In a recent interview, alumni elected Penn State trustee Anthony Lubrano called the NCAA collectively a bully, and followed with, “the only way to deal with a bully is head on.” Lubrano is incontrovertibly correct, and he summed up what I have been thinking ever since President Rod Erickson and the Penn State Board of Trustees capitulated to the NCAA’s draconian sanctions.
No fight at all? Erickson and those trustees who support him, an overwhelming majority of the 32-member board, have continued to fall back on the excuse that the alternative to the NCAA sanctions would have been much worse, that the offer of the sanctions was non-negotiable, and that the best thing for the university was to take its lumps and move forward in order to get the Sandusky mess behind us and live for a better day ahead.
But it’s liable to get worse before it gets better. How much worse is anybody’s guess. For it is an uneasy peace when one chooses to appease a bully.
Ask Neville Chamberlain’s ghost. The British Prime Minister thought that it was necessary to appease Hitler to achieve “peace in our time.” At the Munich Conference of 1938, Chamberlain traded part of Czechoslovakia for a promise that the Germans and Brits would go away happy and European life would return to normal with the major threat having been appeased. But a bully will always be a bully. Hitler ignored the non-aggression pact, invading Poland and starting World War II.
If there’s a lesson to be gleaned from this historical snippet it’s that when one shows weakness to a bully, he better have eyes in the back of his head, for there will always be threats lurking in the shadows. Other bullies tend to take notice that there’s a weakling who is ripe for the taking and won’t offer much resistance. A show of bluster is all that is needed to get him to give up his lunch money. If there’s any resistance, give him a black eye and take the money. He won’t fight back.
And so it appears that Penn State has unwittingly, masochistically invited others besides the NCAA to come take its lunch money — lots of it.
Immediately following NCAA President Mark Emmert’s announcement of sanctions against Penn State, the Big Ten Conference jumped into the fray, augmenting the football program’s woes by imposing additional sanctions. Then, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the academic accreditation body, declared Penn State “in jeopardy” of losing its accreditation. Lurking in the shadows are the Clery Act investigation by the US Department of Education, perhaps dozens of civil lawsuits from Sandusky’s victims and their families, perjury trials for Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, potential felony prosecution of former President Graham Spanier, and who knows what else? It is easy to be paranoid when the knives continue to rain down. And through it all, the media have been slamming Penn State — because it’s easy.
Accepting the NCAA sanctions without a peep also validated the conclusions of the Freeh report, which Emmert used as the basis for his “deal”. Instead of conducting a proper, NCAA-led investigation, Emmert and his henchmen chose to wave the Freeh report at Erickson to see if he’d cave in. Throw in a couple of threats of rocks thrown through the windows of Old Main, killing off the football program, and assorted other sundry imperilments, and here’s the deal: take it or leave it. An offer you can’t refuse. And by the way, no leaks. Keep your mouth shut. Omerta. Or else!
That opened the door to everyone else to use the strong language of the Freeh report to support their cases against Penn State, against which they could conclude they would receive little resistance.
Of course, it is the NCAA, not a single university, that is culpable for transforming academic institutions into football factories. The opportunity was ripe for the NCAA to make Penn State a target in order to take the bulls-eye off their own backs. The NCAA must discipline member schools regularly for this reason. We’ll see how unhypocritical they are with the way they handle UNC, but let me not digress.
That Erickson and his good ole boys and girls on the board chose to accept the Freeh report’s conclusions without question is another facilitating factor for the bullies out there. Of course the BoT paid big bucks for the former FBI director’s report, reportedly $6.5 million, so why question it? It was bought and paid for, a ready excuse not to pursue any issues related to its findings. By virtue of the ivory tower’s acceptance of not only the report, but also the bullies’ use of it to justify their punishments, it has essentially become a declaration of guilt: we did it, we did it all, and we’ll pay the price to atone for it, amen.
However, several interested bystanders who have chosen to ignore the machinations in Old Main have found significant flaws in the Freeh report. Its description of the supposedly corrupt football culture at Penn State is certainly subjective, yet it is the cornerstone for the NCAA’s and others’ case against the university. How can a climate in which academic issues had repeatedly caused suspensions of big-name players be described as deficient academically? How could a top football program with a top of the heap graduation rate be described as corrupt. Those Freeh report words appear to be the cart that drags the horse: as if Freeh conducted the investigation with the object being to prove the notion of a corrupt football culture, instead of deriving that from his findings.
