Say it ain't so, Joe

[Nyk33]

1 hour ago, pmoehrin said:

The only hope I have is that it helps lead to a larger conversation about the role major college athletics play in higher education, because Penn State is far from being the only school where the tail is wagging the dog.

 

This is what scares me about the whole Penn State situation. 

 

I have a very bad feeling that this isn't the only school out there willing to go below the bottom of the barrel in order to have a good football/basketball team. I'm not necessarily saying that I feel that every school is hiding child rapists but my gut feeling is saying that the number of schools willing to go to Penn State's lengths is definitely more than one.  

[HedleyLamarr]

6 hours ago, pmoehrin said:

The only hope I have is that it helps lead to a larger conversation about the role major college athletics play in higher education, because Penn State is far from being the only school where the tail is wagging the dog. There is no school out there that NEEDS a football team to survive, so why are they such a priority for some schools and I don't think there's an acceptable answer to that question.

 

I myself want as little to do with college football as possible. I'll tune in to the National title game simply out of curiosity but that's about it. The whole institution top to bottom, the people involved and even the fans themselves just disgusts me. A growing part of me thinks that when Teddy Roosevelt wanted to outright ban college football he may have had the right idea. I've seen what its turned into and I absolutely detest it.

The easy answer, and probably the best answer, is economically and exposure.

 

Financially-speaking, football is such a boon for both the school and the local economy.  Donations just to earn the ability to get tickets, ticket sales themselves, concessions, hotel rooms (especially in smaller college towns....hotels require a two-night minimum stay, same for camping sites for RV's, etc.), gotta eat, gotta drink, etc.

 

Although just about every game is on TV these days, it never hurts to show off your school and your campus to a regional-to-national (and even international) audience.

4 hours ago, Nyk33 said:

I have a very bad feeling that this isn't the only school out there willing to go below the bottom of the barrel in order to have a good football/basketball team. I'm not necessarily saying that I feel that every school is hiding child rapists but my gut feeling is saying that the number of schools willing to go to Penn State's lengths is definitely more than one.  

Sure, you can get away with some things.

 

I've already thrown out here the perfect combination of circumstances where Penn State could harbor their wrongdoings.  One point I didn't mention was that football schools gaining power usually stems from a coach that had/has been there a long time.  Paterno was at PSU for a long time.  Florida State was a relative Boys Town in Bowden's latter years. (Hell, FSU basically was able to not only clean up a rape allegation to "some misunderstanding", but they managed to make the victim to enemy.  The only reason they kicked that one player off the team was because cellphone video was involved.)

 

College football has gotten a lot bigger than its' intentions were to be.  But there's a lot of parties involved with how huge college football has become.

[Sykotyk]

College football, even at the D2 and D3 level is exposure, as HedleyLamarr wrote. It's 2-3 hours of advertising. It's brand loyalty. Kids grow up wanting to go to the school they've cheered for on TV or attended games in person. It instills a sense of identity with graduates who then donate money in a much more meaningful way than most other donation drives without coming off as pandering.

 

It's also marketed as something for the kids who go to the college to entertain them while they're there. And since they are mostly smaller towns (Tallahasse, Columbus, and Miami excepted from that idea), there's a big drive to keep the wheels turning. They are the engines of the economy in places like West Lafayette, State College, Piscataway, Bloomington, Ann Arbor, Champaign/Urbana, and Iowa City. Where they're far enough from a major economic or political hub. Without the school, and the foot traffic that sports brings weekly during the school year, the cities would dry up. They are the all-encompassing 'we do everything' aspect of going to a college in the middle of 'nowhere'.

 

Truthfully, how many students would attend school in State College PA if there was nothing to do while there? The bigger cities would win. But instead, a place like State College can thrive (and yes, they do have a minor league baseball team).

[BBTV]

You could probably look at enrollment numbers and see if they rise more/less in-line with the growth of the program over the decades.  Not totally accurate, since obviously there's other factors, but it's one way to sorta gauge how important football is to enrollment.  Looks pretty important - but as stated, there's definitely other factors (tuition changes, admission standards changes, programs offered, etc.)  (link below).

 

You could also do the same for other schools that have seen their programs take a nosedive.  Can't really think of one that had a big-time program that dropped off significantly for at least a decade due to sanctions or retirements.

 

My guess is that if football was taken away now, it would have a negligible impact on enrollment, since there's already enough established colleges and facilities to draw students in, and since there's already 40k+ students and a party culture, that isn't going away any time soon.   Plus it's really not a bad school.  

