The officials at Penn State have removed a statue that honored Joe Paterno. In a move that Josef Stalin would have liked, the former hero of Penn State has been vanished. Much like Nikolai Yezhov was removed from a famous picture, Joe Paterno’s statue no longer resides in its spot of honor on the campus.
They did this after the testimony and evidence in the trial of Jerry Sandusky revealed that Paterno was aware of the allegations of child molestation/rape and had done nothing to prevent it. He evidently feared that his football program might be negatively impacted by the publicity. Gosh, football more important than raped children. Who would have guessed.
Last fall, when all of this rolled out into the public domain I took a lot of pummeling at the hands of big-time football fans. “Joe Pa is a great man, he wouldn’t be involved in this kind of thing!” I stuck to my guns because I had actually read the news and interviews. The spin was overwhelming about Paterno, but the fact remained that his football program prized titles over children.
I have just one thing to say to all of those people who valued a football program over a child’s welfare: I hope the program vanishes under sanctions for years to come. It will be sad for the students who don’t deserve to be punished, but Penn State makes a lot of money on that program. I’m quite sure that not only did Paterno and the Athletic Director know/suspect, but given the situation the fact that the upper administration let them have so much leeway needs to be dealt with as well.
So it’s time for the NCAA “death sentence” to be imposed on the athletic program. Maybe, hopefully, prayerfully, the next time somebody contemplates a cover up like this they’ll be dissuaded.
The children who were harmed will never be the same. The football program should suffer a similar fate. The student athletes should have a shot at another school, and the NCAA should waver them in any way that benefits the students if they go to another school. If they choose not to transfer, Penn State should be obligated to honor their scholarships as long as they are academically compliant. After all, they’re student athletes, right?
I graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1983 when there were a series of scandals in the athletic department in the years preceding and following my time at the school. The sense of isolation and superiority that they lavished on those kids (and I was a kid as well) corrupted many of them in ways too foul to even contemplate. The university’s response was to cover up, lie, and protect them with an occasional scape goat tethered outside Williams Arena. I will not contribute a penny to the institution to this day because of that entire system of athletic and administrative corruption. It was during a time when hallways went without mopping for days at a time, the campus was littered with trash and buildings crumbled while new athletic facilities were not just contemplated but built. (The eighties, in general, not just my time there.)
So, let’s get back to true student athletics. A good start for Penn State would be a complete overhaul of the system. And once they get started, perhaps all of the universities and colleges in the United States should spend 6 months reviewing their own programs. Not just for child molesters, but for a lack anything that the sports were originally meant to provide. I honestly don’t believe that most of the school sponsored sports provide an option for the students. Be honest with ourselves, pay the ones who play and give them free tuition to boot. Let’s quit kidding each other about the important funding that these activities bring in the door.
That’s a debate for another time. In the meantime, for the supporters of Joe Paterno who were positive that the whole thing was overblown, the words of the esteemed Nelson Muntz will suffice:
Oh, yeah… it’s not very Christian of me to condemn Paterno and Sandusky, but raping children is even less a part of the Christian world view.
