the Atlantic, “The Shame of College Sports,” for some details.) This won’t affect me personally one way or the other, but I do feel sorry for the kids at Penn State now.
“This was as much an institutional as a personal failure.”
I disagree. In my view, to describe it as an institutional failure is to obfuscate the culpability of real, specific human beings who failed in their responsibility to other human beings. “Don’t blame me – it was the institution.”
To extend the logic: Lynn shouldn’t go to jail, because it was an institutional failure. Fine the archdiocese and be done with it.
No, Jim, read more carefully: “as much as.” That is, individuals were culpable but they operated within an institution that encouraged and rewarded them in many ways for their culpable conduct — where janitors were afraid they would be fired if they ratted out a football coach; where the board of trustees was too afraid to insist that Paterno leave when they realized that he really needed to go — in 2004.
You can punish more than one party. So long as insitutions expect prerogatives as if they were an actually existing thing, they get to be punished right along with the individuals who most actively directed the wrongdoing on the institution’s behalf. A legal system that excuses institutions even as it gives legal perks and protections is untenable. No love for the NCAA, but really, “unjust” doesn’t describe what happened.
And as for the innocent students — you mean like the ones who rioted after the Board actually did start punishing the perpetrators? I don’t call that innocent. More like, along for the ride even if it requires squashing innocent children like bugs.
The whine about punishing the innocent is so wrong.. The 60 million is 3.5% of the budget and tuition has and will go up twice that. And Penn State will lose more games.SO WHAT.
Misplaced loyalty to institutions is one of the biggie problems in society today. I have always suspected that Institution protectors have fascist tendencies.
“To extend the logic: Lynn shouldn’t go to jail, because it was an institutional failure. Fine the archdiocese and be done with it.”
Jim P. –
Excellent analogy. That’s what happens when individual responsibility is folded into a hypothetical corporate one.
One could argue, however, that all the nutty fans, by encouraging the team, were individual enablers. How much should this guilt cost them? Hard question. On the other hand, the nutty fans didn’t know what was going on in the football building either. Should they have known?
Look, the main thing here is that you either atomize or you don’t: PSU is a “thing” or it isn’t, but it isn’t a “thing” when it claims perks like sovereign immunity and tax exempt status and attorney client privilege and immunity from prosecution for board members (because acting in an official capacity) when it is challenged, and just a collection of students when it is being held accountable. Can’t do it. To punish PSU might have unfortunate consequences for parties who never participated in actual wrongdoing but the legal tradition recognizes when certain actions are taken at a high enough level in a manner that is intended to carry out the business of an entity, the entity itself is held accountable. There is nothing novel or unjust about this.
Deterrence is right. Nothing short of this would even get anybody’s attention, let alone put the over-grown, overly-powerful — even “all-powerful” might be a fair description — football program at Penn State in its place. And it needs to be put in its place. It was for the sake of its glory and reputation and success that the administrators looked the other way at child abuse they knew was happening. It’s clearly an idolatrous relationship.
Just because other programs are parasitic on the football money doesn’t give them a “right” to it. Punishing the wrong people? Please.
Jim,
Certainly the individuals who apparently covered up these crimes are culpable. They should, if found guilty, go to jail. They face civil suits which will likely be fiscally punitive. But the primary guilt of individuals should not obscure the secondary guilt of institutions that turn a blind eye to crimes.
If it helps, think of Penn State’s punishment as an exorcism. If a football program is so important that the president, athletic director, and revered coach will all ignore evidence of the rape of children, lest the program suffer; if students will riot because a coach is fired, then I’d say that the love of football has become grotesquely overvalued, and the university might well be better off without a big time football program.
Nothing short of this would even get anybody’s attention, let alone put the over-grown, overly-powerful — even “all-powerful” might be a fair description — football program at Penn State in its place. And it needs to be put in its place.
