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[The State Of Pennsylvania Vs. The NCAA] - I'm Rooting For Team Meteor
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, in what has to be one of the most blatantly ass-covering moves ever, the odious governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, has filed a lawsuit seeking to enjoin the NCAA from enforcing the sanctions levelled against Penn State University. Even more frustrating is that the case actually makes a handful of good points, yet is a blatant attempt at ass covering, especially considering that the incoming state attorney general won the election in part on a platform of investigating Corbett's conduct with regard to Penn State. This is definitely a situation where you can't blame anyone for rooting for Team Meteor.
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As someone who thought the penalties were bullshit and completely outside the jurisdiction of the NCAA, even I'm torn on this because I honestly probably hate Corbett more than I hate the NCAA at this point. Between him allowing the 2nd Mile to get away scott fucking free without so much as an investigation into them, while having taken sizable campaign donations from them during his run to Governor, his comments after the Freeh report came out versus now, and his actually passing the voter suppression bullshit....UGH.
Half of me wants this case to tank just so it destroys his re-election chances with it.
There's a lot of politics here. Corbett had a bad 2012, furthermore, the incoming AG won election on an "investigate Corbett" platform. Attacking the NCAA helps shore up support from the PSU low-info community.
Victim 4 disagrees.
Oh NCAA. Keep digging your hole.
Ideally you get the PSU leadership and the Governor in a room to negotiate a settlement and a smaller meteor takes out the room.
You only need the big ones for the national title game.
Anything west of Philly is fair game IMO. I loved my time in State College, but the surrounding areas are called Pennsyltucky for damn good reason.
This is entirely acceptable to me.
As a resident of Philadelphia, I won't miss anything west until you hit Pittsburgh. If you take out most of Pennsyltucky then I won't have to worry about the gerrymandered congressional districts anymore as well. Win/Win.
And I'd argue that Victim #4 doesn't understand how that community contributed to what happened to him.
Ah, so now the victims themselves "don't get it".
You have heard of the term" Stockholm syndrome ", right? Just because he's a victim doesn't magically make him infallible.
Also, way to drop the ball, Wetzel. You completely ignored the political aspect of the case.
What gives the victim special insight into any of this?
Being raped doesn't give him super-intellect or anything.
A LOT of sports journalists/bloggers outright ban political discussion from their sites.
...
Yes? It does? When the NCAA says "think of what the victims want" and one of the victims says "Uh, I didn't want Penn State punished, and by the way you guys never even bothered to contact us" I would say that gives him some insight into this.
It's not just about "what the victims want" though. It's about "what punishment needs to happen so this doesn't occur again". The victims opinion here is not the deciding factor or anywhere close to it.
Also, victimS. He's only number 4. Don't pretend he speaks for all of them.
Just cause he got raped don't mean he's the final arbiter on what the NCAA should do. Not even close.
Usually, that works, but this is the rare exception. Politics is at the very heart of the case.
I agree, but there's a lot of hesitancy to address it in the sports media. Especially with a sport that's very popular among white Southerners and some of your more liberal college towns.
I don't know, Sandusky's horrible acts aside, I fail to see how the victim's opinion over NCAA sanctions has much to do with what this lawsuit is contending, because it's just that, opinion. The NCAA certainly shouldn't be speaking for victims yes, but nor should victims be the final say in what authority the NCAA has to hand down sanctions.
Well, in this case, they need to get over it. Corbett is trying to CYA here before the new AG gets in.
This was basically the NCAA's reasoning for handing down sanctions. It was political grandstanding by them using public outrage on the victims behalf to justify their actions, because under no rules or guidelines does this fall within their regular jurisdiction. In fact, they specifically disregarded their own guidelines for investigation and punishment in this case.
I guess my biggest issue with this, having worked with the Special Olympics, and THON (thankfully/sadly never with The 2nd Mile) in PA and State College specifically, there are hundreds and thousands of people in the community that go out of their way every year to help underprivileged kids in need one way or the other. I find it personally insulting that people consider all the good work they do as a form of fucking prisoner taking for PSU football. It is perfectly rational for a now grown man to realize that a half dozen people do not define the attitudes and goals of an entire University and community put together, and to acknowledge the other support and love he received from people other than Sandusky while he was around the football program. None of those people abused him, and their support and feelings towards those kids were genuine. Unless of course it's considered Stockholm syndrome for a person to still love his mother and siblings and neighbors if he had an abusive father growing up.