Does the board have something to hide? Why are they not questioning these flaws in the Freeh report? Is there a bigger scandal they’re attempting to keep buried beneath the troubled turf of this one? Better that we find out about it sooner than later, before the bullies snatch more lunch money.
It will come out in the wash. It cannot be be swept under the rug. Thanks to inquisitive, cynical trustees like Lubrano, Joel Myers, and Ryan McCombie, along with former Penn State players, the Paterno family, and investigative reporters such as Sara Ganim, the truth will eventually be revealed. When it does, a lot of people in higher places than Old Main will get hurt. But history has shown that the lust for power leads to serious risk taking to cling to power.
Meanwhile, the board will keep trying to back itself into a corner, ostensibly maintaining a “laser focus” on the future. The bullies will keep on bullying, and the sheep will continue to graze while maintaining their laser focus. Don’t be surprised if one day that damn laser starts focusing on them.
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Joe says
After reading the following excerpt from Joe Posnanski’s book “Paterno”, I now think I’m going to spend the $20 and pick up a copy.
http://www.statecollege.com/news/local-news/paterno-insists-he-knew-of-no-prior-sandusky-allegation-in-complete-posnanski-excerpt-from-gq-1113675/
I’m completely befuddled how this ended up where it did.
Do I believe that some people are going to be very embarrassed when all of the facts come out? Yes!
Do I believe there was some “motive” behind attacking football and Paterno? I sure do.
Are there bigger fish to catch in this net? I believe there are.
I can’t wait for Mark Emmert to issue a statement (he won’t do a live presser this time) to remove the sanctions he idiotically placed on PS based on incorrect information and his friggin ego.
And I pray to God that if all this eventually plays out the way I think it will, I hope Sue Paterno sues the shit out of every media outlet, “journalist”, the university and NCAA and anyone else who shit on their front lawn for libel, slander, wrongful termination and anything else Wick Sollers can think of and uses the money to commission a bigger statue of her husband and place it right in front of Old Main!!!
This is going to get good!!!!
The Nittany Turkey says
The hardcover version of Posnanski’s book is $16.80 and the Kindle version is less at Amazon.com. Everybody with any interest in Penn State should read it.
—TNT
jd says
This is why you don’t hastily tear down a statue.
The BOT will answer for what they did.
The Nittany Turkey says
The timing of the removal of the statue and the Garban resignations suggest that these might have been either appeasement moves by the university or secretly negotiated requirements to avert the death penalty extortion threat. Recall that Marsh said that Emmert made additional threats about leaking any of the agreements before he made his announcement, so these might have been part of the death penalty avoidance protection money, so to speak.
Yeah, weakness will only bring the worst out in the bullies.
—TNT
The Nittany Turkey says
I hope so, but it’ll be like getting blood out of a turnip. Thing is, turnips get bloodier when you wait a while to squeeze them, and eventually, they start bleeding on their own.
Metaphors aside, you know what I’m sayin’.
—TNT
Joe says
My head has just spun around 3 times after I read this!!! I am beside myself with anger! Will the real liar step forward!
http://nittanyextra.com/?p=2075
The Nittany Turkey says
OK, that’s worth a big mention. Thanks, Joe!
—TNT
BigAl says
If you listened to the BOT meeting?? (or whatever you want to call that abortion) on Sunday, Marsh never named the specific individuals he talked to. It was always “the NCAA” said this or told me that.
We’re never get the truth unless the Emmert, Guy, and the rest of the NCAA executive committee are hauled into Federal Court and put under oath. And even then, I wouldn’t by surprised if they commit perjury.
The Nittany Turkey says
Yeah, I know. It was obvious that Marsh was being imprecise, which led to more suspicion than closure. The whole thing was a setup, methinks.
—TNT
lawrence serewicz says
I am surprised that people see the NCAA as a bully. If anything, it is an accomplice. By acting so quickly and PSU accepting the penalty, the two worked to achieve the best results for both. The NCAA avoids a protracted review of how it handles scandals. The scandals that do not hit the front page are what they worry about most because they have contained them. If the public knew about every single scandal and what it entails, I am not sure the NCAA would survive. As it is, they work quite hard, and effectively, to keep everyone in the cartel happy. (See Taylor Branch’s article in the Atlantic October).
