Thursday, November 24, 2011

Penn St (and their enablers in the media) still don't get the point. They talk about "letting the healing begin" as if the real victims here are Penn St football fans and that the damage that needs to be healed was done in the last few weeks. They clearly still see the destruction of a topflight football program to be worse than the molestation of some kids. They still don't get that their "football matters most" mentality is exactly what led to Sandusky being allowed to run amok. If those in charge had cared about kids more than they did about football, Sandusky would have been arrested years ago.

The Penn St community seems to have no idea how dangerously close they are to becoming an utter joke. The behavior of their athletic department has diminished the value of every Penn St degree. Now they've hired Louis Freeh to do their internal investigation. Freeh is unethical political hack who was known for twisting investigations to fit his own agenda while running the FBI. It's like hiring Jack Abramoff to investigate your own recruiting violations. This makes it obvious that protecting their football program is more important than justice and more importnat than the school as a whole.

University of San Francisco voluntarily eliminated their basketball program after a scandal that was nowhere near as big as this is. SMU did the same in football. They both understood that an out of control athletic department can make the entire school look bad and hurts every single grad. No one wants their degree to be associated solely with cheating in sports, and no one should want their degree to be associated in the public mind with covering up for pedophiles. Penn St needs to send the message that their school is not defined by their athletics, and the only way to do it at this late date is to turn down any bowl game offered,  forfeit all games from this year, and eliminate their football program. I'm sure the Big10 would work out a deal to allow them to sit out a few years then bring it back. If not, having no program at all would be preferable to having an out of control program bring dishonor to everything you stand for.