Big day today. Blog Duke of Glocester Mike had the initial reaction today and made some very good points about a private entity handcuffing a public body. Here's some more writers I liked today.
1) Dave Zirin spent most of yesterday preparing to be angry, and his column today doesn't disappoint. Particularly useful is his discussion of the NCAA's move into criminal law- the only real "unprecedented" thing in this situation.
2) Drew Magary excoriates the NCAA for brand management disguised as protecting its values.
3) Travis Waldron reminds us that Penn State did this because of a reverence for football- a reverence the NCAA has encouraged for years.
4) The Hang Up and Listen guys are dismissive of the "extra-legal" concerns- but are also very skeptical that the NCAA will take any other action to rein in runaway football programs.
5) For my part: Penn State deserved to be punished. I was nervous about collective punishment, but I also didn't know how you successfully targeted the program without hurting students, athletes, or other low-men-on-the-totem-pole (hot dog vendors and such). I was also nervous about scapegoating; Penn State was, as we've said before, kind of a symptom of college football's larger problems, and we can't act like punishing it solves those problems. But: Penn State did screw up, horribly so. And I've got no problem in making it account for that.
I'm concerned that the NCAA was the wrong body to do it. Like Mike said, it's hinky for a private entity to handcuff a public body. Like Waldron said, the NCAA is morally complicit here. Plus, the NCAA had to abandon its usual rules and procedures to get here. And I can't shake the feeling that continued criminal action would have been much better targeted. But, Mike's point about the NCAA's moral obligation is well-taken; I think I would have been satisfied with NCAA action so long as it had followed its normal procedures. As it stands, though, I'm uncomfortable.
Then, there's the fact that I'm pretty unimpressed with the punishment. The money is the eye-catching thing, but the alumni and boosters will ride to the rescue there. The postseason probably wasn't a factor for a few years anyway, and the loss of prestige will be forgotten as soon as Penn State posts a winning record and ESPN trips over itself to tell the story of Penn State' return to honor. Vacating wins? Just silly. Scholarships hurt, but it's the exact kind of hurt that football programs usually pass on to the students. Meanwhile, this is still collective punishment, the very thing I was worried about, and the NCAA's mandate that athletes be given free transfers- while entirely necessary- is going to set off an ugly recruiting derby that's going to remind you of every thing you hate about college football- as if you needed another reminder here.
So, it's kinda like the NCAA gave us the worst of both worlds- it assumed too much power to deliver too little punishment, and preserved all the worst impulses of the sport in the process.
Showing posts with label Penn State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Penn State. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Crime and Punishment
Well the hammer has been dropped. Penn State faces massive sanctions from the NCAA, and while most people are avoiding use of the term "death penalty", PSU is going to be set back as a football contender for quite some time.
First, a couple thoughts on that:
1) ESPN's 30 for 30 series did an episode on SMU's receipt of the death penalty, and discussed (even showed) how other schools' coaches descended on campus like a flock of vultures to snap up talented players as a result of lifted transfer restrictions. So [a] it will probably happen again, and [b] let's not wax too poetic in our concern for the current crop of players
2) PSU will eventually bounce back. There are key differences between PSU and SMU, namely that one is a public university that operates as a state flagship while the other was a private institution, founded by the Methodist Church. SMU was never one of the biggest schools in its state, being dwarfed in physical size and enrollment by the University of Texas and Texas A&M. Penn State has a deeper history, a larger alumni base, and tuition rates that are roughly half of SMU's. Why is that important? Between state pride, family history, and Penn State being twice as affordable they should have an easier time finding players that could be motivated to attend without receiving a scholarship. SMU's rise to prominence was due to the activities that got them sanctioned. PSU's history of athletic success is separate from the events that led to their sanctions.
Now onto what I really want to talk about: whether this was a legitimate exercise of power by the NCAA.
In my post yesterday I already discussed my issue with the curtailing of NCAA standard due process. I still stand by everything I said there, but that being said, I do support the NCAA handing down sanctions. The particular sanctions in this case may border on moronic at times.
