Preamble and a link will get picked up by GoogleBot as its own page.

Penn State is a football institution first and a school second.

Colleges are just krill tanks for big business.  Why should Big Sport be left out of the feeding frenzy?

I mean, I understand your moral feeling about this aspect of it, but what do you think is the proper mechanism for handling that kind of situation?  Is there something nuanced and reasonable, or do we just… grant the Feds the power of Righteous Smiting based on the criteria of “Whatever seems outrageous” and feel good that the evil jock hegemony has been crushed?

Unfortunately, more institutions than “award-winning football” have resulted in child molestation being covered up for fear of harming that institution’s reputation and influence.  The Catholic Church, some few hospitals or mental institutions, undoubtedly some heads of state over the years…  Heck just marriages, friends and families colluding, somebody worried that unless they played along people would doubt their commitment to “Sparkle Motion”.  There are people in those institutions that are responsible.  The solution is not always “destroy the institution”.  The solution is whatever stops the badness while maintaining people’s freedom to… do whatever is not illegal/evil, etc.  That could be dismantling the institution, charging those responsible, or implementing some sort of regulations and oversight, etc.  I would say that dismantling should be a last resort among those options, though not out of the question.

In a just world, Penn State would be banned from having a football program

If the NCAA doesn’t institute the death penalty, they will never again have any authority.  SMU got the death penalty for paying players tens of thousands of dollars, a far, far less heinous crime than allowing children to be raped in your locker rooms.  PSU is the textbook case for a football program with too much power.  5 or 6 years ago Paterno was asked to retire and said no.  When you can’t fire the football coach they have too much power.  When the football coach uses that power to protect his immediate subordinates from the consequences of their actions, you have no institutional control.

Joe’s salary in 2007 was $512,000.  Half a million bucks, just in salary.  The man practically ran Penn State for 40 years.  How much money and influence do the tenured professors get?  What would you do to protect that much power?

When the institution of “award-winning football” results in child molestation being covered up for fear of harming that instution’s reputation and influence, then that institution needs to be dismantled.  A permanent football ban (or even a temporary ban, say 10 years) would not only send a message that Penn State puts integrity and education before the cult of football, but also sends the message that this can happen to other powerful football programs.

That’s why.

Until last fall, Paterno symbolized all that was right about college sports. His teams won, but he didn’t sacrifice his standards to do it. Penn State’s graduation rates were impeccable, his players were as good off the field as they were on, and his financial support of the university often had nothing to do with the football program.

Here are the figures on graduation rates

Penn State: 87 percent (statistically indistinguishable by race)
Average among b0wl-bound college football games: 68.2 percent (60 percent for African Americans)

(Notre Dame’s rates, at 94 percent, are measurably higher)

Having said all that, the idea of perma-banning PSU from having a football program is asinine beyond belief. This punitive knee-jerk reaction accomplishes nothing and punishes who exactly? Current and future players? The millions of fans? This “end the football program” reaction boggles my mind.

I hope his “legacy” is ruined forever. frankly I hope that the very name “Paterno” becomes synonymous with “Likes child-rape and will help you rape young boys if you get him a touchdown”.

-abs IS bitter, and never liked football (American or “soccer”) anyway, the only thing better than “ruining his legacy” would be a post-humous prosecution of the son-of-a-bitch (by which, I mean to imply that he’s at least half canine, not that his mother was an assertive woman {though she may well have been, in addition to not knowing how to raise a child up such that they don’t condone the rape of children})

No one here seems to be crying over damage done so much as reputations ruined and ethical action rarely arises from that kind of headspace.

Im pretty sure that at some point in the mid 90s they (the Vatican) were able to obtain a patent on institutional cover up of ongoing child rape… if Penn State violated their Holy Patent, why aren’t the Vatican Patent trolls out in force?

http://tracking.si.com/2012/07/12/penn-state-students-tv-freeh-report/

You want people to do the right thing because it’s right and because the alternative is horrific.  But if it takes the threat of public disgrace, then let public disgrace be threatened and meted out liberally.