They apparently don't use any of that money to erect statues to outstanding academic professors. It's going to hurt? Really? Good. But I want it to hurt more. I want it to hurt as bad as the pain each of those kids went through when they got raped by Sandusky over the 14 years Paterno covered for him. I have an idea of the money involved -- that's the whole ********ing problem. They covered for a child molester to "protect the program." They were protecting the cash cow -- the reputation was a convenient by-product. "3rd rate assistant coaches?" "3rd class weight lifting facilities?" Really? Sorry, is my sacrcasm detector broken or are you the biggest apologist for college sports ever? Worrying about what kind of weight room the school is going to have (sorry, do they build a new one every year or something?) should be the farthest thing from anyone's mind. Jesus ********ing Christ. I hope your kids never get molested by a college football coach.
gotcha. I read Tom Osbourne's book, and he made the SMU program out to be quite juggernaut. I guess that's a common tactic among college coaches - talk up your opponent, so when you beat them, it makes you look better.
I'm just making the point that the fine is NOT, as another very emotional poster was saying, a drop in the bucket. Can you find me anywhere saying the fine is too much, or too harsh? No, you can't.
Serious question, do you not follow college football closely. Because, yes, the weight room is extremely important in getting recruits and developing players in a college football program. To be an elite program you need to have the best and newest stuff or you'll soon find that the players you want are going to a different school.
Notre Dame and Boston College are smaller, but Notre Dame is an exception (and they have not been that great lately) and Boston College isn't really a football power.
It's clear he doesn't follow the game closely if he doesn't get that facilities matter to recruits (so renovation and upgrades are part of staying competitive) and salaries matter to staff (everyone --regardless of occupation-- wants to be paid at least what their services are worth). I think he's saying that the concern for weight rooms at this time is misplaced, but no, he doesn't seem to get that the penalty is a doozy in terms of being able to afford what it costs to stay relevant in this business. We don't blame booze for the alkie- we blame the alkie for not handling booze well, knowing he isn't handling it well, and continuing to drink anyhow. This is no different. You really need to be able to look at other cases where money has caused other assistant coaches at other programs to rape kids if you want this kind of statement to be factual. If those cases aren't known to exist, then Sandusky, Curley, Spanier, Schultz and Paterno were/are the problem, not money. Plenty of other programs handle just as much or more money with fewer and much smaller violations of NCAA policy or none at all.
I know that the bowl season has been diluted from over-saturation and non-BCS bowls are money losers. Yet, schools always accept invitations and teams always get motivated when bowl eligibility is on the line. There's a reason for that. Bowls, no matter how small and goofy, matter to programs. For players, simply playing for Penn State *used to be* a draw. Clearly, that brand is more than a little tainted, what with the child rape and JoePa dying. Penn State could point to consistently being within a couple of wins from conference title contention. They could tell recruits, "Hey, you help us beat Michigan next year, we're going to the Rose Bowl, at least!" Now they don't have that. And yeah, NFL scouts will come, but kids still like to be on TV. Bowls are all on TV. Plus, Penn State games Against Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Iowa are usually on prime time. Kids love playing under the lights. You think ABC is showing those games in prime time for the next four years without national title implications? So they lose that. And you see how Premier League clubs play at the end of the season? Kids aren't good at playing hard when there's no bowl eligibility to play for. Plus, like I mentioned before, bowl games are an important opportunity for fundraising, recruiting and networking. Bowl ban matters a whole ********ing lot.
No I don't follow college football closely for a couple of reasons: I come from California and went to a college without a football team -- made concentrating on the primary purpose of college much easier I suppose; I also find the whole BCS system a corrupt pile of horseshit. Not interested in it in the least. But I do understand that colleges need good facilities to attract recruits. But really, unless they are building a new building every year, the whole "they'll only have a 3rd class weight room" argument is a bit specious. Penn State has an endowment of over $2 Billion-with-a-B dollars. I'm not worried that paying a $60 Million dollar fine is going to have much of an effect on them. I am sure they will figure out how to make ends meet. And if they don't? Tough shit. I guess folks will have to follow the basketball or soccer team.