Vacating wins? As blog overlord Craig points out, did they just vacate this blog post of Craig live-blogging a game between Penn State and Illinois? I mean, fans who watched those games did not just have their memories wiped like a Philip K. Dick protagonist. Though this may affect Joe Pa's inclusion on the all-time wins list, and I'm okay with that. If CBS doesn't put him up there at all, rather than put him up there with an asterisk, I think it's no less than his legacy deserves.
Reduction in scholarships? This arguably punishes players more than the school. My responses: [a] see point (1) above about other schools picking up players. [b] It's hard to imagine almost any punishment that could be both effective and not impact negatively on players. I agree that any reduction in any one school's available scholarships is a loss to affordable education at large, and going forward I would like to see some kind of system in place where scholarships lost to one athletic program as a result of its malfeasance maybe simply shift elsewhere. As Craig pointed out yesterday, Title IX opponents love to cite college wrestling as a casualty. Well, why couldn't we shift those 10 scholarships a year over to create a wrestling team? (This is an honest question in that I don't actually know the mechanics of Title IX and NCAA scholarships).
The fines and bowl bans I am utterly fine with. Ultimately those hit the university where it counts: the wallet. Football got to be king on the basis of the money it brings in. A school could have the best water polo team in the country, but that coach won't get paid more than the university president, nor have more power. It all comes down to money. However a one time fine, no matter how high, wouldn't be sufficient. The university could swallow its medicine, cut a check, and go right back to hitting up boosters for donations. A bowl ban not only costs money, it costs prestige, which down the line costs even more money.
Now, ESPN is also reporting that a former infraction committee chair is calling into question the legitimacy of the NCAA's actions here in basically policing bad/criminal behavior, and not just behavior that impacts the competition on the field.
To that I say: so what. Again, while I think the NCAA should stand by its normal due process, it's a separate argument to say they have a moral or professional duty to "stay out of it". Isn't that what got us here to begin with? The idea that "what happens on the field and what happens off the field never shall meet" is precisely why Penn State's in this position. Furthermore, if the NCAA does nothing to Penn State after levying sanctions against Ohio State for players selling jerseys, or USC for Reggie Bush's family receiving gifts, then aren't they tacitly adopting a position that players making extra cash on the side is somehow worse for college athletics than coaches and school officials actively concealing heinous crimes?
Whether or not college players should be paid is a separate issue that we've already addressed and will probably return to at some point, but I will gladly stake out my position that player compensation ranks lower on the scale of moral reprehensibility than active concealment of child abuse. Whatever the penalties levied, whatever process arrived at those penalties, I stand firmly in support of the idea that the NCAA had a moral obligation to address this issue, that their legitimacy would in fact be more damaged by sticking their head in the sand and saying "as long as no students got some extra cash in their pockets, it's not our problem."
There is still a legitimacy problem, though, in that ultimately the NCAA is a private organization, and it just took unprecedented action to harm the financial status of a public institution. The people of Penn State voted to endow a public university, and they continue to support it through taxes. Now a private board they had no democratic stake in has stepped in to cripple that institution. Penn State answers to Pennsylvania taxpayers, but the NCAA does not. The NCAA barely answers to Congress and had at least two Supreme Court Justices feeling it doesn't answer to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
The NCAA, in theory, operates on the consent of the governed, but it is still a private body that is wielding powers akin to a sovereign, and doing so over institutions that are otherwise, at least partly, publicly financed. That it did so in this case in contradiction of its own due process makes it even more disturbing, but I have a feeling that point will get lost in the discussion of the impact on Penn State specifically. The Freeh Report was our answer to how Penn State got here, the NCAA just told us where Penn State is headed. But as the dust clears maybe it's time for Congress to ask how the NCAA got here, and where it is headed.