PSU gains from this because now everyone is talking about the “injustice” of the fine and the penalty, rather than the crimes that created the problem. As such, it is a master stroke of reputation management. PSU avoids weeks and months of news cycles poring over the allegations, who is contesting what and why. Instead, PSU has sacrificed a deadman’s legacy to retain the football programme for the future. More to the point, both PSU and the NCAA did everything to keep the football programme. Note, the programme still exists. Were it to go, then PSU would have to consider the existential questions of why it has a football programme, why it is a university, and what role the football programme has in the university. Instead, all of these questions are avoided. The football programme will stay.
What these reveal, beyond Penn State, is the crisis of the American university. When you strip away athletics and research, what is an American university but a real-time social networking site. http://lawrenceserewicz.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/penn-state-and-the-crisis-of-the-american-university/
The Nittany Turkey says
Beat you to it. I pointed to your blog in the following post. Pleasure meeting you, Lawrence.
I agree that the NCAA is driving the culture of corruption, and is merely paying lip service to “correcting” it. I further agree that if all the scandals (some not little) were made public, the NCAA would not survive. The NCAA must protect its viability — and especially that all important basketball tournament revenue — by lashing out at universities who allow their issues to go public, creating the necessary smokescreen.
I do not agree that PSU gains from this. Opinion masquerading as news from the vaunted mainstream media has painted Penn State, its administrators, Joe Paterno, and everyone with any association at all with the university as child rapists. My feel for the public outcry (sensitized and biased, of course) is that people believe that Penn State is whining about draconian punishments out of shame for what crimes have been committed. Many believe that the penalties are not harsh enough.
Having worked in the university culture (not at Penn State) for some 13 years of my life, I’ve written that negative news is viewed as poisonous on the inside, and administrators are loath to let it out, even if it means skirting the law.
The NCAA will not cut off its nose to spite its face. It might cripple a member, but I think any reference to a “death penalty” is a bluff. The football culture will live on at Penn State — and every other Division I university — because both the NCAA and the universities want it to remain.
Your final paragraph is quite poignant. I agree. Undergraduate education these days is a sham, even in non-football factories. As the cost per credit hour rises exponentially, eventually something’s gotta give.
—TNT
lawrence serewicz says
Thanks for the quick reply. I would not say that PSU gains by the penalty. I meant to focus on the move to get beyond the scandal. The board is doing what it is good at: reputation management. Is the penalty too much? Perhaps. However, what else could the NCAA do? If they do too little, then it becomes embarrassing and raises even more questions. Too much and people say “what is going on, the football team was not committing these crimes and the team was not benefitting ie cheating or gaining an advantage”. In the end, I think you are right that the “death penalty” was a bluff.
No one looks good in any of this and it will be years before this is resolved even as the next scandal (somehwere else) brews up.
I really am saddened by today’s academia. The times I have interacted with undergraduates it is as if they are being hollowed out by the system. They arrive with curiosity and leave with a pile of debt and an uncertain future ill equipped to handle the world. As you say, something has gotta give.
P.S. Thanks for the heads up on the linkedin link.
The Nittany Turkey says
You and I share the sadness. I remember my time at Penn State (when it was Farmer’s High, back in 1855) and wish the kids of today could experience the academic environment we had.
By the way, the next scandal is right around the corner at the University of North Carolina. That institution, through an internal audit, discovered that there were 54 classes that either never met or were sparsely met, classes that were populated by athletes, who were steered toward them by academic advisors. If this does not signify a corrupt football oriented culture, what does? The audit covered only 2007-2011, but ay, here’s the rub: the basketball program is implicated, too. As you probably know, the NCAA derives a significant portion of its income from the college basketball tournament it runs annually in March. Will the NCAA sanction UNC, a big draw in that tournament, jeopardizing its revenue stream? We Nittany Lions and Lionesses watch that situation with bated anticipation of NCAA hypocrisy. Thus far, the sanctioning organization has done precisely nil.
Read more in my article “This Ought to Be Good!”
—TNT
The Nittany Turkey says
P.S. In your “About Me” page, your link to the LinkedIn account is broken. It’s missing a necessary colon.
—TNT
BigAl says
It isn’t just the football program that needs to be questioned, it’s the entire intercollegiate athletic program. I suppose it all started with some academician’s (a dead Greek perhaps) theory that a sound body is necessary to sustain a sound mind.
Even if you believe that canard, the percentage of students who develop a sound body through incollegiate athletics is far less than 1%.
The Nittany Turkey says
Back in the good old days at Penn State, which for me began not long after the JFK assassination, we had a culture that played up phys ed and intramural sports. Just about everybody participated and had a great time.
Of course, we did well at intramural drinking, too.
—TNT