When this story first broke … Paterno said, “This is not a football scandal and should not be treated as one.”
Many agreed. Many still do, including some misguided alumni and football All-Americans and … surely those numbskull students who marched on campus, embraced Paterno’s statue on campus and protested his firing without any regard for the victims.
The problem is concluding that because Sandusky’s reprehensible acts did not lead to a competitive advantage, the football program shouldn’t pay. But the cover-up changes that. What the powers at Penn State did was beyond anything any college athletic program has ever done, beyond free clothes or free rent and academic fraud.
To hell with a free Camaro. We’re talking about sweeping allegations of a child sex offender under the rug in order to protect a school’s image, fundraising and recruiting. There is no more extreme example of a lack of institutional control.
Penn State deserves to be hit hard.
… Paterno and the powers at Penn State were too concerned about the ramifications, off and on the field. That makes it a football scandal, as well.
Jeff Schultz, Atlanta Journal-Constitution