First, a couple thoughts on that:
1) ESPN's 30 for 30 series did an episode on SMU's receipt of the death penalty, and discussed (even showed) how other schools' coaches descended on campus like a flock of vultures to snap up talented players as a result of lifted transfer restrictions. So [a] it will probably happen again, and [b] let's not wax too poetic in our concern for the current crop of players
2) PSU will eventually bounce back. There are key differences between PSU and SMU, namely that one is a public university that operates as a state flagship while the other was a private institution, founded by the Methodist Church. SMU was never one of the biggest schools in its state, being dwarfed in physical size and enrollment by the University of Texas and Texas A&M. Penn State has a deeper history, a larger alumni base, and tuition rates that are roughly half of SMU's. Why is that important? Between state pride, family history, and Penn State being twice as affordable they should have an easier time finding players that could be motivated to attend without receiving a scholarship. SMU's rise to prominence was due to the activities that got them sanctioned. PSU's history of athletic success is separate from the events that led to their sanctions.
Now onto what I really want to talk about: whether this was a legitimate exercise of power by the NCAA.
In my post yesterday I already discussed my issue with the curtailing of NCAA standard due process. I still stand by everything I said there, but that being said, I do support the NCAA handing down sanctions. The particular sanctions in this case may border on moronic at times.
Vacating wins? As blog overlord Craig points out, did they just vacate this blog post of Craig live-blogging a game between Penn State and Illinois? I mean, fans who watched those games did not just have their memories wiped like a Philip K. Dick protagonist. Though this may affect Joe Pa's inclusion on the all-time wins list, and I'm okay with that. If CBS doesn't put him up there at all, rather than put him up there with an asterisk, I think it's no less than his legacy deserves.
Reduction in scholarships? This arguably punishes players more than the school. My responses: [a] see point (1) above about other schools picking up players. [b] It's hard to imagine almost any punishment that could be both effective and not impact negatively on players. I agree that any reduction in any one school's available scholarships is a loss to affordable education at large, and going forward I would like to see some kind of system in place where scholarships lost to one athletic program as a result of its malfeasance maybe simply shift elsewhere. As Craig pointed out yesterday, Title IX opponents love to cite college wrestling as a casualty. Well, why couldn't we shift those 10 scholarships a year over to create a wrestling team? (This is an honest question in that I don't actually know the mechanics of Title IX and NCAA scholarships).
The fines and bowl bans I am utterly fine with. Ultimately those hit the university where it counts: the wallet. Football got to be king on the basis of the money it brings in. A school could have the best water polo team in the country, but that coach won't get paid more than the university president, nor have more power. It all comes down to money. However a one time fine, no matter how high, wouldn't be sufficient. The university could swallow its medicine, cut a check, and go right back to hitting up boosters for donations. A bowl ban not only costs money, it costs prestige, which down the line costs even more money.
Now, ESPN is also reporting that a former infraction committee chair is calling into question the legitimacy of the NCAA's actions here in basically policing bad/criminal behavior, and not just behavior that impacts the competition on the field.
To that I say: so what. Again, while I think the NCAA should stand by its normal due process, it's a separate argument to say they have a moral or professional duty to "stay out of it". Isn't that what got us here to begin with? The idea that "what happens on the field and what happens off the field never shall meet" is precisely why Penn State's in this position. Furthermore, if the NCAA does nothing to Penn State after levying sanctions against Ohio State for players selling jerseys, or USC for Reggie Bush's family receiving gifts, then aren't they tacitly adopting a position that players making extra cash on the side is somehow worse for college athletics than coaches and school officials actively concealing heinous crimes?
Whether or not college players should be paid is a separate issue that we've already addressed and will probably return to at some point, but I will gladly stake out my position that player compensation ranks lower on the scale of moral reprehensibility than active concealment of child abuse. Whatever the penalties levied, whatever process arrived at those penalties, I stand firmly in support of the idea that the NCAA had a moral obligation to address this issue, that their legitimacy would in fact be more damaged by sticking their head in the sand and saying "as long as no students got some extra cash in their pockets, it's not our problem."