 

Now would it have gotten to this point organically without a football program?  Obviously nobody can say.  Enrollment numbers seem to rise linearly throuought the Paterno era, but through that time I"m sure they expanded campus, added more programs, increased marketing, etc. - and it's like a snowball effect - people attract more people - but of course, much of that expansion was possibly funded by football money.  I would imagine it's the same story at any middle-of-nowhere state mega college.  Sorry I know this post isn't typed well.

 

https://budget.psu.edu/factbook/StudentDynamic/HistoricalComparisonOfEnrollment.aspx?YearCode=2015&FBPlusIndc=N

[dfwabel]

48 minutes ago, BringBackTheVet said:

You could probably look at enrollment numbers and see if they rise more/less in-line with the growth of the program over the decades.  Not totally accurate, since obviously there's other factors, but it's one way to sorta gauge how important football is to enrollment.  Looks pretty important - but as stated, there's definitely other factors (tuition changes, admission standards changes, programs offered, etc.)  (link below).

 

You could also do the same for other schools that have seen their programs take a nosedive.  Can't really think of one that had a big-time program that dropped off significantly for at least a decade due to sanctions or retirements.

 

My guess is that if football was taken away now, it would have a negligible impact on enrollment, since there's already enough established colleges and facilities to draw students in, and since there's already 40k+ students and a party culture, that isn't going away any time soon.   Plus it's really not a bad school.  

 

Now would it have gotten to this point organically without a football program?  Obviously nobody can say.  Enrollment numbers seem to rise linearly throuought the Paterno era, but through that time I"m sure they expanded campus, added more programs, increased marketing, etc. - and it's like a snowball effect - people attract more people - but of course, much of that expansion was possibly funded by football money.  I would imagine it's the same story at any middle-of-nowhere state mega college.  Sorry I know this post isn't typed well.

 

https://budget.psu.edu/factbook/StudentDynamic/HistoricalComparisonOfEnrollment.aspx?YearCode=2015&FBPlusIndc=N

Football got them into the Big Ten, but on the academic side, Big Ten membership gave them access to billions of federal research dollars because of the CIC, the group consisting of the 14 Big Ten schools plus former member, University of Chicago. Annually, they receive more federal dollars than the Ivy League ($6 billion + from the National Science Foundation alone), possess  partnerships with 45 international universities plus Penn State included in library interloan program.

 

Plus, since joining the Big Ten, undergraduate graduation rate increased from 57 to 85% (degree within 5 years) and international enrollment doubled to 10% of their incoming Freshman classes. That's a lot of new cash from your highest tuition rate and that doesn't include grad students.

[OnWis97]

I've been on vacation for six days; away from the board and away from real news and sports news.  Wow.

 

This whole thing has me conflicted.  When the news first broke, I found myself wanting to see PSU get a good 10 years off from football (an admittedly arbitrary number).  And I stand by that feeling.  But to try to go back and make that happen now seems a little odd.  They were given their punishment.  It was a mix of "hurting the program" and making sure the football program stays prominent, in the guise of "the players did not do anything; why punish them?"  There was no way to be truly "fair" to them.  But I believed then and I believe now that this whole fiasco was a product of a culture that held it's football program in such high esteem that they were willing to throw not only rules/laws, but common decency aside.  For years (decades as it turns out).

 

So sports media (like the totally-unable-to-think-critically Mike & Mike) all said "don't punish the players."  And "they got rid of the people involved; what else are the supposed to do?"  All, as far as I can tell, so a big-time football program still had a chance to be big time.  And, of course, the JoePologists said things like "he did so much good; should 'one mistake' really tarnish his reputation?"  For me, the final straw that told me that 1) PSU is never, ever going to get this and that 2) other groups are probably capable of the same warped response in order to defend a history that never really existed in it's perceived purity, was the hockey "409" stickers.  How did that not get by a single person? How did not one person say "uh, this does not cast our school and athletic department in a good light" or even "all the crazy anti-PSUers are going to roast us for this."  The NCAA backing off led them where they wanted to go: "See, Joe's the man."  It was the most tone-deaf thing I have ever seen.

 

The hard-core PSU JoePologists legitimately make me feel worse about humanity.

