Monday, July 23, 2012

Penn State. The NCAA gets it all wrong

There are those that would say certain individuals, politicians, cultures, some countries, and even entire religions are woefully behind the times. Yet all of them would appear to be millions of years ahead of the NCAA, which seems stuck in the Jurassic Period. Only a dinosaur would have a thick enough skull, and be brazen, or perhaps obtuse enough to have ignored the public clamor for a Division 1 college football playoff over the last couple decades.

These are the same people that just levied heavy penalties against Penn State for the whole sordid Jerry Sandusky child abuse calamity. Let's look at what they did.

The NCAA zapped Penn State with a $60 million fine. 4 years at $15 million a year, such monies to be given to some sort of child abuse fund in the future. Some have argued that because Penn State is endowed with roughly $2 billion, a measly $60 million isn't enough. While those people lash out in their short-sighted, indignant fury of vengeance, they miss the point. In T-Rex fashion, the NCAA just gobbled up the authority of civil courts. There can be little doubt many civil suits will be filed on behalf of Sandusky's "victims" over the years in the near future. Determining damages and picking a suitable monetary award for compensation is the purview of such courts -- not the NCAA. They had no business here. It was wrong.

The NCAA vacated all Penn State's football victories from 1998, supposedly when Sandusky committed his first offense, through 2011, just last year when the story exploded. Nothing was said about Penn State's losses over that same time frame. Do they stay on the record? Regardless, no argument has been raised that the football team somehow had an unfair advantage over those years while they were compiling their record. It's not like they had a few pros on the teams or they were all on steroids. They won (and lost) those games fair and square, and it had nothing to do with the current scandal. So why take away their record? What's next? Will the NCAA loot the trophy case at Penn State, sell all the goodies off to Pawn Stars, and go buy themselves new suits? I wouldn't put it past them. This is wrong.

Another sanction handed down by the NCAA is a 4 year post-season ban. No potential conference championship games, no bowls, etc. This not only unfairly penalizes the current innocent football players on the team, but reaches all the way down to the high school level. What about the prep stars that have dreamed and worked their whole life to play at Penn State, only to now discover they will never get the opportunity to play in a bowl game, much aspire to a national championship? How fair is that to THEM? It's not, and it's wrong.

The NCAA has further decreed that Penn State will lose 10 football scholarships a year over this period. On the surface, that would seem to be a minor matter. Then again, that's 10 innocent kids a year that would otherwise have had a "full-ride" scholarship being denied, certainly through no fault of their own.  Why should they get caught up in collateral damage? It's wrong.

Joe Paterno's record over those same years is going to be expunged as well. This is not only wrong -- it's stupid. Regardless of the current allegations against him, unproven as yet, I dare say, can any sane person question that he was the head coach of the teams that compiled that record? The NCAA can erase it on paper, but everybody will always know JoPa won more games than any other major college football coach. What should that have to do with Sandusky anyway? Nothing.

And here's the ultimate T-Rex arrogance and ignorance from the NCAA-----

They announced that after all criminal proceedings against anybody involved in the Penn State scandal were exhausted -- the NCAA reserved the right to punish them further. That goes beyond wrong, stupid, and enters the world of delusional. Let's look at some facts.

Joe Paterno's dead. Jerry Sandusky is never getting out of prison, at least alive. Graham Spanier, the ousted former president of Penn State, has claimed he had no knowledge of what was going on. So far, no one has disputed this. Ex-athletic director Tim Curley and ex-VP Gary Schultz of financial affairs in the Penn State football program currently find themselves under indictment and awaiting trial on charges of perjury in front of a grand jury, and being complicit with the whole sorry mess over the years.

Maybe they cut a plea bargain and maybe they go to trial. But what happens if they're acquitted? Nobody seems to have considered this possibility. The 5 main players will have all been accounted for. One dead, one in prison, one untouchable, and the other two found innocent in a court of law. What then?

Even if Curley and Schultz are found guilty, what can the NCAA possibly think it can do if and when they complete their "debt to society"? They certainly can't imprison them. Likewise, as private citizens, the NCAA would have no power to reach out and get into their wallets or other assets. Perhaps they could give them a lifetime ban from ever getting another job at any school under the NCAA umbrella. Yours truly isn't entirely sure even that would hold up under legal scrutiny if Curley, Schultz, and their legal representatives opted to pursue it.

In the end, it's like Murphy's Law. Everything the NCAA could have done wrong -- they did wrong.
They should have stayed out of it. It was never their business to start with.

No one knows, to a degree of absolute certainly, why the dinosaurs became extinct. Perhaps a meteor strike. Maybe it's time for the NCAA to suffer the same fate and pass into obsolescense. Surely, another wiser and more up-to-date system can be arranged to oversee college athletics.

Regardless of who it is and what form it takes, it can't possibly be any worse than the current clowns in charge.




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