So the NCAA hammer came down hard on Penn State today, but the school did not get the "death penalty," which would have shut down the football program. Instead, the NCAA has made it essentially impossible for Penn State to compete for about a decade. It also vacated the school's victories since 1998, which is when Penn State should have turned in Jerry Sandusky.
There's a reason that the NCAA didn't shut down the program; it pays for essentially every other sport at the university. This is the open secret of collegiate sport, especially at the D-I level -- if you don't have a football program, you aren't going to have many other programs. Had Penn State had to shut down their football program, it would have made it impossible for the school to compete in all the other sports, men's and women's, that don't generate much revenue. Say goodbye to track and field, volleyball, swimming, wrestling and a whole lot more. The only sport that might be able to support itself at Penn State is men's basketball, although that has been a middling program at best.
So what the NCAA is asking the Penn State football program to do is simple -- be a wage slave. Never mind that nearly every other school in the Big Ten is going to kick Penn State's butt for the next decade -- just suit up a team and take your lumps. So what if Ohio State beats the Nittany Lions 58-0 one week and then Nebraska blasts them 45-7 the next. Maybe they'll beat Indiana here and there, but the rest of the Big Ten? Not so much. And the message to the Penn State program? Just accept the butt kickings and try to remember that your lumps are necessary to keep the field hockey team on the field.
It will be interesting to see what type of kid will even want to enroll at Penn State in the next four years, a period in which the school is limited to 65 scholarships and is ineligible for a bowl game. The best case scenario would be having a team with the talent level of a Mid-American Conference school -- think Eastern Michigan or Bowling Green; worst case would be the equivalent of a FBS program like Holy Cross or Colgate. Will the Penn State fans continue to pay top dollar to come to Beaver Stadium and watch a substandard program, just so it can subsidize fencing? We're about to find out.
10 comments:
dont dis fencing.
it was the only sport in which i could hold my own.
It will be interesting to see what type of kid will even want to enroll at Penn State in the next four years...
The first step is to see how many kids will stay at Penn State now that the NCAA has said transfers can play right away instead of having to sit out a year. I assume the program will be utterly and completely decimated by the start of this season, to say nothing of 2013 and beyond.
And it isn't just the NCAA that wants a "zombie program" earning income but not competing. The additional kicker was that the Big Ten stated that Penn State would not receive its division of bowl earnings split among the conference.
Sadly, I think the penalty will only deepen the denial of many of the Nittany faithful. I admit to being somewhat on the fence about how harsh to treat the school (penalties are traditionally about flouting on-field related rules), but after watching the "man on the street" interview during the removal of JoPa's statue on Sunday morning, I'm firmly on the side that the program and its followers aren't deserving of many tender NCAA mercies.
what are the chances Penn State will become reknowned as good place to get a solid education as opposed to playing football?
maybe its time to refocus?
college is supposed to build minds, right?
The first step is to see how many kids will stay at Penn State now that the NCAA has said transfers can play right away instead of having to sit out a year. I assume the program will be utterly and completely decimated by the start of this season, to say nothing of 2013 and beyond.
I do, too -- there are a lot of good football players at Penn State who will be getting a lot of phone calls soon.
Gino, two things:
1) I'm not dissing fencing, but it's not exactly going to sell out Beaver Stadium.
2) Maybe it's time to refocus? Hell yes, which is why I made the D-3 suggestion last week. Penn State could afford to field D-3 teams in most of the sports they offer if they didn't have the travel budgets that they have now.
If universities really had any interest in refocusing, they would streamline their operations using today's technology. Think about the possiblity of students across the country having access to the best professors, and students no longer being subject to rape by the univesity book stores as book costs plummet due to the use of electronic technology. We may see some of this drip in to the scene, but not the way it should.
The cost of a college education is perhaps the only other item that has risen in cost in rates commensurate with those of health care. Meanwhile University staffs across the country work 20 hour weeks for half of the year pretending that they are spending the other hours doing "research." This welfare for the educated, proves that it's not about education, it's about money and enriching the lifestyles of those who run the universities. Penn State happened as much because of the culture beyond sports, as it did because of the sports.
Perhaps the only thing that one can say about Big Sports Athletics is that they are more honest about the money. If this truly is time for reform, let's not stop at the Athletic Director's Offce!
Maybe to help them out, the NCAA should require all member schools to hold athletes to the same academic standards as all other students.
OK, we just took 30 lbs. off the offensive and defensive lines, didn't we?
What galls me most is the "erasing" of Penn State's victories. Either the NCAA keeps records of games or it doesn't. You don't go messing with official records without turning the whole book into a politically correct fable. Unless you can prove that those games were only won because of the sexual antics, those victories were won fair and square by the innocent bystanders making up those teams.
I say it's time to write down in the record books that the NCAA had nothing to do with college football since 1998.
J. Ewing
I wasn't sure how I felt about this until I heard Emmert's statement to the effect of (I'm paraphrasing) saying that Sandusky's crimes were covered up because of the culture of hero-worship and football uber alles at Penn State. As though this were at all unique to Penn State, and not cultivated by and profited from handsomely by none other than the NCAA itself.
The hypocrisy is stunning.
This is all about the NCAA asserting its relevance and giving Penn State something that they can point to as having done their penance. It's an attempt to close the books neatly and move on.
Frankly, I think neither the NCAA nor the Penn State community should get off that easily.
The brave thing for the NCAA to do really would have been to admit that there's nothing they can do after the fact to make up for the systemic failure and callous disregard for the victims that occurred.
The brave thing for the NCAA to do really would have been to admit that there's nothing they can do after the fact to make up for the systemic failure and callous disregard for the victims that occurred.
Couldn't agree more, Brian. This is an epic CYA for what is clearly a systemic problem.
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