Say it ain't so, Joe

[dfwabel]

Let's not forget that the Freeh Report has now placed all institutions of higher learning on alert for the behaviors of administration for the future, specifically dealing with minors on your campus.

The report did make light of issues which many of us who are sports fans or who have ever stepped on campus to look at athletic departments already knew. Athletic departments are very insular with little turnover from outside areas, and where staff members lived by their own rules. Nearly a decade ago, Vanderbilt was ridiculed when they combined their athletic department with other campus units as opposed to having it as an auxiliary corporation. That could have been the best move that Gordon Gee ever did.

[bosrs1]

Without their football program Penn State as a whole would be in deep trouble. It's what keeps the engine running.

Good. To keep up your analogy, the block just cracked in their engine. Time to get a new one.

[infrared41]

Without their football program Penn State as a whole would be in deep trouble. It's what keeps the engine running.

You really think so? Granted, the athletic dept. would be in a whole mess of trouble without football, but I think the college would be fine. I can't speak for Penn State, but if Ohio State shut down the football program tomorrow, the university would go on no problem. It's a giant state school with relatively cheap tuition. Kids are going to go to college there whether they have a football team or not.

[illwauk]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Penn State (along with Pitt and Temple) some sort of public-private hybrid institution?

Not that it takes anything away from 'red's point, which I agree with.

[IceCap]

Without their football program Penn State as a whole would be in deep trouble. It's what keeps the engine running.

You really think so? Granted, the athletic dept. would be in a whole mess of trouble without football, but I think the college would be fine. I can't speak for Penn State, but if Ohio State shut down the football program tomorrow, the university would go on no problem. It's a giant state school with relatively cheap tuition. Kids are going to go to college there whether they have a football team or not.

Ohio State didn't develop a creepy cult-like following around a football coach and his program though.

Financially speaking, I think Penn State will survive without the football program. They'll still get donations from the loyalists who refuse to admit anything unseemly happened. Kids will still apply and enrol if it offers them the best chance at university education.

The reasoning, to me anyway, for killing the Penn State football program isn't to cripple the institution financially. It's simply to punish wrongdoing. This is worse then letting a kid get free tattoos. This is worse then points shaving. This is perhaps the worst thing a university athletics program has ever done. It's a program that developed a cult of personality around its coach and managed to put itself into a position where it wielded unchecked power throughout the institution. That power, as we've now learned, was used to enable a serial rapist.

Pennsylvania State University, for lack of a better term, needs to be purged of its football program, Paterno's legacy, and the legacy of "influence" the program had within the University's administration. The school won't suffer financially, but that's not the point. The point is that a decade or decade and a half without Joe Paterno's program will only do good things for Pennsylvania State. Without that cancerous influence the school's administration can get their priorities straight. Heck, maybe the cult of personality around Paterno will fade without his program taking the field every season.

[nash61]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but we do have some concrete dollar figures.

According to Forbes, Penn State's football program was the biggest earner in the Big Ten in 2010 (most recent I could find), making $70 million, with $50 million of that as profit.

http://onwardstate.com/2011/02/02/penn-state-tops-big-ten-in-football-revenue/

[The_Admiral]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Penn State (along with Pitt and Temple) some sort of public-private hybrid institution?

Not that it takes anything away from 'red's point, which I agree with.

It's "state-related" as opposed to just "state," but no one's ever given me a good explanation as to just what that means. Let's ask wikipedia!

The Commonwealth System of Higher Education is the organizing body of Pennsylvania's "state-related" schools, which allows the independent control of the universities while supplying them with the public funds needed for operations at each institution. Universities in the System are considered public universities, but are under independent control rather than that of the state. Because of their independent status, universities in the Commonwealth System tend to have higher tuition costs compared to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. They are exempt from Pennsylvania's Open Records law except for a few minor provisions.

So basically just an imaginary technicality to exempt them from Open Records. That's convenient.

[njmeadowlanders]

Penn State needs to knock this down immediately! JoePa was not an educator, coach, nor a humanitarian. He was an enabler, a coward and a fraud.

And those players running behind him, if done today, would turn and sprint the other way.

Well he WAS a coach and I'm sure he educated people, but definitely wasn't a humanitarian. You can still be an awful human being and still be a coach or teacher.

Yes, it should be down, but no, it won't be.

Also, who at Penn State thought it was a good idea to change the channel? Did they think in the age of twitter and the internet that the report would get swept under the rug? Did they honestly not realize that they'd look even WORSE for doing so? That it's a microcosm of the problem in the first place? Even the Mets PR staff was like, really, come on...

I really hope someone calls me soon asking for a donation...I'd go bat .

[rams80]

Without their football program Penn State as a whole would be in deep trouble. It's what keeps the engine running.

You really think so? Granted, the athletic dept. would be in a whole mess of trouble without football, but I think the college would be fine. I can't speak for Penn State, but if Ohio State shut down the football program tomorrow, the university would go on no problem. It's a giant state school with relatively cheap tuition. Kids are going to go to college there whether they have a football team or not.

Ohio State didn't develop a creepy cult-like following around a football coach and his program though.

