There was talk on the radio this morning about the PSU situation being possible the greatest sports scandal of all time. They still had it #2 with the OJ Simpson murders being #1. I think a few of the others mentioned were the Black Sox, Tyson's rape conviction, Tyson biting Holyfield's ear and I would put Pete Rose in there as well. What am I missing?
Calciopoli: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calciopoli Graham James junior hockey scandal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_James_(ice_hockey) The CCNY point-shaving scandal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCNY_point_shaving_scandal Not sure how to rank them, but OJ being #1 and PSU being #2 seems about right at this point.
Sickened that this will be JoePa's legacy. Penn State football is done. I wouldn't be surprised if other programs suffer too. Horrible day for any NCAA football fan.
Jack Warner. Rae Carruth. One Baylor player shooting another. Interesting,as well, how everyone's forgotten the exclusion of African-Americans from major league baseball for 70 years.
I can't take any list of greatest scandals seriously if it doesn't include Bob Bradley's selection of Michael Bradley. I wouldn't include Rae Carruth or Baylor - murder is big, but Carruth was a middling player and Baylor is a de facto mid-major program. O.J., on the other hand, was a Heisman Trophy winner and a celebrity, while Penn State is a nationally respected football program with a university with a half decent reputation and a patron saint of a head coach. Also, way before my time, but the CCNY point shaving scandal basically killed New York City college basketball and Pete Rose's gambling is probably #3 (the scandal more or less killed Bart Giamatti). EDIT: Oops, Matrim already got the CCNY scandal.
If we're going to talk about soccer scandals, how about the whole 1978 World Cup? From not moving it after the coup to the shenanigans of the Argy game where they won 5-0 or whatever and people suspect the game was thrown, that one was a big mess. But for the purposes of this thread, it's probably best to just make it American scandals. How do you compare across national borders? How was the OJ case a sports scandal? He was retired and not involved in football at the time. I mean, by that standard, how about ex-All American Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon? I don't think the Ali thing was a SCANDAL. It was a controversy, but I wouldn't call it a scandal. Ali did what he did out in the open. If you look at the history of the NIT and NCAA tournaments between WWII and the CCNY scandal, the NIT was AT LEAST as prestigious. But after that colleges didn't want to send their kids to the cesspool of corruption that was New York. Off the top of my head, that's the only one I'd compare to the Penn State scandal for 2nd place. The Black Sox scandal is obviously #1. Rae Carruth wasn't systemic in any way. Mike Tyson getting convicted of rape has to be up there somewhere.
And there is the current betting scandal in cricket. The Murder of Andres Escobar. The awarding of the next two World Cups. Maradona's love affair with drugs. Festina. Hillsborough. (And Haysel)
We probably need to separate US (or North American) sports from international sports - they basically operate in separate spheres, and people who care about, say, Barry Bonds don't care about Calciopoli and vice versa. Anyway, in no particular order, with likely bias for recent events, I'd say: O.J. double murder Penn State sexual abuse Pete Rose gambling Baseball steroid scandal CCNY point shaving SMU Pony Express Black Sox Duke lacrosse Tim Donaghy Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan I think O.J. counts as a sports scandal because he was still a sports legend and a benchmark for modern running backs, even if it happened outside of the sports structure.
The difference is that OJ was a single individual going murderously insane on one evening. Penn State is a clear conspiracy by several individuals to protect the program at the expense of numerous young boys subsequently getting sodomized over a decade or more of silence and collusion. If the planet still exists, people will be talking about this Penn State horror 100 years from now, in far darker terms than the "Black Sox" get nowadays or anything like that. I say this is the worst sports scandal in American history.
That is not a scandal. That was a case of his being a conscientious objector due to his religious beliefs which I found somewhat strange considering his career involved violence, boxing is after all punching out another guy.
There have been some pretty bad ones over the years. Oklahoma near the end of Barry Switzer's reign had drug dealing by the starting quarterback, a gang rape and several shootings occurring on campus or in the football dorms. That pales in comparison to Penn State, both do share the coverup and the enabling that is common to protecting the brand in big time sports.
The most recallable steroid issue right now is the "steroid era". The whole PED issue in sports started out as scandals ,but is now veering into a general ethical question.
Maybe because I was an early teen in the early 1980's, but the whole cocaine thing in sports. JR Richard having a stroke (linked to his coke use), The SI article about the SD Chargers (Muncie, Jefferson, etc), the Mets (Straw, Gooden, Mitchell, Ojeda, Hernandez- before he got to NY), I'm pretty sure that the Miami Dolphins had a few cokeheads from what I recall. But anything gambling trumps all scandals. The integrity of the game(s) are effected.
Did you live thru that time? I vividly remember an uproar about the uppity N word and everything that went with it. He was also aligned with Malcom X at the time. The Heavyweight Champ of the world telling the US government to go EFF themselves. It most definitely was a scandal.
Wow. Although I had forgotten about some of what had been mentioned and hadn't heard of some of the others, after reading through the posts I got a little sick to my stomach. How sad that the PSU thing seems to be so much worse on so many different levels.
Penn St is not about 'sports'. Yes it happened by a football program, but this could have been the House of Representatives or a large world wide church, or another well known institution that has the ability to cover this up. Arrogance and stupidity are a bad combo.
I think it is about sports. The major players, Sandusky, Jo Pa, McQuery and the AD are all sports figures, the incidents happened inside the football facilities and Sandusky used his position as a coach to lure more kids in. How can you say it isn't about sports?
But it was plenty scandalous, as was his association with the Nation of Islam. In addition to US vs rest of the world, I'd also make the Olympics and association football their own categories, because there are so many controversies (judging, doping, refereeing decisions) in just the Olympics and the World Cups. Maybe we can have NCAA Tournament style brackets of sports scandals? As for Ben Johnson, the most shocking thing was that it wasn't shocking when we found out - he was so much bigger and faster than anything else (though Usain Bolt's dominance doesn't seem so unnatural).
Because we have seen priests do the same thing and use their institution to hide it and cover it up. Don't get me wrong, it is a scandal, but it has moved beyond sports. Sports is about the gambling, the illegally recruited player, the blood-doping cyclist, the HGH/steroid power hitter or linebacker. Hell, I can even see Ali, using his "bully-pulpit" as heavyweight champion (and in the prime of his career) for what he did. Crimes like this or OJ, while sports figures (ex in OJ's case - he was more of just a celebrity at that point) don't make me think sports.
But I'd argue that the college football culture and hierarchy provided Sadunsky the tools to reach his victims and allowed the Penn State administration to enable it.