Penn St. hit hard

The Game Room
121

Paterno’s legacy is the most damaged here. I know its not a person, but he’s being reduced from saintly football god to 12th place also-ran in wins and coverup mastermind for child rape.

As for people, the sanctions obviously hurt Penn State students but its inevitable. The people who are most hurt by a suicide are the survivors, there’s no way to hurt the suicidee. However, again I’ll have to mention that those people are hurt only because they went to Penn State under false pretenses. Had the history of the school differed from 1998, many of them would not be here. And that’s what the sanctions are determined to fix

And that only hurts the football program, which should be hurt. You’re not convincing me that Penn State was punishment too severely with those statements. In fact, I applaud them. Their years of coverup and veneration for a football program over the safety of kids makes me want to see all their talent leave and only have crappy players on the field.

But we were talking about an analogy to cancer and death. In 5 years, some talent will return. In 10 years, PSU will arguably be almost as good as it was before 2012. The person isn’t being killed, he simply required treatment for a long time. And that is good for Penn State

122

This is the most insulting part to me because it implies that “bad” people who do great things should not have those actions remembered or counted. It’s just silly. Does the NCAA think so little of people that they can’t separate Paterno the man from Paterno the football coach? Do we pretend Nixon was never president now? Should OJ’s football records be erased? You can’t erase history, and trying to do so to make a point about a dead guy who not only can’t defend himself, but whose legacy has already been questioned, is frankly insulting to everyone.

123

NCAA says games didn’t exist..I got the metal plate in my neck to prove it did..I almost died playing 4 PSU..punishment or healing?!?

124

The NCAA isn’t the governing body of “Paterno the man.” They’re in charge of sports.

Oh please. We’re talking about sports here, not world history. You could argue that vacating wins is an affectation, but the NCAA recognized that it would be galling to memorialize Paterno as its most successful coach.

125

The Penn State player is wrong. (Surprise!) The NCAA doesn’t say the games didn’t exist. It says Penn State can’t take credit for the wins. It’s kind of nauseating to watch people whine like this. The Paterno family has been the worst, unsurprisingly. I think the low point was their comment about how taking the statue down didn’t do anything for the abuse victims. How would they know that, and who asked them for their opinion anyway? It’s not like Joe Paterno ever demonstrated any interest in the feelings of abuse victims until it was too late to matter.

126

Yes, but not in charge of history. It’s not their job to determine people’s legacies, or to rewrite history in order to punish someone.

HE IS THE MORT SUCCESSFUL COACH. At least in terms of wins. Why is that so hard to admit? Because we found out he is likely not such a good guy? Maybe you are okay with this kind of dystopian nonsense, but it is troubling to me. Yes, it’s not to the level of the presidency, but the OJ comparison is perfectly valid. Should his records be vacated? What about Michael Vick? What about Marvin Harrison? Ray Lewis? Why does doing this make any sense whatsoever?

127

It’s not like the NCAA just made up a bunch of nonsense about vacating wins for Paterno - it’s been a standard response to violations for years. The NCAA was probably thrilled to have it available just to get Paterno’s name off the top of the all-time wins list, but it’s neither unprecedented nor unusual.

128

Has any member of the Paterno family, in fact, ever spoken with any of the victims?

129

Edited: Oops, someone already asked this question (on whether a certain poster thinks Jerry Sandusky should’ve been acquitted). And… wow.

130

So the opinion of a player from a team whose efforts were vacated shouldn’t matter either. Gotcha. Just thought it was an interesting note to brickbacon’s post, not really a whine, but you’re the mod, not me. Call it what you want.

131

It’s not. So you are right in that some of my annoyance is just selective outrage. But the idea that this is a sound, rational thing to do just bothers me. I really don’t care about college football or PSU. But denying basic facts and history is something all people should be against as a general premise. What happened happened. No need to pretend it didn’t. We can read between the lines, and make our own decisions. Baseball doesn’t pretend Barry Bonds didn’t hit 762 homeruns just because he used drugs. They also don’t pretend Ty Cobb didn’t have a 40-game hitting steak because he was a huge SOB.

132

I have kept mostly silent on the PSU scandal. Mostly. I think the punishments are entirely appropriate. But can’t help think about the trickle effect on the scholarships. collateral damage if you will.

20 less scholarships is 20 less kids getting a scholarship, or 40 kids getting a half scholarship. somewhere.

That Blue-Chipper from Scranton is still going to get his full ride somewhere, but not Penn St. He is going to go to Pitt or Michigan, or WVU or somewhere. And that means a prospect at that school is not getting a scholarrship but he will get one at Temple or Maryland. And so on.