No. They developed a creepy cult-like following for 3 coaches. Paging Messers Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, and Jim Tressel to the white courtesy phone.

[njmeadowlanders]

Without their football program Penn State as a whole would be in deep trouble. It's what keeps the engine running.

You really think so? Granted, the athletic dept. would be in a whole mess of trouble without football, but I think the college would be fine. I can't speak for Penn State, but if Ohio State shut down the football program tomorrow, the university would go on no problem. It's a giant state school with relatively cheap tuition. Kids are going to go to college there whether they have a football team or not.

Ohio State didn't develop a creepy cult-like following around a football coach and his program though.

No. They developed a creepy cult-like following for 3 coaches. Paging Messers Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, and Jim Tressel to the white courtesy phone.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there'd still be English 101 tomorrow without a football team.

Do people not go to NYU anymore because they haven't had a football team since 1950-something?

Do people not go to Notre Dame anymore because they don't have a football team anymore? Wait, what?!!? They still do?!?!? Oh, I must've not noticed.

[Sport]

Penn State needs to knock this down immediately! JoePa was not an educator, coach, nor a humanitarian. He was an enabler, a coward and a fraud.

And those players running behind him, if done today, would turn and sprint the other way.

Well he WAS a coach and I'm sure he educated people, but definitely wasn't a humanitarian. You can still be an awful human being and still be a coach or teacher.

Yes, it should be down, but no, it won't be.

Also, who at Penn State thought it was a good idea to change the channel? Did they think in the age of twitter and the internet that the report would get swept under the rug? Did they honestly not realize that they'd look even WORSE for doing so? That it's a microcosm of the problem in the first place? Even the Mets PR staff was like, really, come on...

I really hope someone calls me soon asking for a donation...I'd go bat .

Did they really need to include the Nike swoosh on the uniforms? Talk about logo creep. That statue needs to be torn down. If it isn't, it should be open for vandalism. He blew it and doesn't deserve to have a statue anymore.

I kind of wish he was still alive so he could answer to this.

The changing the channel thing is still bothering me. A university employee, probably a long term one, clearly insulated from the beginning, took it upon themselves to do that without thinking about what it meant or the message it was sending. It shows that people in the community still don't get it.

[bosrs1]

Watching his son try to defend Paterno on ESPN is just painful. It's a shame Paterno is dead and not here to face the music for himself. His family shouldn't have to be defending his "legacy", destroyed as it is now.

[CS85]

As far as Paterno goes there is one very crude saying that fits his legacy perfectly. I've said it before and I'll say it again:

A man can build 1,000,000 bridges and f*** 1 goat. He won't be known as a bridgebuilder, he'll be known as a goatf***er.

Anything Paterno did for any team or any player is immediately counterfeit. Knock down the statues, paint over the murals.

Especially this one:

[Cujo]

Seeing Matt Millen and Jay Paterno dodge questions and deflect blame in a sorry attempt to protect whatever's left of JoePa's legacy would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.

[RyanB06]

For all of us wondering if the NCAA was going to get involved with this: They are.

[pmoehrin]

For all of us wondering if the NCAA was going to get involved with this: They are.

I'm pretty happy that they are because if they didn't they lose all remaining credibility of terms of being a governing body.

If the reasoning for the Jerry Sandusky coverup was to prevent the football program from looking bad, then the football program has to pony up their pound of flesh just like everyone else involved in this did or will.

[njmeadowlanders]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8160271/joe-paterno-legacy-penn-state-aftermath-freeh-report

Last November, as the worst month in my alma mater's history unfolded, a Penn State medical-school researcher named Craig Meyers went on the radio to detail a remarkable scientific discovery: He had discovered a potential cure for cancer. It went largely unnoticed, because Craig Meyers is a scientist and because no one associated with Penn State gave a good goddamn about science in that moment, because they were enveloped by football.

That's just the first paragraph but I strongly implore you to read the article in full. Very well said.

[IceCap]

Penn State needs to knock this down immediately! JoePa was not an educator, coach, nor a humanitarian. He was an enabler, a coward and a fraud.

And those players running behind him, if done today, would turn and sprint the other way.

Well he WAS a coach and I'm sure he educated people, but definitely wasn't a humanitarian. You can still be an awful human being and still be a coach or teacher.

Yes, it should be down, but no, it won't be.

Also, who at Penn State thought it was a good idea to change the channel? Did they think in the age of twitter and the internet that the report would get swept under the rug? Did they honestly not realize that they'd look even WORSE for doing so? That it's a microcosm of the problem in the first place? Even the Mets PR staff was like, really, come on...

I really hope someone calls me soon asking for a donation...I'd go bat .

Did they really need to include the Nike swoosh on the uniforms? Talk about logo creep.

Phil Knight, even AFTER the Freeh Report, is still going to bat for Paterno. Of course the Nike logo's there.

[rainmaker17]

Phil Knight is a creepy weirdo.

[cmm]

I read an article about reactions to the report on twitter. Someone tweeted F*** Sandusky for destroying Paterno's legacy. Uhm, no. JoePa did that on his own by enabling a child rapist. If he were alive today, Paterno would be facing perjury charges for lying to the grand jury.

I hate people.