I wouldn’t mind seeing college football put in its place generally. But Rita, do you think that’s what these sanctions are likely to do? Is that even what they’re designed to do? Consider the source, after all. The NCAA does not have the credibility to lecture PSU (and by extension other big universities) about the proper balance between athletics and education, and even if it did, as I said above, this particular set of penalties isn’t likely to compel anyone to address that issue.
I know a number of current and recent Penn State undergrads, and I know they would want me to say that the students who rioted to protest Paterno’s firing did not represent the entire student body, or even a large part of the student body. Don’t assume that some drunken thuggery on campus means every kid at Penn State wants to minimize Sandusky’s crimes or the crimes and misdeeds of the football program. For myself, I question whether pretending Paterno’s wins never happened is the best way to keep the Sandusky affair before the eyes of the Penn State community (or the rest of us).
The Penn State case raises at least two separate questions. One is what penalty ought to be meted out for conduct that took place at Penn State. A second question is: Are the practices and policies that prevail in Division I football today morally defensible? Given the recruiting practices now in place I think the answer is no, regardless of the Sandusky affair at Penn State.
As far as the Sandusky matter goes, the NCAA action is probably as sensible as one is going to get from a body that is wedded to the prevailing Division I football programs That, I think is an important point that Mollie makes reference to above and that Kevin Mulcahy addresses in his first posting on this thread.
But,I don’t think talking in terms of exorcisms gets us anywhere..
“I wouldn’t mind seeing college football put in its place generally. But Rita, do you think that’s what these sanctions are likely to do? Is that even what they’re designed to do?”
Mollie, I think the sanctions are intended to chasten everybody. And they probably will, at least for a while. The importance accorded to winning, to money, to prestige — all of this is being set at naught because something more important is here: the safety and integrity of kids. Football will go on, but this event will be remembered.
“Pretending that the wins never happened”
This isn’t about whether the wins happened. It is about shaming. Honor and shame still matter. The criminal justice system does not have a stake in deciding who is to be honored, nor whose conduct is to be considered shameful within the guild. But somebody does. Who will do this if the NCAA doesn’t?
Rita, if the NCAA had canceled all bowl play one might say they had demonstrated that there are more important things than football, or that the scandal required them to take steps to put college football in its place. But the NCAA is not going to do that, because they exist to magnify the money and prestige in college athletics, not to temper it. One thing these sanctions do (and not accidentally — deliberately) is make it possible for other college teams to raid the PSU roster (as one analyst told the New York Times) to improve their own chances of winning. Will those other coaches say to themselves, “I see, the lesson of this scandal is that we must set winning and prestige at naught”? Will the players who are being courted to abandon their commitments to Penn State? If they do it will be in spite of the NCAA, not because of it.
Will those other coaches say to themselves, “I see, the lesson of this scandal is that we must set winning and prestige at naught”?
Mollie,
I think they would be expected to think that if we should abet the abuse of children in this way, we can expect this and worse to happen to us.
But if that’s the point, then wouldn’t the arrests, the trials, the forced resignations and firings, and the permanently tarnished legacy of Joe Paterno have been enough to send that message? So we’re back to the question of whether it’s appropriate for the NCAA to respond in a way that negatively affects so many people other than the coaches and administrators who did or could abet the abuse of children. To say “Who will do this if the NCAA doesn’t?” is begging the question.
““Pretending that the wins never happened”
“This isn’t about whether the wins happened. It is about shaming. Honor and shame still matter. ”
That is a worthy sentiment. But it raises the question, *whose* honor and *whose* shame. Those Penn State teams, every year, had 80-100 players, dozens of assistants, trainers and scouts of various types, not to mention all the media relations people, travel secretaries, ticket agents and so on that are involved in mounting a major college football program. These sanctions seek to wipe out victories that the school *actually won on the field* for reasons that have nothing to do with Sandusky’s crimes or the administrators’ cover-ups. They were won because these dozens and dozens of program members contributed. I presume they won by doing things – according to the ethical standards of college sports that the NCAA reputedly upholds – the right way.