There is still a legitimacy problem, though, in that ultimately the NCAA is a private organization, and it just took unprecedented action to harm the financial status of a public institution. The people of Penn State voted to endow a public university, and they continue to support it through taxes. Now a private board they had no democratic stake in has stepped in to cripple that institution. Penn State answers to Pennsylvania taxpayers, but the NCAA does not. The NCAA barely answers to Congress and had at least two Supreme Court Justices feeling it doesn't answer to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
The NCAA, in theory, operates on the consent of the governed, but it is still a private body that is wielding powers akin to a sovereign, and doing so over institutions that are otherwise, at least partly, publicly financed. That it did so in this case in contradiction of its own due process makes it even more disturbing, but I have a feeling that point will get lost in the discussion of the impact on Penn State specifically. The Freeh Report was our answer to how Penn State got here, the NCAA just told us where Penn State is headed. But as the dust clears maybe it's time for Congress to ask how the NCAA got here, and where it is headed.
Friday, July 13, 2012
The Freeh Report
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh released his comprehensive report on the Penn State situation yesterday. It's fair to say that it doesn't draw any new conclusions- we already knew that Penn State used its institutional power to cover for Sandusky, and we already knew that Joe Paterno's role- whether one of active participation or willful ignorance- was enough to give the lie to his public image. But if the conclusions aren't new, there's still value, here; there is a value in laying out all the details, sordid as they may be, and in producing one primary source summing up the whole horrid affair. It puts everything in context, and gives us a good starting point to understand what happened.
(I say just a "starting point" because the report excludes some important information. Most notably, as Dave Zirin points out, the report is mostly silent on former PA Attorney General- and current PA Governor- Tom Corbett's role. Even if Corbett was ultimately in the clear, it was still worth discussing. But Zirin covers that; I'm talking about something else here.)
That context reveals, frankly, that Penn State isn't all that dissimilar from any other school with a big-time football program. Now, let's be clear, cheating athletes out of money and devoting too many public resources to football is not morally equivalent to covering for a child molester; both are bad, but the second is clearly far more intense. But they do have the same root causes; an over-dependence on college football, especially the money and prestige it brings in, and a blind desire to protect that program.
I'm not saying Nick Saban or Les Miles would try to cover up a crime committed by their defensive coordinators.But they do feel intense pressure to make bad decisions in the name of "protecting the program"- demanding more money than the school can afford, pushing athletes into easy, useless classes, accepting and endorsing the "student-athlete" system that deprives athletes of just compensation. And when they do these things, it puts pressure up and down the administrative chain at the school, so that athletic directors, school Presidents, even Boards of Trustees are pushed into the same bad decisions. It's not the same as committing an outright crime, but it comes from the same place.
What's more, the romantic "molding boys into men" narrative of college football creates a cognitive dissonance that makes fans, alumni, and students blind to these problems, or at least dreadfully slow to react to them. Penn State fans are having so much trouble understanding the depth of Paterno's culpability here because it's hard to reconcile that with his original image. And that's in the wake of an intense and horrible crime and documentation that is all but unimpechable. When it's a more mundane evil, like a recruitment violation or the NCAA/conference system cabal, it's going to be all but invisible to fans who are conditioned to think of their coach as a virtuous champion.
Fortunately, there's a lot we fans can do to relieve some of this pressure and clear up the cognitive dissonance. First of all, if we're alumni, we can stop making our money contingent on the football team, and stop giving directly to the athletic department. That's easy for me 'cause I don't have money, but if you're rich and reading this, it's not hard for you, either; donate to the school's general fund, or the English department, or me. Or, at very least, stop picking up the phone and raising hell after every losing season.
We can also, as fans, just try not to be pricks so much. Cheering for the team is great; pep rallys are awesome, spontaneously rushing the field or taking to the streets after a win is amazing. But rioting after a loss just makes you an asshole. Locking arms with a coach or player when you know he's done something wrong makes you a twat. These guys are human, they're going to fuck up. You're not a worse fan for noting when they do. You're actually better because you're expecting more of them.