It will take several iterations, but someone down the line is not going to get a scholarship at Kent St or Univ of Buffalo or some other smaller school.

The 60 Million dollar fne? I would love to see the paper trail on that money.

133

I am not sure if “Great” is the word that I would use. That kid is going to take away a scholarship from another kid.

Collateral Damage.

134

No, definitely not. But they’re in charge of the NCAA record books and they have some control over how the schools pitch themselves, and that’s what they are exerting here. They’ve used this punishment plenty of times before, mostly for eligibility violations. Objectively it is silly because you can’t change the past, but in this case it doesn’t bother me. So Penn State can’t take credit for some games it won while covering up for Jerry Sandusky. Suits me.

Their bylaws say something different.

Le coach, c’est mort!

Troubling? Please. “Troubling” is a word that should be reserved for things like covering up for a child rapist and presenting yourself to the public as a holy man and patron saint of the church of college football. What the NCAA does bizarre, but since they long ago established that they could vacate wins, it makes internal sense that they would do it here. Paterno can’t get the fuck-you he deserves, which would involve seeing his statue taken down and his wins vacated and then facing charges for lying to a grand jury, so this will have to do. I really can’t spare any “troubled”-ness for this. The NCAA does a lot of ridiculous things, so I can’t spare them editing their record books to disadvantage a man who put so much effort into building a lie about how saintly he was.

Penn State’s leaders lied to avoid the fallout of a sacndal, and the record books say they can’t take credit for that. They can’t forfeit all the money they made from those years, so they’re doing this.

That’s up to the victims and I doubt they would want to talk to the Paternos. In any event the family has been wasting most of its breath apologizing for Joe Paterno to the tune of “He said he was sorry, now can we go back to pretending he was a great man?” It’s fitting in a way.

I didn’t say his opinion shouldn’t matter. I said he has his facts wrong, which he does, and I said Joe Paterno never did anything to demonstrate that he cared about those kids, which is true.

It’s interesting about Taliaferro, though. For those who don’t remember (I had to look it up), he was a Penn State football player whose neck was broken during a game in 2000. I wonder if it bothers him that he fell for the Paterno lies. He was a player briefly and then became a student assistant coach, so he got to spend a lot of time with the guy. Do you think he’s angry, or is he just doubling down on the lie because the truth hurts? I see that he is on the Penn State board of trustees now (he was elected earlier this year). I see more Penn State boosterism in his Twitter feed than I see honest reckoning with what’s happened, but that’s just twitter. If he deals with this stuff honestly, he’ll prove he’s a better man than his coach was.

135

As a practical matter, you can pencil in Wisconsin to make a repeat appearance in the Big 10 title game. With PSU and OSU both ineligible, that just about cinches the Leaders title for them, unless you think Illinois, Purdue, or Indiana are about to have a surge.

136

Oh, I know. I wouldn’t want to talk to them either (the Paternos).

I guess I was just wondering if they’d ever expressed any interest in the victims’ perspective.

137

And they are GIVEN that power by the schools because they are supposed to be impartial stewards who report history accurately. They are clearly not doing that.

Never for anything like this though.

Not really. You can parse them that way if you’d like, but given that they have never sought to exercise power of this kind indicates to me that a fair reading doesn’t clearly delineate they do have that power.

Stop the bullshit right now. You know this is not an either or thing. Nobody is defending their actions. You trying to shut down debate is this way is beneath you (or so I would have thought).

So you are defending this on the grounds of foolish consistency? I guess that makes sense :dubious: Even so, you are ignoring that PSU wins are not only about Paterno. The TEAM won those games. Why should the TEAM’S legacy be questioned as a means of hurting Paterno?

138

I would imagine emails by alums or boosters have already been circulated about a fund-raising campaign. I wonder if they’ll get the whole 60, though.

139

We will win it outright anyway. (As in the Royal ‘we’)

Yes, it is too bad that Penn State’s football program and legacy are taking a hit, but guess what. There are plenty of schools that survive on mediocre football for long stretched of time, hell some schools have terrible football all the time (Indiana), it hardly matters. Why? Because a school’s identity should not be so tied up in its football program, that is a problem. And it is not a problem unique to Penn State, for sure. But the truth is Penn State has a very loyal alumni base, is actually a pretty damn good academic institution and will still sell out Beaver Stadium.

140

Gangster-You don’t feel Indiana’s indentity was tied up basketball for most of the last 40 years? :dubious: