In our society, sports coaches and university administrators are in positions of incredible power. They are charged with the shaping of young minds and are called to mold impressionable students into men and women of character – it is essentially their job to form the next generation of leaders in the community. With such power comes great responsibility because, as history proves, the power to build is often concurrent with the power to destroy.
In college sports, as in other areas of life, such awesome power is derived from money. In this pseudo-amateur world where the pursuit of profit rules, football is undoubtedly king. Football-related revenues allow most athletic programs to remain financially solvent (and potentially wildly profitable) and usually serve to subsidize athletic opportunities in other sports, the majority of which hemorrhage monetary losses annually. Big time football programs rake in an embarrassment of riches – from the gaudy television contracts to the 100-thousand seat sellout stadiums to the jerseys and T-shirts and foam fingers – and this gives them unparalleled power.
Real positive dividends often result from the big business of football, since much of the generated revenues don’t just stay in athletic department coffers. A significant amount of this money is used to give back to universities by funding scholarships and academic programs for non-athletes. Also, large programs tend to attract higher caliber students and more generous alumni contributions for their university over time. There is an unmistakable correlation between winning football and the quality and quantity of applicants – it certainly is no accident that Alabama’s football rejuvenation under Nick Saban has coincided with unprecedented growth at the University.
These facts generally dominate the ways in which college football fans like to think about their programs – they are fun to watch, sure, but they are also benefactors to the public good and the community. All too often, however, shocking overreaches of power by our beloved coaches and administrators shatter this ideal. Sometimes, these individuals become so delusional they go to unimaginably horrible lengths to preserve their athletic empire.
Penn State is the poster child for the abuses that inevitably result when unchecked power runs amok. Everyone on the coaching staff and many University higher-ups were aware for years of the crimes of Jerry Sandusky, but turning a blind eye was seen as the only feasible option at the time. In Happy Valley, where football is religion, Joe Paterno was a god; to question him was to question the powerful moneymaking machine that was Penn State football, and to follow through in prosecuting Sandusky’s terrible misdeeds would have endangered the cash cow that was the Penn State brand. So, nothing was done.
The unfathomable gall Sandusky displayed by sexually abusing children within the same facility where he kept an office as “Professor Emeritus” is matched only by the tragic brazenness Paterno and others exhibited for 14 years in their elaborate cover-up scheme. These men thought they were untouchable, and, for over a decade, they were. Paterno was protecting his legacy, and school administrators were protecting their profits. As long as word never got out, the University had nothing to lose. The young victims, of course, lost so much.
On Monday, the NCAA’s hammer came down on Penn State football, levying harsh penalties which will cripple the program for years to come and will certainly do significant damage to the Athletic Department’s profitability. Sandusky is in jail for life, Paterno is dead and the replacement wave of Penn State higher-ups are doing all they can to distance themselves from this tragic era. Still, the JoePa apologists maintain unflinchingly that “he was a good man who just made a mistake.” While this may or may not be true, it is saddening that there has been a larger outpouring of sympathy for Paterno and his family in the wake of the scandal than for the innocent victims.
As the Paterno statue came down on Sunday, a chant of “We Are Penn State!” erupted from the crowd, followed by a man crying, “We love you, Joe!” In their minds, the fans are still protecting the image and the legacy of Penn State – they are fighting against an ever-growing onslaught of criminal investigations, media damnation and public disgust. However, I hope they haven’t forgotten, like many of us apparently have, what this whole thing is really about: the repeated sexual abuse of innocent children by a man in power, and a university’s unanimous choice to turn look the other way.
The Penn State saga ought to be remembered as a cautionary tale for us as we return to our normal lives as college football fans this fall – a testament to the dangers of the sport’s runaway power culture. No one man can be bigger than a program or bigger than a university. Good men – corrupted by unchecked power, blinded by the profit motive, and hypnotized by dreams of a “legacy” – become monsters. History has shown that if power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. For the victims’ sake, we can no longer accept looking the other way.
Henry Downes is a columnist for The Crimson White and sophomore majoring in economics.