Finally, we can let the penny drop on the "leadership" qualities of college football coaches and athletic administrators. They're not there to turn a bunch of high school kids into Medal of Honor winners, they're there to win football games. And that's an incredibly hard job with a lot of pressure pushing them in a lot of different ways. None of them are Ghandi; none of them are hired to be Ghandi, and really, none of us want them to be Ghandi (Ghandi always always ALWAYS got fooled into committing too much to the pass rush). The sooner we acknowledge and accept all of that, the better.
Because treating these guys as if they're something more than just guys with hard jobs in the public eye is how Penn State got into it's mess. And again, it's not always going to turn out that, but it's always going to raise the risks of bullshit. If we can decrease the risk of all the bullshit, including horrors like Jerry Sandusky, well, there's no reason not to try.
(I say just a "starting point" because the report excludes some important information. Most notably, as Dave Zirin points out, the report is mostly silent on former PA Attorney General- and current PA Governor- Tom Corbett's role. Even if Corbett was ultimately in the clear, it was still worth discussing. But Zirin covers that; I'm talking about something else here.)
That context reveals, frankly, that Penn State isn't all that dissimilar from any other school with a big-time football program. Now, let's be clear, cheating athletes out of money and devoting too many public resources to football is not morally equivalent to covering for a child molester; both are bad, but the second is clearly far more intense. But they do have the same root causes; an over-dependence on college football, especially the money and prestige it brings in, and a blind desire to protect that program.
I'm not saying Nick Saban or Les Miles would try to cover up a crime committed by their defensive coordinators.But they do feel intense pressure to make bad decisions in the name of "protecting the program"- demanding more money than the school can afford, pushing athletes into easy, useless classes, accepting and endorsing the "student-athlete" system that deprives athletes of just compensation. And when they do these things, it puts pressure up and down the administrative chain at the school, so that athletic directors, school Presidents, even Boards of Trustees are pushed into the same bad decisions. It's not the same as committing an outright crime, but it comes from the same place.
What's more, the romantic "molding boys into men" narrative of college football creates a cognitive dissonance that makes fans, alumni, and students blind to these problems, or at least dreadfully slow to react to them. Penn State fans are having so much trouble understanding the depth of Paterno's culpability here because it's hard to reconcile that with his original image. And that's in the wake of an intense and horrible crime and documentation that is all but unimpechable. When it's a more mundane evil, like a recruitment violation or the NCAA/conference system cabal, it's going to be all but invisible to fans who are conditioned to think of their coach as a virtuous champion.
Fortunately, there's a lot we fans can do to relieve some of this pressure and clear up the cognitive dissonance. First of all, if we're alumni, we can stop making our money contingent on the football team, and stop giving directly to the athletic department. That's easy for me 'cause I don't have money, but if you're rich and reading this, it's not hard for you, either; donate to the school's general fund, or the English department, or me. Or, at very least, stop picking up the phone and raising hell after every losing season.
We can also, as fans, just try not to be pricks so much. Cheering for the team is great; pep rallys are awesome, spontaneously rushing the field or taking to the streets after a win is amazing. But rioting after a loss just makes you an asshole. Locking arms with a coach or player when you know he's done something wrong makes you a twat. These guys are human, they're going to fuck up. You're not a worse fan for noting when they do. You're actually better because you're expecting more of them.
Finally, we can let the penny drop on the "leadership" qualities of college football coaches and athletic administrators. They're not there to turn a bunch of high school kids into Medal of Honor winners, they're there to win football games. And that's an incredibly hard job with a lot of pressure pushing them in a lot of different ways. None of them are Ghandi; none of them are hired to be Ghandi, and really, none of us want them to be Ghandi (Ghandi always always ALWAYS got fooled into committing too much to the pass rush). The sooner we acknowledge and accept all of that, the better.
Because treating these guys as if they're something more than just guys with hard jobs in the public eye is how Penn State got into it's mess. And again, it's not always going to turn out that, but it's always going to raise the risks of bullshit. If we can decrease the risk of all the bullshit, including horrors like Jerry Sandusky, well, there's no reason not to try.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
The Sandusky Verdict
It's okay to think that this is what justice looks like.
