Before anything else is said, I must assure my readers that I believe Jerry Sandusky is a monster, a sick man who preyed on young boys to gratify his perverted desires, and his conviction in criminal court was justly deserved. Notice I said "criminal court." That is a key point to this whole discussion. Sandusky was convicted while enjoying all the rights the United States grants to accused criminals: due process, habeas corpus, impartial trial by a jury of peers, etc. Despite the conviction, I cannot bring myself to say justice was served. How can there be justice for the victims? They will live with the scars of Sandusky's crimes forever. Retributive justice can only do so much; at the very least prevent such horrors from happening in the future. Restorative justice is extremely difficult to find in such cases. I do not know where to even start on that count.
With that in mind, I turn to the sanctions imposed upon Penn State University for its connection with the Sandusky affair and cover-up. They are as follows: 1) Probation for five years, 2) $60 million fine to be used for child abuse prevention and recovery, 3) four-year postseason ban, 4) loss of 40 scholarships over four years, and 5) vacated wins from 1998-2011. In terms of justice, I think points 1 and 2 are legitimate. There was obviously failed oversight in the Penn State bureaucracy; five years of probation may help to restore some accountability. Monetary penalties equal to one year's revenue from the football team will go towards preventing child abuse from happening and providing aid to victims; such a penalty serves a purpose because it addresses in part the interests of the victims. However, the other three penalties have nothing whatsoever to do with the victims, the perpetrators, or enablers involved in the abuse scandal. Jerry Sandusky was convicted in criminal court and is obviously no longer at Penn State. Joe Paterno, who helped cover up the incidents and indirectly allowed them to continue, is dead. Graham Spanier (former university president), Timothy Curley (former athletic director), and Gary Schultz (former university vice president), who were all involved with the cover-up, are no longer with the university and face indictments in criminal courts.
In short, there are few if any people still at Penn State that were involved with the scandal or cover-up. So why does the NCAA feel the need to impose penalties on the university? This is not the first time the NCAA has punished a university after the perpetrators of the offense in question have already left said university (e.g. Pete Carroll at USC). Perhaps they feel they are sending a statement to other universities about the seriousness of the incidents. Sending a statement is one thing; needlessly harming people who had nothing to do with the situation in ways that do nothing for the victims is another thing entirely. The NCAA made a cursory attempt to alleviate the harm to current Penn State football players by allowing them to transfer with no playing time penalty, but this only helps current athletes who choose not to stay. Due to the postseason and scholarship penalties, the quality of recruiting will be severely reduced, impacting the football program for decades. Besides the football program, the university and surrounding community will be negatively impacted by the reduced quality of football; football is a driving force for many area business in State College. None of those people who will be affected are connected with the scandal. Punishing them is unfair. And vacating the wins is merely a cheap shot at Joe Paterno, beating a dead horse so to speak (pardon the cliche). It serves no purpose other than offending and alienating every player who ever participated in one of those hard-earned wins. The victims are not helped at all, and it does nothing to prevent future offenses.
All these objections are merely superfluous in light of the main issue. That issue is the question of whether the NCAA is overstepping its jurisdiction to impose such penalties in criminal and moral issues rather than academic or athletic ones. Eligibility violations certainly fall under the realm of the NCAA, as do issues of amateurism and academic integrity. There are a variety of football and academic issues that the NCAA has the responsibility to deal with. The only connection this scandal has to any of those issues is that people involved in the football program were involved in the cover-up, people who are no longer with the university. The offenses were criminal in nature, and the last time I checked, the NCAA was not a judicial court. Therefore they have no jurisdiction in criminal proceedings, especially in the absence of convictions of the conspirators (excepting obviously Sandusky). There was no due process, no trial--just a dropping hammer. The NCAA, in its eagerness to dispense so-called justice and preserve whatever integrity it thinks it still has, overstepped its bounds in a knee-jerk response to a tragic situation. I suppose I can understand the sentiment behind the action, and I empathize with it somewhat. That doesn't change the fact that these sanctions do not affect the people involved in the scandal or the victims. In that regard, they are pointless.
There are no winners here. There can never be any winners where child abuse is present. There can only be support and care and judicial retribution. But no one wins. It is a sad world we live in. But there is also hope. There are good and decent people in the world. If one of those good and decent people had dared to get involved long ago, much pain and harm could have been avoided. We would all do well to remember the words of Edmund Burke. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
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