Penn State Sanctioned Life Without Parole

We have heard from the NCAA, Penn State university officials, the criminal justice system,  sports journalists, political pundits, and twitter commentary.   Rare voices in this tragedy are current or former students, faculty, or staff of the Penn State University community.  With the exception of the protests that occurred after Joe Paterno was fired, the Penn State community has remained virtually silent on the heinous acts that occurred on their campus.  For this reason, I fully support the NCAA imposing harsh sanctions on the football program.  Whether or not the NCAA is appropriately situated in this tragedy is the least of my concerns.  Ultimately, I am in support of any institution that has the power to speak on behalf of those violated imposing sanctions.  Joe Paterno, university officials, or even the justice system certainly did not, so why would we trust them to do so now.      

The most pressing argument against the sanctions is mostly due to the perceived hypocrisy of the NCAA claiming jurisdiction on the moral and cultural issues of its member institution.  One could argue that the NCAA’s commercialized culture of college sports is a direct contradiction to the expectation that its member institutions place academics over profits.  In my opinion, the sanctions were directly in line with how the NCAA governs; money over the best interest of the student-athletes.  We are glad that the student-athletes have an opportunity to transfer without penalty, however make no mistake about it; many of these players will be left to live through the aftermath of the sanctions imposed.  Transferring programs is not an easy task, and many of the less touted players will probably be forced to remain at Penn State and endure this punishment.  The NCAA being the wrong person to impose the sanctions should have no correlation to whether or not the football program deserved these sanctions to be placed on them.  If not the NCAA, who?  The more important question is what mechanisms are being put in place to help the student-athletes cope with the reality of their new intercollegiate athletic experience.  Falling from grace is not an easy burden to bear!    

       

When we talk about the culture of sports, the word that first comes to my mind is "Loyalty". My alma mater even has a fight song that bears this title.  The problem with the culture of loyalty in sports is similar to "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong". The institution of sports has no loyalty to its athletes or fans but socializes its audiences and players to be loyal to sports. The fact is the capitalistic nature of sports is a serious barrier for sporting institutions. A coach’s primary responsibility becomes winning because he wants to keep his job so that he can feed his family. It's survival of the “winningest”.  The evidence that this culture persists in the wake of the NCAA sanctions is the concern that Paterno is not the only person punished by wins being vacated; the athletes who played in those games are affected also.  My concern is not with the general sense of loyalty in sporting institutions, as it is more disconcerting that this loyalty often leads to college cover-ups.  In these situations, no one wins.