I'm going to add my voice to the many, many people saying that this can't end here; Penn State officials like Graham Spanier have already been shown the door, and that's good, but they may have seriously run afoul of duty to report laws, and that needs to be explored. Moreover, the entire athletic department at Penn State needs to be re-examined and reorganized, with the express goal of making sure that no other coach ever gets this much power- both formally and influentially- again. That alone is a long and difficult process, and I don't envy the students and faculty at Penn State for having to undertake it. But, then, nor do I pity them, after their shameful display of tribalism in the immediate wake of the scandal.
Ultimately, though, we're all going to have to rethink how much we're willing to devote to college football. Because that's really the root of the issue here; football was just too important to Penn State, to Happy Valley and all of Central Pennsylvania, really, for its administrators to think of anything besides protecting the program. They had so much incentive to cover for Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky- their jobs, possible promotions, even the money and prestige of the school itself. That's not to excuse them; it's just to say that their poor moral choices are not the end of this story.
And Penn State was hardly unique. College football is at the center of hundreds of schools. Hundreds of school administrators are compromised in dealing with it. Hundreds of schools devote far too much money to it. And that means that even when evils far less than Jerry Sandusky's arise, school officials need extraordinary courage to confront them. That's a problem, and it's going to remain one so long as, every Saturday morning, we forget what happened Monday through Friday.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
A Coach's Duty to Report, And Our Duty to Train
The Illinois legislature is probably going to pass a law requiring higher education and athletic program personnel to report child abuse when they see it. Can't really argue with that one- you can maybe ask why it took so long, but I suspect that few people really understood the threat before Jerry Sandusky, and I dunno, I'm uncomfortable blaming people for not anticipating every possible act of evil.
That being said, at the end of the linked article, State Rep. Lou Lang (who I've met, and is pretty alright) makes a point that is well taken. See, a "duty to report" can only be the first step here. We also have to give higher education officials and athletic program personnel training to help them know WHAT to report.
Athletic programs, especially at the high school and collegiate level, are insular and hierarchical. The athletes and the coaches spend so much time together that they lose perspective. The coaches have so much untamed authority that it takes an act of affirmative courage to question them. This is what really happened at Penn State- Joe Paterno had been with Jerry Sandusky for so long, he couldn't IMAGINE that he'd be a sexual predator, and Paterno had so much power that no one thought to question him when he did...well, far too little to address the problem.
So, telling coaches and staff to report anything they see isn't enough, we also have to train them to look past their own biases and preconceptions. This is obviously a long, continuing process. It's not as simple as just passing a law (and I have a lot of sympathy for legislators, passing a law is actually extraordinarily hard). And, of course, we all have to do this harder, longer work (which is becoming a constant refrain on this blog).
But credit where it's due; this is a start, and a good one.
That being said, at the end of the linked article, State Rep. Lou Lang (who I've met, and is pretty alright) makes a point that is well taken. See, a "duty to report" can only be the first step here. We also have to give higher education officials and athletic program personnel training to help them know WHAT to report.
Athletic programs, especially at the high school and collegiate level, are insular and hierarchical. The athletes and the coaches spend so much time together that they lose perspective. The coaches have so much untamed authority that it takes an act of affirmative courage to question them. This is what really happened at Penn State- Joe Paterno had been with Jerry Sandusky for so long, he couldn't IMAGINE that he'd be a sexual predator, and Paterno had so much power that no one thought to question him when he did...well, far too little to address the problem.
So, telling coaches and staff to report anything they see isn't enough, we also have to train them to look past their own biases and preconceptions. This is obviously a long, continuing process. It's not as simple as just passing a law (and I have a lot of sympathy for legislators, passing a law is actually extraordinarily hard). And, of course, we all have to do this harder, longer work (which is becoming a constant refrain on this blog).
But credit where it's due; this is a start, and a good one.
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