And yet they turned a blind eye to what was happening.
Who the fuck is "they"? Are you actually claiming I knew about this shit and didn't care at the time?
It's the same argument that everyone trotted out when the original case broke, and I still don't buy it. This is not a case of institutional failure. Institutional failure is when almost everyone involved has some idea of what is going on, and chooses to ignore it. Shit you don't even have to leave football to see real institutional failure. Football is way more dangerous than it needs to be. Anyone that follows it at all knows how bad it is for players health. Yet we continue to watch highlight clips of dudes getting knocked out. That's institutional failure. A handful of dudes covering their asses by sweeping a sex scandal under the rug is not.
The community as a whole (for this particular incident) had 0 indication that something like that may be happening, were justifiable outraged to learn it was happening, and demanded action (albeit a more measured long term action, rather than a knee jerk mass firing). I'm not really sure what else they could have done besides liking football less, which seems to be what this kind of an argument is calling for.
Edit - I forgot to add, but from my cursory reading of the articles, Corbett is not trying to suppress any investigation. In fact, he would probably be a lot happier had the NCAA done a much more thorough and careful investigation in the first place. The law suit is all about whether or not the NCAA has any business conducting a criminal investigation, and handing out penalties associated with their findings. Maybe you think they should, Corbett is alleging that they shouldn't. Just because he is doing so to cover his own ass, doesn't mean that his point isn't valid.
The NCAA suit is not going through the AGs office. The suit is definitely a PR move to sway opinion, but it shouldn't effect the internal investigation or prevent it from happening.
They had zero indication because they created a system that prevented them from getting that indication. There's a reason that PSU is facing Cleary Act investigations.
You honestly don't think any investigation of Corbett is going to be framed as an attack on his "brave stand against the NCAA"?
The bolded is an important example of what people are talking about.
This right here? This is "institutional failure" or whatever word you want to use.
More that the PSU community built a system of plausible denial.
I mean, an assistant coach walked in on Sandusky having sex with an underage minor in the showers, and instead of calling the cops, he went to Paterno for guidance. And this doesn't seem like an isolated thing in student athletics, the Stuebenville scandal has all the same trappings of what went on at Penn State.
That said, the Deadspin article does make some good points about why the NCAA was arguably wrong in handing out fines and punishment on nebulous charges. Though you could also make the argument given the horrible nature of the allegations combined with the fact multiple high ranking people in the school and football program knew about this, they also arguably had no choice but to hand out such harsh fines.
You keep saying that, but it still isn't true. The community did not get together and decide that Paterno (or the AD) was the judge/jury for criminal cases involving any football staff. They simply liked him a lot, which gave him some leverage with his colleagues. This still isn't institutional failure. There is nothing the community could have done different in this case. The key point for me, is that at no point did anyone give any indication that criminal behavior was ok as long as Paterno kept winning games. If the media had come out with a bunch of allegations of criminal activity, and it failed to be a big story because no one cared about anything besides winning? That would be institutional failure.
I disagree completely. That is a single dude covering his ass illegally. How can you possibly blame the community for the AG being a sellout? Did he run on a campaign that said "I put football first, and crime second"?
I don't see a problem with the bolded part. Most people are afraid to escalate things to far, to fast. Now before you go apeshit on my response, I agree that it's a damn travesty that he didn't follow up and make sure the cops got involved. If this happened to me I would probably have gone to whoever was in charge first as well. I just would have insisted that we get the cops involved immediately.
You really think that Corbett acted independently? It's funny how, whenever the shit hits the fan, there are suddenly a lot of "rogue actors" about.
The NCAA doing something about this makes a hell of a lot more sense than their ability to punish for players receiving gifts from private individuals not employed by the school.
He walked in on a man raping a child.
And he told his boss, who did nothing.
And you don't see a problem with that.
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Except that your community did do exactly that, with the Paterno / Triponey incident. But that was okay, because she was clearly a bad person.
I think there was a small group of people who fucked up royally. I also think it has nothing to do with the PSU community being really into football. No one in the community should feel bad for being really into football. The moment you can show me that the community failed to give a shit about criminal activity because of their fandom, then I will agree that the problem is the "football culture" or whatever. Until then, you have some crooked ass people in high up places, and that is all. That shit needs to be taken care of, ideally by the justice system, not by the NCAA.