 

I am not convinced that eliminating the wrong-doers can fix a broken culture; a semi-tangible "thing" that that made everyone believe that a winning program was really doing something great.  It was still regarded, among national sports media, and certainly in Happy Valley, as something worth preserving.  The culture that led to the entire mess was seen as a good thing; or at least not a bad thing.  Because the "bad" people had been eliminated.  But how many were there?  It shows you that while a person is smart, people are stupid.  And people are still there; still part of that athletic department and football program.  I don't think the culture can change.  Someone about four pages back accused us "PSU haters" of groupthink, a great buzzword easy to throw out against "the other side."  To me, "409" just may be the best example of groupthink there is.

 

Look, I am a college football fan.  And I'd be lying to myself if I were to say that the program for which I cheer has not sneaked around some rules.  I'd be lying to myself if I thought the culture of winning, going to bowl games and putting that "motion W" on the map did not overtake right vs. wrong at times.  And I can sympathize with the PSU fan who is being told that his football program should be killed.  Man, though, do I hope if my program did this that I'd say "yeah, it's time to give it some time off and let it start fresh after the culture's had a chance to die down."  And no question college football has big problems, "culture" wise.  Want to address them?  Fine.  Did a school go to any lengths to cover up a player's sexual assault?  Come down on them.  Hell the biggest problem is that there was not a precedent set long, long ago to stop cultures run amok.  But the NCAA slapped PSU on the wrist and eventually apologized for it.  The NCAA (and the rest of us) missed a HUGE opportunity to say "winning's nice, but not at any cost."    This scandal, I have to hope, is the worst thing that will ever happen because an entire institution allowed it's team to be bigger than the law or common decency.  And the precedent has been set.  "College sports are out of control," however, is a deflection and not a defense of PSU. We are not talking about "college football" but "PSU Football."  There will/should be time to also address the former.

 

Again, I am conflicted.  This news does not change my opinion; the culture was broken...just for longer than I thought.  It just seems like "double-jeopardy" to go back and say "oh, wow...we should have hit you harder so now we will."  If people, the people who continue a culture's culture, were decent, PSU would have then, and would now, kill the program itself.  Maybe they will.  Just kidding.

[DnBronc]

Earlier, I posted Dan Bernstein's most recent article about Penn State. Here is a Penn State thread from Rivals.com that rips on him:

 

https://bwi.forums.rivals.com/threads/dan-bernstein-trying-to-shame-penn-state-into-denouncing-paterno-statue.100435/

[Gothamite]

Sick stuff. "Cult" seems pretty appropriate.  

 

This is why I wish the NCAA had salted the earth.  Between the fans and the administration, it sure looks like nobody learned anything from Paterno. 

[The_Admiral]

On 5/10/2016 at 11:09 PM, DnBronc said:

Here is Dan Bernstein's most recent article about Penn State. Bernstein (from the popular Chicago Sports talk show Boers and Bernstein) has been a very outspoken critic of Penn State since everything hit the fan in Nov. 2011:

 

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/05/06/bernstein-paterno-child-rape-coverup-gets-uglier/

 

Penn State broke Bernstein's brain forever. He used to be funny once! Now all he does is report people on Twitter for "veiled threats." What a dork. Totally right about how awful the Penn State people are, of course.

[Sport]

These people just don't get it. You can't have a Joe Paterno statue anymore. He doesn't deserve one. Why is this hard?

 

 

[CS85]

10 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

Penn State broke Bernstein's brain forever. He used to be funny once! Now all he does is report people on Twitter for "veiled threats." What a dork. Totally right about how awful the Penn State people are, of course.

 

 

It was the first time his war mongering passion against a subject went from being laughed at to validated.  I enjoyed Bernstein's show in part because of how self-deprecating the hosts/producers were about the quality of the show and callers, making Bernstein's occasional angry outburst at (producer-curated) fan stupidity all the funnier.  Despite that attitude, he's spent many years wanting to dip his toes into the NPR waters but could never be taken seriously enough to do so.  Yet once he became a name associated with militant hatred against PSU/Paterno/Sandusky/Etc, I feel as if he couldn't stop waving that banner at every opportunity.  The subject has become his anthem, and while he's 100% correct about Penn State/et al., it definitely made him a worse broadcaster in the long run.

 

Anyways.

 

[The_Admiral]

Also, the Score went from being a station full of well-meaning idiots with a couple smartasses to a radio arm of Deadspin/Twitter. A station-wide philosophy of "I am good and you are bad" is why Julie DiCaro became a multimedia superstar for doing a poor job moonlighting as a journalist.

