You Can't Avoid Boyd - No Smiles in Happy Valley

No Smiles in Happy Valley

On Monday, the NCAA dropped the hammer on Penn State University for their cover-up of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. The punishment: a $60 million fine (the average annual income the football team brings in), no postseason play for four years, a reduction of scholarships, four years of probation, and all of Penn State’s football wins from 1998 to 2012 were vacated. The Big Ten decided to join the party by denying Penn State from their conference championship for four years and also denying the school any bowl money for that period. The estimated $13 million will be given to charities fighting and preventing the sexual abuse of children. The punishment was unprecedented, severe, and justified.

I know Henny read that last line and wondered “What the fuck Boyd”. Pat and I were going back and forth, arguing if the present team should be punished for the actions of an older administration. He was all for it, and I was against it. However, the more I thought about, the more I agreed; the cover-up is what really fucked Penn State by the NCAA. The cover-up is usually more damning than the crime in most instances. Not in this case, but both were pretty horrific. It showed an overall lack of institutional control. Let’s address some questions regarding the fallout of this.

Why didn’t the NCAA punish PSU with the death penalty? The NCAA death penalty is the temporary suspension of a sport for up to two years. Apparently, it was considered, but NCAA president Mark Emmert said it would punish many innocent people who had nothing to do with this scandal. Many businesses in Happy Valley thrive due to the football team. Without football, these businesses would go under.

Why did Penn State sign off on such penalties? Penn State had the option to appeal their punishment. They held off for two reasons. First, Emmert was rumored to have told PSU president Rodney Erickson the death penalty was still in the mix. Second, Emmert based his decision on the Freeh report, an investigation conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh. Since the Freeh report was sanctioned by Penn State, it allowed the NCAA to use that information rather than conduct its own investigation. It also allowed the NCAA to speed up the process, which is usually excruciating long. It would be tough for the school to appeal its own findings.

Is this punishment the equivalent of the September 11^th attacks? Absolutely not, but it is according to PSU alum Tom Price (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/tom-price-penn-state-sanctions-september-11_n_1699775.html). While I can understand that some PSU fans are not taking the recent news well, the fact this fucktard would compare it to the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil just boggles my mind.

Why did Joe Paterno lose all of his wins from the last 15 years? The short answer is because he’s a piece of shit. Paterno and the school were disciplined that far back because that was the first documented year that the team’s top officials were in the loop about Sandusky. Many people may argue the team didn’t gain a competitive advantage, as was the case when Reggie Bush of USC was getting paid to play on Saturdays, and that PSU still won those games. However, they did have a competitive advantage, Joe Paterno. All early indications seem to point that Joe Paterno knew more than he was letting on about the investigations. He was obstructing justice. He shouldn’t have been on the sidelines all those years; he should have been subject to criminal punishment. Thus, that old guy with the thick glasses who probably reeked of Werthers Originals was a diabolical piece of shit.

Can you recover any lost bets from 1998-2012 on Penn State football games? I sure hope so.

What about the players? The players will be fine. They can still play football, but their season will end after 12 regular season games. The only way they’ll go to Pasadena on January 1^st is if they buy a plane ticket. If they wanted to compete for a national championship, they probably should not have committed to PSU in the first place. However, they are allowed to transfer this year to any Division I school and be eligible to play immediately. In the past, you would have had to sit out a year.

Is Joe Paterno lucky that he died late in 2011? In a sense, yes. Not that anyone wished him dead, but he was already under heavy scrutiny after he was fired in November 2011. What would have happened when the Freeh report came out and acknowledged that Joe Paterno ran not just his football team, but the whole school? Or when the school finally decided to take down his statue outside the stadium on Sunday? It appeared his legacy of success with honor was something he bestowed on his players, but never bestowed upon himself. History tends to be kinder on the deceased. Boyd does not. He’s still a piece of shit.

Fans and people in the sports media can complain all they want on how crippling these penalties are for football program, but let’s not forget the victims in this ordeal. They had to live their whole lives with this and it’s not as if they are released of this anguish just because Jerry Sandusky was found guilty at trial. The fact that the Nittany Lions won’t compete for the Big Ten championship is no consolation at all. What this punishment does is show the NCAA is dead serious on not letting universities turn a blind eye to such heinous crimes. Penn State kept this quiet in order to save their reputation. It’s pretty ironic that their reputation would suffer tenfold due to their silence in this case.

Penn State needs to focus on its future. The actions of the guilty few shouldn’t discredit everything the school has done. You can’t sweep the scandal under the rug and hope everyone forgets about it. What they can do is take the necessary steps to build a better tomorrow. It’s a tragedy this occurred in the first place. It would be an even bigger tragedy if we, as a people, ever allow this to happen again

             -Written by Marcus Boyd