The news Monday morning that the NCAA has opted not to give Penn State's football program the so-called "Death Penalty" will no doubt lead to flood of different reactions.
For some, there will be a sense of relief that the Nittany Lions will continue to play, and that the current players and new coaching staff (who have no connection to the crimes of Jerry Sandusky other than that they play for the team he once coached) will not be punished any more than is necessary. For others, there will be outrage, built on the sense that if Southern Methodist University's football program deserved to have its program shut down in the 1980s for illegal payments to players, then Sandusky's crimes and the role of Penn State officials (including Joe Paterno, according to the Freeh Report) in allowing them to go on certainly justify shutting down Penn State's program.
For me, it reminds me of my high school health class.
If you've ever taken a high school health class, you've undoubtedly watched any number of videos of the "After-School Special" variety, designed to caution you against the dangers of drinking, drugs, gambling, suicide and other dangers many teens face. While the videos may not have been successful, there was undoubtedly a moment or two from a video that's stuck with you through the years. Here's mine.
In the film, a high school senior gets drunk at a party, and ends up killing a classmate when he attempts to drive home. The dead girl's parents request that the teen not be thrown in jail, but instead be required to mail them a $1 check every week for as long as their daughter had lived. The idea was that the man's life should not be destroyed , but that he should have to carry his crime with him and think about it at least once a week.
In a sense, the penalty against Penn State - a $60 million fine, a four-year bowl ban, a loss of scholarships, and the vacation of all wins from 1998 to 2011 - is in the same vein.
If the sole basis for the "Death Penalty" is the severity of the crime, then there's no doubt that Penn State football deserved to be shut down for at least 10 years, perhaps even forever. There are few crimes as serious or as disgusting as those perpetrated by Jerry Sandusky, and the role of officials like Graham Spanier, Tim Curley and yes, Joe Paterno - in allowing them to go on deserves to be punished with everything (On that note, vacating all of Penn State's wins since 1998 and relieving Paterno of his status as college football's all-time wins leader was absolutely appropriate). However, there's more than the severity of the crime that needs to be considered.
Whenever the "Death Penalty" is discussed, SMU inevitably comes up, because it's the highest-profile example of such a punishment. However, SMU is located in Dallas, one of the ten largest cities in the U.S., and the elimination of the Mustang football program for two years was a drop in the bucket in terms of the local economy. By contrast, State College, Pa., has a population of just over 42,000, and Penn State football is a major economic factor in the area. If Penn State's football program were to get the punishment it deserves based on the severity of the crimes committed by Jerry Sandusky and those who allowed him to continue them, what would happen to the people in the community who had no involvement with those crimes but derived at least part (if not most or all) of their income from Penn State football and the tourism it generates? These are facilities workers, vendors, owners of local hotels, campgrounds and restaurants and their employees. They may not be quite as innocent as the children Sandusky abused, but they don't deserve a Penn State "Death Penalty."
And they won't get one. This fall, the Nittany Lions will take the field under their new head coach, Bill O'Brien, possibly without some of the players who were expected to return, as the NCAA has allowed them to transfer with immediate eligibility. And there will be no bowls for the team for four years, a measure that is probably the least of Penn State's worries. And every time there's a home game at Beaver Stadium, fans will file past the residue on the wall of the stadium where Paterno's statue used to stand.
It shouldn't be cleaned. To do so would be an attempt to whitewash away what happened. And Penn State can't do that. For as long as the NCAA sanctions stand - if not longer - every home game should be preceded by a moment of silence for Sandusky's victims, as a reminder of what happens when a sport is allowed to take priority over not only academics (as is undoubtedly the case across the nation), but also basic human morality.
Like the drunk driver in the health class video, Penn State football needs to carry these crimes. But like that drunk driver, putting Penn State football away for good just didn't make sense.
