To start off, I don't really care that much about college football, after all I went to a Division I-AA where the quality of football was about the high school level. But having served and worked with folks from all types of schools though I have noticed a few, hard not to in some cases, that take particular pride in their football programs to include; Texas A&M & Texas, Notre Dame, FSU, Auburn & Alabama, Ohio State...sorry, the Ohio State, Nebraska and of course Penn State. Some of the folks took it a bit too seriously and for some that was an extension of how the school's themselves prioritized sports. The impression I got from some Penn Staters was that the football program was central to the school's identity, and from outsiders perspective that seems to have made a bad situation worse.
I can't unpack all this in one Internet post, but I'll try and scratch the surface. You first need to understand this about PSU. It's got kind of a schizophrenic identity. It's in some part a Greek school and a jock school. This is why the student riot disgusted but didn't surprise me. They've happened over dumber reasons than that. It doesn't excuse the response, but a board of trustees issuing a decision that controversial on a Friday night at any alcohol-fuelled state school was beyond stupid. So there's that. That said, this is a school with over 40,000 undergrads and over 550,000 living alumni. We come from all walks of life and opinions, and the frat dudebros are a minority, if a significant one.
The football program was central to the school's identity because of the way Joe Paterno ran the program. The mission statement in his own words was "Success with Honor." He preached the same thing from day one, when he didn't know he'd hang around so long, that he did at the end. I know this because my mother was a freshman in 1967 during his first year, when there was no inkling he'd be able to hang around for so long. Joe met with groups of students, including her, in the dorms to introduce himself. And the tune didn't change for his whole time there. This is the guy who, after he won a national championship, excoriated the board of trustees for not building a university that matched his football program, and declared a "Grand Experiment" matching on-field success with success in the classroom. He and his wife donated millions of dollars to scholarships and to fund the library. PSU was one of the few schools where the graduation rate for African-American players matched that of white players. This was "Penn State Culture." And still is to most alums. I don't care if you believe it or laugh at it. What matters is that we believed it, and largely still do. That is why what happened hurt even more. Because we wore the white hats. We were the school that did things right. Never cited for major NCAA violations in ANY sport. But we had a VC inside the wire that we never knew about until it was too late.
No one questioned the fact that when the legendary head coach did nothing more than report to his boss a horrible crime. Nothing was done by anyone beyond that, no report to the police or anyone else of any legal authority. The equivalent would be a sailor telling their Chief or DivO of a crime and they reported it to the CO, who then did nothing. When nothing happens as a result of the report no one who knew of the crime questions it or has the stones to go to NCIS, JAG's or anyone else who has the official responsibility to handle the crime. That is basically what happened. You can split hairs and say in that particular instance he was acquitted of that charge but against everything else it just plain stinks. It was a moral, ethical and legal failure on the part of multiple personnel in the football and athletic programs as well as the school administration. It is a textbook lesson in ethics and what an individual's moral and legal responsibilities are.
First off, one of the people Joe reported it to, though not a sworn law enforcement officer himself, was the direct superior of the Chief of Penn State Police. The PSU Police are not just rent-a-cops, but a fully-sworn municipal law enforcement agency. Yes, this individual is under indictment. The mystery is what happened from there, but even if they had notified Sandusky's charity, that organization would have been required, as the PSU president also was, to notify the cops.
Second, the reason it matters that Sandusky was not convicted of that charge is that it illustrates the murky shit they were faced with. Not a cut-and-dried felony. To them at the time, did Sandusky do something just creepy and inappropriate, or did they understand what he really was? We don't know yet, but we'll probably find out at the trials. That is key. McQueary had himself been molested as a child (by someone else), and so had been re-traumatized seeing whatever it is that he saw, but the problem is that his story has not been consistent, and he was the only witness. Paterno, by all accounts who've mentioned it, was utterly terrified of discussing sex; he was an 80-year-old Jesuit-raised Catholic, and a prude even by those standards. It's easy to sit here and say "it's a textbook case." What actually happened, sadly, was a fucked-up game of "telephone" as to who saw what and heard what from who. To this day we don't know what crime McQueary saw being committed, or if he caught Sandusky that night before a crime had technically been committed, despite what we now know he was capable of. It was a "well, I might have seen this, but I heard that, and it made me uncomfortable, and it was inappropriate." Trouble was, Sandusky was known as a goofball with boundary issues. Turns out that this was part of his shtick to deflect blame if he got caught grooming a kid to abuse later. "Oops, I'm sorry, I just get carried away, it won't happen again." Read the Gladwell article.
And it was an allegation against one of the most respected men in the state. Again, read the Gladwell article. Please. Sandusky set up shop in a town and under a boss who he could play like a fiddle, and did for years. Sandusky was one step down from Mother Teresa in the eyes of Pennsylvania. I know because I was there. His charity was THE authority on helping underprivileged kids. It had a child psychologist on staff, for God's sake. He and his wife had adopted multiple children, being vetted each time by PA Child and Youth Services with no issues. HE FOOLED ALL OF THESE PEOPLE FOR YEARS. You're talking about a con man on the level of Ted Bundy here. Sandusky deliberately set up a situation where his sterling reputation would prevail over some nothing underprivileged kid in a he-said, he-said situation. It's sick. But it's human psychology. Think of the person you most respect as a mentor accused of something like that. Part of you flat-out wouldn't want to believe it.
As for the current students paying for past crimes, what else do you expect? A free pass? And to point out the obvious, the current students went to that school knowing it was under sanction, they could have gone elsewhere that isn't under sanction.
What I expect is for the NCAA to handle matters under its jurisdiction. This was nothing more than grandstanding to get back the reputation they blew in the Miami case and elsewhere. An easy target that's already dodging torches and pitchforks. That's like your HOA fining someone because their ex-wife's brother murdered someone in their living room.
I saw a similar corruption of a cherished institution at my own school, a program that was allowed to operate outside normal bounds but multiple student and school leaders in the name of tradition and the group got in trouble many times because of it. After repeated failures the solution was the disbandment of that group and over 20 years later it has yet to be reconstituted. Be grateful that you all still have football.
I am grateful. But not because the program got away with anything. IMO, "the program" did nothing wrong. Anyone in this sorry saga who was "part of the program" fessed up immediately and reported it to people whose legal duty was to contact the authorities. That is what the law in PA required be done, as written at the time.
That is what the NCAA tells coaches to do if they hear about a sexual assault in their facilities today. Did Joe get screwed by the authorities he trusted? Maybe. Did they flat-out screw up? Maybe. But I reiterate: if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. I'm sorry, I don't believe in collective punishment.