[T]he Penn State football program was sort of its own little fiefdom and people were aware to varying degrees of what was going on and … that never resulted in greater action until, you know, victims started coming forward.
… [F]or a long time now, there’s been a move, as football programs have gotten bigger, to sort of separate them from the university and when you bring in recruits to the university, you know, you say, this is where the students live, but this is where the football players live and this is where the football players eat and that sort of thing. And, you know, former players I’ve talked to at Penn State said you really could almost go through your whole career there hardly interacting with anybody who wasn’t part of the football program or part of your team.
That’s been a trend at a lot of universities, although I think Penn State to a greater extent. And, now, you’ve seen a lot of big programs sort of reeling that back and trying to reintegrate their football programs into the university as a whole.
Where is this happening? I can’t think of any campus where the trend is anything other than the exact opposite, with Kentucky’s John Calipari leading the way – he increasingly doesn’t even bother playing games on UK’s campus. Professional venues are much better than some dinky school arena.
No, the trend toward separation – or colonization of the university by the big sports teams – is obvious. There’s simply too much money involved in college football and basketball for things to go any other way.
June 25th, 2012 at 7:02AM
At schools with hangers-on, the football team has to be isolated to keep the hangers-on away. There are too many people who want a piece of the top players. In addition, anything that the football players do will be photographed and posted on websites within minutes.