That’s where I think Paterno and others definitely went wrong. Whether Sandusky was innocent or guilty, Paterno and others were fools to allow things to go on unchanged at that point — as events proved. I agree that this was much worse than ordinary sports infractions. I just don’t think the NCAA is the proper organization to handle it. The courts themselves have enough trouble doing so.
Penn State is going to be punished plenty. Almost any family who had a boy who was around Sandusky is going to be able to make an accusation against him and get a large amount of money from Penn State (and, in effect, from persons who had nothing to do with it).
I still think my serial killer analogy holds. Any bad news about a university can harm recruiting, I agree, but I don’t think everything bad is the business of the NCAA. If Sandusky had been a serial killer — and his good buddy Paterno suspected him but said nothing — that would have been much worse than a sports infraction. It wouldn’t give them a competitive advantage against other teams, though (unless he were killing the other team’s players, and Sandusky’s victims had nothing to do with other teams).
On the other hand, if Sandusky had been kept on the staff, and his ability used to win more games, that would have fallen within the NCAA’s jurisdiction. That didn’t happen, though. He was forced to retire when he first came under suspicion.
It’s not a matter of bad or worse, but of who should be judging it. I think what Paterno and some others did — or failed to do — especially after 2002, was inexcusable, but in my opinion that should be handled in the courts (and, as far as reputation goes, in the metaphorical courts of public opinion). The NCAA has no power of subpoena, and isn’t in a position to handle really serious accusations. I think having it jump in and make judgments about things not directly related to competition would trivialize them.
At the risk of putting words in your mouth I think the two points we disagree on are whether or not Penn State had an advantage as a result of the cover up, I believe they did, clearly you believe they didn’t and that leads us too the question of does the NCAA have authority to act? I think they do and you believe that it is strictly a criminal matter that is so far removed from normal NCAA matters that they should not be part of the process.
Presuming this is a fair summation and setting aside the matter of gain for a moment I would suggest that the crux of the matter is the question of the authority of the NCAA. I would suggest that the criminal actions at Penn State violated the NCAA Principle of Institutional Control and Responsibility. Clearly the football program was completely and totally out of control. There are only two organizations that can discipline the program, Penn State and the NCAA. Penn State is unwilling to do anything thing to alter football is king attitude. To be honest I wish Penn State would do the right thing: tear down Paterno’s statue, rip his name off the library and give his estate back the money he donated, forfeit all the games they won after the cover up, suspend their program for a couple of years themselves and ask that their players be allowed to transfer freely to other schools, pay the untainted coaches until they find other work, take all the money the team earned in the 14 years they covered things up and put that money in a fund to give to the abused boys. But they have show they won’t even take a tiny step like tearing down Paterno’s statue. Somebody has to send the message to schools that if they cover up serious crimes to benefit their cash cows, there are going to be terrible repercussions down the road. It seems the only organization that can fill that role is the NCAA. Will they actually step in and gore the gold cow that is Penn State football? I don’t know, but I really think somebody has to, and if it isn’t the NCAA who will it be? The next time a situation like this comes up I want the coach, president, vice presidents, and board to think, “We have to report this… we don’t want to end up like Penn State.” The punishment has to be that terrible. Not pay out one or two years of football earnings to the victims and act like nothing ever happened.