And so these sanctions send the message that none of those “right way” things matter. Penn State, so far as we know, recruited properly, sent their kids to class – did things they way they are supposed to be done. Football coaches preach a lot of things that seem trite and have become cliches – teamwork, hard work, perseverence, suffering, and so on – that are valuable and virtuous habits. But by the NCAA’s lights, none of those things matter. What a travesty.
There are plenty of ethical lapses that are intrinsic to sports with which the NCAA is supposed to concern itself: recruiting violations, grade fixing, steroids, gambling – things that society at large barely cares about, but which go to the integrity of college sports. If Penn State violated any of those instrinsic-to-college-athletics standards, the NCAA should throw the book at the school. Sex abuse is heinous, and feckless administrators are deplorable, but there are other institutional and societal structures to punish that wrong-doing.
The question may arise why there is so much concern for the innocent affected by the sanctions and not for the innocents in other places. Apparently, many of us know a lot of people and it is understandable to commiserate. Yet the question of those who have no advocates must be asked. The effect on Penn State will be much more than 60 million. And that is a good thing IMHO. Let the word go out not to abuse children anymore. Those who have no one to plead their case.
Here is the article reporting how the losses will go well beyone 60 million. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/sports/ncaafootball/additional-pressure-on-penn-state.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
Ed Gleason (7/25/12, 10:52 AM) is right on target in labeling many of the comments on this blog as “whining.”
I was hoping that Penn State would step forward on their own and cancel one, maybe two, year[s] of playing football.
Clean house in the athletic department of all remnants of the legacy of complicity in the rape and sodomy of children, then return in a few years with intercollegiate sports programs that support the integrity of the university. Penn State could always join the Ivy League.
Alas, it will take a lot more than the rape and sodomy of children by a PS coach, and its cover-up by PS administration, to slay the dragon of college football!
Children were irrevocably harmed by the moral indifference of the Penn State University. PS and its supporters should just shut up and take the punishment like good soldiers, and work to ensure that child abuse and exploitation becomes a priority in the culture.
Jim,
All those players were more than happy to participate in the glory and benefit from the expertise and fire power of their famous and revered coach. They now participate in his humiliation. That’s the way it works.
“Deserve”? Heck, they want it and they can take it. That’s all that matters.
Came across a great bit in a Tom Robbins novel just a few hours ago:
The NCAA wasn’t going to just stand there and do nothing. So the NCAA did something, rather than nothing, to send a message not only to Penn State but to other NCAA big-time football programs that even in the NCAA world of big-time football programs certain kinds of behavior are not going to be tolerated but are going to be punished. I have no problem with the NCAA punishment of Penn State.
“All those players were more than happy to participate in the glory and benefit from the expertise and fire power of their famous and revered coach. They now participate in his humiliation. That’s the way it works.”
Rita – he is dead. What does it even mean to refer to his humiliation? Whatever comeuppance he is experiencing now presumably isn’t in the form of a drop in public opinion polls. If he were still alive and employed by Penn State, I’d have no problem with the NCAA coming down on him like a ton of bricks. I’d wholeheartedly agree with you that his dishonor is a fitting part of his punishment. That he has escaped sanctions by dying makes all of that moot. If that frustrates the NCAA, then it must deal with frustration.
If those players benefited because Paterno and his empire violated NCAA standards – say, by paying players under the table – then you’d have a fair point that they shouldn’t reap dishonest rewards. But everything we know indicates that they reaped honest rewards.
You’re right that, apparently, this is the way it works. I’m arguing that it needn’t work this way. We can do better.