[CS85]

4 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Also, the Score went from being a station full of well-meaning idiots with a couple smartasses to a radio arm of Deadspin/Twitter. A station-wide philosophy of "I am good and you are bad" is why Julie DiCaro became a multimedia superstar for doing a poor job moonlighting as a journalist.

 

 

I think the lineup these days is woeful.  The morning show is alright sometimes, I guess, but from 10am-midnight, I basically don't listen.  Hell, I'd rather listen to guys like Zawaski, Rozner, or even the damn overnight show.  At least it's quiet.

 

[DnBronc]

On 5/12/2016 at 10:06 AM, CS85 said:

 

 

It was the first time his war mongering passion against a subject went from being laughed at to validated.  I enjoyed Bernstein's show in part because of how self-deprecating the hosts/producers were about the quality of the show and callers, making Bernstein's occasional angry outburst at (producer-curated) fan stupidity all the funnier.  Despite that attitude, he's spent many years wanting to dip his toes into the NPR waters but could never be taken seriously enough to do so.  Yet once he became a name associated with militant hatred against PSU/Paterno/Sandusky/Etc, I feel as if he couldn't stop waving that banner at every opportunity.  The subject has become his anthem, and while he's 100% correct about Penn State/et al., it definitely made him a worse broadcaster in the long run.

 

Anyways.

 

 

He also had that attitude about the Steve Alford situation:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJHthujGvpc

 

For those who don't remember, Alford was coach of Iowa in the early-00's. Around 2002, he had a player by the name of Pierre Pierce who sexually assaulted someone. Apparently, Alford found out that the victim was a Christian, and he (and a member of a Christian group) went to the lady to try to convince her that Jesus wouldn't want her to press charges or something.

 

Also, along with the above You Tube vid, there is this nugget from the Boers and Bernstein archive:

 

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/04/03/listen-steve-alfords-2003-interview-with-the-boers-bernstein-show/

[OnWis97]

200+ former coaches and players are pushing to bring the statue back.

 

I found the story on Facebook and it was refreshing to see most of the commenters seemed to get it. Once the Happy Valley faithful get wind, that'll probably change.

 

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-penn-state-joe-paterno-statue-20160705-snap-story.html

[BBTV]

That story is actually a week or more old.  I think ESPN.com had it up a few days or a week ago.

[CS85]

6 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

200+ former coaches and players are pushing to bring the statue back.

 

I found the story on Facebook and it was refreshing to see most of the commenters seemed to get it. Once the Happy Valley faithful get wind, that'll probably change.

 

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-penn-state-joe-paterno-statue-20160705-snap-story.html

 

Here's how the case should go:

 

PLAINTIFF:  We want this statue back because he's a great man and did football stuff well!

DEFENDANT:  He enabled a serial child rapist in full knowledge and tandem with other higher-ups of the institution at the time.

JUDGE:  Case dismissed, go to hell

[Cosmic]

5 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

200+ former coaches and players are pushing to bring the statue back.

 

I found the story on Facebook and it was refreshing to see most of the commenters seemed to get it. Once the Happy Valley faithful get wind, that'll probably change.

 

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-penn-state-joe-paterno-statue-20160705-snap-story.html

In defense of the guy that actually wrote the letter, it's not his fault he's been in a coma for the last five years: "Our program has always been one of integrity, honesty, and respect."

 

He was obviously in a coma, right? Nobody that's been following along the whole time could be THAT tone deaf.

[Viola73]

The statue NEEDS to go back up as Joe was the only one at PSU to actually do anything that could have put Sandusky away early.

But it shouldn't go up right now.

It needs to go up after the 3 administrators trials. 

THEN they can put Joe's statue back up and also put another statue on campus...one with the 3 administrators turning their heads away from a small boy.....those are the ones who really looked away AND tried to cover it up. 

FACT!

 

[Harmening]

45 minutes ago, Viola73 said:

The statue NEEDS to go back up as Joe was the only one at PSU to actually do anything that could have put Sandusky away early.

But it shouldn't go up right now.

It needs to go up after the 3 administrators trials. 

THEN they can put Joe's statue back up and also put another statue on campus...one with the 3 administrators turning their heads away from a small boy.....those are the ones who really looked away AND tried to cover it up. 

FACT!

 

 

Oh please.  The guy knew about this crap YEARS before it was exposed, and kept this creepy :censored:er on his staff with access to the school's buildings.