The endowment is big, but money is tied up and earmarked just like anywhere else. The fine will have a big impact, but it's an impact that is appropriate. If they decide to spend big bucks sticking it to the man by diverting money from other things, it would confirm that the culture is as poisonous as the criticism suggests. If the goal is changing the culture of the school and the area, then this is probably a good start.
But everyone wants to play in one. And if you somehow (I know PSU never does it) win the Big 10, you get to play in the Granddaddy of Them All in Pasadena. The immediate transfer out penalty may be the biggest one in the short-term. They had a good recruiting class.
"Like OMG! This is the worst day for a sport I know practically nothing about" http://www.philly.com/philly/gallery/163488462.html?viewGallery=y
And bowl eligibility matters because the NCAA allows teams that are going to bowls to practice between their last regular season game and the bowl, so that could be an extra three or four weeks of practice, which is really helpful when you've got a young team and can be a good springboard into the next season. If my team finishes 6-6 and gets invited to some third-tier bowl, I'm not one of these clowns that say that they should turn it down. Hell, being invited to that bowl is great for the extra practice time by itself. My alma mater finished 7-5 this past season and was invited to the Holiday Bowl. They're a very young team on the offensive side of the ball and you could see the improvement from those two or three extra weeks of practice in the game. And when you're a Penn State who's already at a disadvantage to other teams in the Big Ten in recruiting, not being bowl eligible and getting to have that extra practice time before the bowl game puts you even further behind several other Big Ten teams who are getting invited to bowl games ever year.
I will be interested to see the follow-on over the next several years in how this all impacts the amount of research grants and the like PSU faculty receive. It is so much more than a sports-only phenomenom that people reviewing grant applications will undoubtedly have the whole unseemly mess in the back of their minds.
More about the scholarship reduction: Penn State can offer only 15 scholarships per year, 10 fewer than the maximum allowed, beginning with the 2013 recruiting class and continuing through the 2014, 2015 and 2016 recruiting classes. The team can resume offering 25 scholarships per year with the 2017 class. The scholarship reductions don’t impact the 19-man recruiting class Penn State signed in February. Penn State will have to play with just 65 scholarship players, 20 fewer than the maximum allowed for FBS programs, beginning with the 2014 season and also in the 2015, 2016, and 2017 seasons. The 2018 calendar year will be the first time Penn State can both offer 25 scholarships and play with 85 scholarship players. A reasonable conclusion: Penn State football might not be back to normal in terms of its roster until the 2020 season or so. Yeah, you'd be crazy to think this, combined with the postseason ban, is a slap on the wrist.
I wonder if in a perverse way this "attack" on PSU will rally the troops in PA and at least cause in-state talent to want to play for them to re-build the program. I hear that's what the new coach is using as the rallying cry. It just got harder but there is a since of victimhood by the kids in State College and the surrounding areas.
Attending one with a football team cured me of following college football. I knew some of those assholes.
Spanier's defense. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120723_ap_expsuexeciwasabusedwouldntturnblindeye.html
So follow somebody else's soccer team. Or don't follow a team at all. People all over the world attend university without attending university sports matches. They can at PSU too.
Do you watch NFL ball? I ask because as they're the best of the best of the best, some might claim that they're even more likely to be assholes than college players. I watch a fair amount of golf even tho the entire sport has a more assholish history than CFB. I watch soccer even with UEFA's history of asshole fans. It's picking poison. Not an attempt at a gotcha, but do you watch a sport at all?
Pros don't bother me. It's thugs posing as college students who set me off. Was only the football players. Baseball, basketball, soccer, and so forth, they weren't biting people and pounding them in the head with beer mugs and yelling whores at the girls as they walked up the dorm stairs. We all have different experiences, that was mine.
Photo Number Ten is worth the trip through the rest of the pics (most of which cracked me up, honestly).