I’m
a former college athlete. In fact, athletics paid for a large portion of my
education and for that, I am forever grateful. I loved playing and to get an
education in exchange for playing the game I loved at a high level hardly
seemed an even trade. Don’t get me wrong, it was extremely difficult at times—going
to lift at about the same time other students were just getting back to the
dorms after a night out, classes all day followed by practice followed by a
three hour chemistry lab, starting the day at 6AM and not ending until 10:30PM
three nights a week for four years, missing classes for road games, taking a Virology
final on which my graduation hinged in a hotel room at Hofstra during the
conference tournament (thank you for passing me, Dr. Simmons!). But in the end,
I definitely got the better end of the deal. Non-athletes who blindly assert that
athletes have it easy know nothing about the commitment it takes to be a
college athlete and I put no credence into their uninformed claims. It may be
true in some cases, but the vast majority of student athletes don’t play for
big time FBS schools or in big time basketball programs. The vast majority of
athletes are just doing what they love and if they’re very lucky, they get an
education paid for in exchange for their talent. Athletics holds a unique value to a person's education and life that you can't get from anything else.
With
this primer, my criticisms on college sports pertain to the overinflated
programs that exist solely as farm programs for the NFL or NBA, the schools
whose very identification and existence depend on its football program—the schools
where the institution of athletics has become more important than ethics and
basic human decency. Penn State has of late become the poster child for
protecting the institution at all costs. The school is the definition of
institutional hegemony gone berserk.
The
NCAA isn’t exactly a clean organization, itself. The organization is all about
making money and not about the student athlete as it likes to advertise. But
the corruption of the NCAA isn’t the point here. In the case of Penn State, the
NCAA got this one right and for that, they should be recognized. You can’t say
with a straight face that the NCAA can come down on institutions for giving
free cars, houses, texting, etcetera, and not come down on an institution that
harbored a child rapist.
The worst criminal in this whole melodrama is
the child rapist, Jerry Sandusky. The Penn State punishment isn’t about him. He’s
been convicted and will serve his time (hopefully to be given the same respect
by his fellow convicts that he gave his child victims). But the leadership at
Penn State was essentially complicit in the cover up of his disgusting crimes, according
to the Freeh report (and to those Nittany
Lion faithful who are absurdly claiming that Joe Paterno was just a football
coach—get real and stop lying. You know better).
Why
the cover up? To avoid bad publicity. Well ain’t karma a bitch?
To see students in tears over NCAA sanctions, to hear an alumni compare the punishment to 9/11, to hear other coaches defending Joe Paterno not only shows just how deep the institutional
mentality runs, but it’s insulting to human decency and it’s especially
insulting to Jerry Sandusky’s child victims. That there are those in Happy
Valley who are more concerned with the reputation of Penn State and Joe Paterno
and his wins record is simply offensive.
No
matter how much good you may have done in your life, covering up the rape of
children and allowing it to continue, allowing a child rapist access to a venue
to commit their crime for more than a decade wipes out all of that good. That’s
the trump card. Protecting a pedophile in order to save face and safeguard an
institution will always outweigh any good you’ve done in life.
So
to those who say that it’s unfair that an innocent community and innocent
students are being punished—that is the result when the walls finally come
crashing down on the institution that's become too big to fail…collateral damage. But your blame is misplaced.
Instead of blaming those who handed out the punishment, blame those who created
this culture at Penn State where covering up child rape was deemed necessary to
protect the institution. Instead of blind allegiance, spit out the Kool-Aid and
try honest discrimination. Who is really at fault here? Is it the NCAA or the
over-empowered, arrogant, and hypocritical leaders at Penn State who the put
bottom line ahead of the safety of children?
The
situation at Penn State University will forever serve as the greatest example
of what can go wrong when sports becomes too big. Joe Paterno was a God in
Happy Valley and, mind bogglingly enough, he always will be to those who drank
the Kool Aid. Had Paterno (et al) lived up to his own standard of “success with
honor” and turned in Sandusky when he learned of what was going on then he
might have earned his status. Instead, his lack of action showed how small of a
man he really was. And this is the problem with the American culture of hero
worship.
The
question remains if the NCAA’s Penn State decision will serve to redefine the culture
of college sports. Institutions should always hold education in higher regard
than its athletics programs. Unfortunately athletic programs have become too
big to fail at the institutions where the university has become synonymous with
its football program. And now the price has been revealed—an institution willing
to cover up child rape to protect its bottom line. It’s a money-driven culture
and now colleges are going to need to ask themselves if they’re willing to take
a little off their bottom lines. And we, the American public, are going to need to
ask ourselves what we're willing to accept from our beloved teams in the
name of winning.
