The NCAA Put On Their Big Boy Pants Today

Today Mark Emmert and the NCAA hammered Penn State. Football at Penn State won't be relevant again for at least ten years because of these penalties (Read the grisly details here). What got me here isn't that Penn State got punished. What got me today was that Mark Emmert decided to put on his big boy pants and show who is the boss. Too bad it won't prevent anything.

Let Drew Magary of Deadspin explain:

"The next great college sports scandal isn't gonna be at Penn State. It'll be at some other asshole school where the head coach still has too much power and the football program still makes too much money. There's no "stark wake-up call." The system is still fucked, and nothing the NCAA did today will do anything to change that. It only serves to extend the fucked-upness a touch longer. Among the many sick ironies of the Penn State saga is the fact that it was horrible enough to be considered by everyone a terrific anomaly. It wasn't. Sandusky's crime was, but the scandal that ensued was about concentrated power and institutional capture and all the shitty things enabled by the durable belief that the goals of big-time sports and higher education are at all reconcilable. The next great college sports scandal won't be about child rape. It'll be a different kind of awful. A school will get caught in a Bulgarian sex slave ring. A coach will turn out to be embezzling funds from AIDS babies. An AD will turn out to have ties to the Hezbollah. And whenever that new scandal happens, you can bet the NCAA will be there again, ready to put a band-aid on an amputated head." 

The great Spencer Hall of SBNation has the same take on Emmert putting on his big boy takes: 

"The NCAA can do this because they've been given the worst kind of permission. In response to a petty tyrant at the center of his own cult of personality protecting a pedophile, the organization will simply insert another petty tyranny. They will do this even though there is no fixing the unfixable, or predicting the unthinkable.

 This needs to be repeated: for everyone suggesting that football was at the core of this, for everyone suggesting for an instant that something could have predicted this, and that a precedent could be set, you literally do not understand humanity or the rare horror of something truly evil. People will sell themselves to authorities far cheaper and less impressive than a corrupt, morally bankrupt football legend. Subordinates cover for regional managers at car rental places for worse, and do so for $50,000 a year without benefits."

Basically Mark Emmert has turned himself into Roger Goodell. He has free reign to punish teams however harshly he wants. Also Emmert claims he didn't open Pandora's Box here but everyone agrees he did exactly that.

Look I'm not saying Emmert and the NCAA shouldn't have done anything to Penn State. But I agree with both Magary and Hall's takes that this does nothing but give someone more power and justify the NCAA's existence. And this isn't a good thing.

So congrats Emmert for putting on your big boy pants today. Also congrats to Jim Delany for eating at the carcass like a buzzard.

Where Was The Courage At Penn State?

It's been two days since the bombshell broke at Penn State that former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was arrested for sexual assault and that Joe Paterno knew about an incident about Sandusky back in 2002 and did nothing about it but report the incident to the higher ups at Penn State.

When I first heard about this incident I thought to myself that Paterno did the right thing by alerting his bosses. I don't know about you folks, but when something criminal happens at my place of employment we're suppose to alert our boss. So I thought Paterno was doing the right thing.

I also thought Paterno did the right thing because he was too close to the situation. He coached Sandusky at Penn State and then was his boss for thirty years. He was too close to the situation. 

That was my immediate response. I was thinking like a Penn State fan, because I've always been a Joe Paterno fan. I hate to see him have to resign or be fired because he didn't call the police on his former defensive coordinator who also happens to be a creep who is sexually assaulting young boys.

Then I slept on the situation and surprisingly agreed with Colin Cowherd this morning on the situation. Where was the courage at Penn State? No one had the courage to notify police that Sandusky was a creep? Including Joe Paterno?

And that is what is so infuriating about this situation. Sexual assault on kids ruins their lives. These victims in the Sandusky case will always be emotionally unstable because of what happened to them. And no one at Penn State had the courage to call the police for these kids including Paterno?

That is what so disappointing about this situation. Joe Paterno has always been the guy who did everything "the right way" but he didn't have the courage to do the "right thing" and at least call the police to start an investigation.

Even if Paterno was a friend of Sandusky's, he needed to notify the cops at what was happening. I get it, it's hard ratting out a friend. Paterno though needed to find the courage within himself to call the police for that young boy. He failed. Loyalty has limitations.

The athletic director and VP at Penn State has already resigned because they lied to a grand jury about everything involved in this situation. It pains me to say this because I'm a Joe Paterno fan, but Paterno needs to resign for not having courage to say anything at all to the police.

Paterno needed to be the one with courage at Penn State for the kid and he failed. That kid now won't receive the justice for what happened to him until 10 years after the incident. Joe Paterno failed because he didn't have courage and he should resign because of it.

This is a sad story all around. I feel bad for the boys who lives were ruined because of Sandusky. I feel bad for Penn State fans and alum because their school their school will be dragged through the mud because no one in a administrative position had the courage to report Sandusky to the police. This is a ugly mess and it will probably not get better anytime soon.

BREAKING: Joe Paterno Staying Put

According to Scout.com, Joe Paterno has signed a three-year extension with Penn St.

Paterno who will turn 82 on December 21St., led the Nittany Lions to a 11-1 record and a trip out to the Rose Bowl to play USC, on January 1St.

Paterno who had to coach in the coaches booth for most of the season, recently underwent a hip replacement surgery after the season ended. He came out of the surgery feeling "great" and felt like he could coach for a few more years.

Paterno has been at Penn St. since 1950, and has been the head coach since 1966. He is the all-time winning coach in college football history, and has had the most undefeated season's in college football history. Along the way Paterno won two national championships including the upset of Miami in the 1987 Fiesta Bowl.

The money arrangements were not discussed, but at least we will have Joe Pa for three more years.