Jim, if individuals are claiming to be hurt by actions “against the program” going forward then they cannot disown having been the beneficiaries by actions “on behalf of the program” in the past. Many people couch their unethical acts in a cost benefit analysis that tries to lay claim to the greater good. This was not an isolated failure by a single person, but involved multiple acts, over time, by multiple officials at the highest level. I take these guys at their word: they did what they did to benefit the program –in the interim, the program prospered as much as it did at least in part because Sandusky’s crimes were unknown. That what they did ultimately ends up hurting the program even more than if they had done the right thing when it mattered and might have changed the course of people’s lives is sometimes how justice has to work if there is going to be any justice at all.
if individuals are claiming to be hurt by actions “against the program” going forward then they cannot disown having been the beneficiaries by actions “on behalf of the program” in the past
But if these are not the same individuals, then the wrong individuals are being punished. That is not justice.
Jim P. — You either don’t understand the dynamics of heroism, or are willfully ignoring the fact that after death people can be lionized or shamed by subsequent events. Cast your thoughts back to ancient Egypt, where one ruler’s features were erased from a shrine by the next ruler; or more recently of the statues of communist heros pulled down after 1992. It’s very important what we do after a person is dead, because memory is potent and its very easy to suffer amnesia about crimes of the past. The legacy of a sports hero is all about lasting honor — kept alive in the memory of fans, and in the halls of fame, and in the records that cherish the great. Yes, he’s dead. “His” humiliation is thus, obviously, the humiliation of his cult, and of his memory, and I still say his fans, followers, team players who benefitted from him are now sharing in that humiliation.
You say we can do better, but I don’t think so. It’s a byproduct of being part of an historical community. Haven’t you yet had anyone put on you the burden of accounting for Catholic clergy who are abusers, or for the system that allowed children to be abused? Hasn’t anyone told you that you are complicit in the crimes of your Church and therefore have to take the knocks that come to everyone in an institution that is degraded? You do, you know. We all suffer for their crimes. For goodness’ sake, all my life I’ve had to endure snide comments about the Spanish inquisition and witch burning and all sorts of things that I didn’t do personally and which I personally abhor. But it’s part of belonging to the historical community I own, and whose riches I also enjoy. I can’t run around crying “Poor me!” and “Injustice! Injustice!” It’s little enough to suffer. My life and liberty are intact. But the point is this: Other people always pay. Just as we receive benefits we never paid for. That is unjust too.
Think about the American Indians who were driven off their land. They are dead. Does the death of those Indians mean it’s over, forget it, what a travesty that nice people today are tarred with this historical memory? No. That’s not the way it works.
1) As to Msgr. Lynn.
He was convicted on “only” one count, bu that involved a violation of trust involvimg serious crimes against innocent minors.(Cipriano’s interview with Juror 7 indicated the jury felt he was guilty of more but followed PA law as explained .)
His sntence was about an abuse of trust in a major way and should not be downplayed.
The Penn St, situation ,if you listened ti the NCAA President, was about changing “a culture” at Penn St, and beyond.
We may hate the wprd culture, but it follows right out of the Freeh report -which cites “a stunning lack of empathy ” there.
I think you can criticize the nCAA’s “institutional control” management (e.g. the VA lacrosse murder), but it’s clear they thought crimes by “monsters” like Sandusky -so long truly ignored/minimized was horrific and that similar behavior at major sports institutions -where so much money/prestige are in play -needed inded to be put on notice as well.
I see part of the real problem here is how we conceive of “justice” in regard to individual rights vs. the common good of community protection.
I further think we have more to learn from both Penn St. sanctions and the Lynn sentence than we’ve been conditioned to think (as some noted) of the import of institutions dear to us.
“I take these guys at their word: they did what they did to benefit the program”
The distinction I am trying to make is the distinction between a subject and an object. In the sentence above, the subject of the misdeeds is not “the program” – it is “these guys”. Those guys are the ones who perpetrated the cover-up. The program didn’t. The program was the object of the cover-up.
If I fire a gun to protect my wife, my wife should not be jailed. I should.
I agree that sometimes a corporate entity can be the subject of a misdeed. The Libor was fixed by individuals who perhaps should be punished – but it is also true to say that the financial institutions fixed the Libor (and benefited from it in a very concrete way), and it seems just to me to punish the institutions in an appropriate way.
“The Penn St, situation ,if you listened ti the NCAA President, was about changing “a culture” at Penn St, and beyond.”
The NCAA is even more of a laughingstock than we suspected if it believes it can change the culture of one of its gigantic member institutions. The NCAA as optimizer of cultures is absurd.
The NCAA’s job in a situation like this is not to change cultures. It is to dispense justice. A judge doesn’t change the culture of a convicted criminal’s neighborhood or school or previous prison. A judge sentences the convicted criminal to a punishment.
But there is an institution capable of changing Penn State’s culture. It is Penn State. The most expedient way I can think of to do that is to fire the leadership who engaged in or condoned reprehensible conduct, and appoint principled and courageous replacement. I expect the university already has the mechanisms in place to make this happen.
“after death people can be lionized or shamed by subsequent events. ”
I remember, long ago, when reading Beowulf – in which this notion of immortal fame is an important theme – that the editor, in his/her introduction, noted that the outlook of Beowulf’s author could be described as a thin gauze of Christianity draped over a pagan body. You may be right that this pagan outlook lives on in our culture and can be glimpsed among high achievers with outsize egos. There certainly is a lot of nattering about a coach’s or athlete’s “legacy” in sports chatter, e.g. ‘what is Bob Knight’s legacy?’ or ‘what is Mike Tyson’s legacy?’. I agree that the *threat* of a tarnished legacy can be a powerful motivator among sports figures while they’re alive. I just question whether it means anything to the person after he’s dead.
(Here in Chicago, we’ve seen something that strikes me as bitterly ironic. Ron Santo, a great Chicago Cubs player of the 1960s, spent the last decades of his life yearning to be elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame. Voters narrowly rejected him several times in his declining years. A year or two after he died, he was finally elected. I guess he’s in baseball’s pantheon – whatever that means to a dead person – but I have to think he died disappointed.)
But I guess my point is that Paterno’s legacy is tarnished with or without these NCAA sanctions, which as I’ve made clear, I believe miss the mark of justice. Journalists have documented the extent of Paterno’s complicity. That publicity, not the NCAA sanctions, is what brushes the tar across his legacy. And I don’t understand why a t shirt vendor or a strength coach or a reserve linebacker – or a library or a laboratory – has to suffer in order to shame Paterno.
“Haven’t you yet had anyone put on you the burden of accounting for Catholic clergy who are abusers, or for the system that allowed children to be abused? Hasn’t anyone told you that you are complicit in the crimes of your Church and therefore have to take the knocks that come to everyone in an institution that is degraded? You do, you know. We all suffer for their crimes.”
No. I don’t bear that burden. I think it’s well-understood that individuals, not the church, abuse children. I don’t credit the notion that “the church” is responsible for abuse. I’m not responsible for any abuse or cover-ups, and I live my life and exercise my ministry accordingly. (God forbid that I should ever be put to the test of witnessing abuse). I’ve been pretty outspoken about that on dotCom, and also that sanctions that punish the church rather than the responsible individuals create new classes of victims, as when aid to poor parishes and schools is decreased, or pastoral programs are eliminated in order to pay victims and their attorneys.
I think that Jim calling the nCAA a laughing stock is about as helpful as someone saying Jim is a shill for the institution.
Jim Wallis at Sojourners today says the NCAA didn’t go far enough,, in another view.
Much of the Penn St. action goes back to the Freeh report. It’s based in a major ‘justice” figure’s study of the situation there, inclusding the culture.
As I stated, one can criticize the NCAA for inconsistency in what it set out to do, but the issue at botom here is changing a culture, IMO much alive in many institutins and their supporters, however well intentioned.
Jim P. –
I’m with you on this one. Whatever the NCAA actions are, let’s not call them purely a matter of justice. That may be the way the athletic system works, but it’s not a totally just system.
Odd how people get exercised over a bad call by umpires in a game but not bad calls outside of the game.