WhatFinger


College football must acknowledge that it primarily exists as a minor league farm system for the NFL and therefore must start paying the players to address this reality

NCAA and Penn State: The Dance Continues



Disingenuous. The quality of being less than genuine or honest. How else can one describe the NCAA’s penalizing its member school, Pennsylvania State University, for allegedly failing to stop the activities of a career pedophile on the football team’s coaching staff? For college football will this be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back?
I haven’t watched a college football game with more than passing (no pun intended) interest for many a year. Nevertheless, millions of Americans every Saturday and nsow many weekday nights as well, don their school colors and go ballistic to watch and cheer for old “Fill in the Blank.” On its own, college remains a powerful symbol in our society as in, “where did you go to college,” i.e. a state school or private or even an elite school like one from the Ivy League. That affiliation can say so much about a person, and often does. College football has been played for more than 140 years with Princeton and Rutgers first meeting on a gridiron in 1869. Lehigh and Lafayette have played every year since 1884 with the exception of 1896. Rivalries, teams and traditions are the sport’s history. Army-Navy; the Notre Dame Fighting Irish; Nebraska-Oklahoma; Harvard-Yale; Florida-Georgia and the world’s largest cocktail party; Red Grange, the Galloping Ghost; the Four Horsemen; Paul “Bear” Bryant and Alabama; and Michigan-Ohio State, and so many more.

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At its origins, college football was played by tough men in leather helmets. Along with major league baseball, boxing and horse racing, college football formed the four sports that captured the American imagination from the turn of the 20th century to the Second World War. Through the years, college football grew bigger, and only was eclipsed by the NFL and pro football in the Super Bowl era of the last 40 years. College football had its problems even in the beginning times of the sport more than 100 years ago. Many considered it a national disgrace for cheating scandals, with ringer players. College football, those detractors said, was among the four evils of American life along with lynchings, monopolies, and factory conditions. College football continues to hold the imagination of a nation obsessed with sports, and it is a an out-of-control money machine despite previous sex scandals, drug scandals, steroid scandals, eligibility scandals, exploiting black athlete scandals, and even now, not-paying-the-players, excuse me, student-athlete scandals. But now, even the cynical, National Collegiate Athletic Association, has finally found a crime that even it can’t stomach: a university whose leadership knew or should have known that one of its football coaches was sexually abusing pre-teen-age boys perhaps for more than two decades. The sanctions against Penn State were fairly punitive. Legendary Lion Coach Joe Paterno died recently and therefore never had a chance to defend himself against accusations that he ignored the actions of his assistant Jerry Sandusky. The NCAA “vacated” Paterno’s wins from 1998 to 2011, which dropped him from No. 1 on the all-time list to 12th. Penn State received a $60 million fine from the NCAA. Also football scholarships were reduced from 25 to 15. Penn State received five years of probation. Current Penn State players have been granted permission to transfer and play elsewhere. By all accounts, it is a virtual death sentence for Penn State’s football program. College football has merits. For example, it reflects the American desire to compete and win, and along with college basketball, it funds “non-revenue” producing sports at college, such as women’s athletics. But the time for reform is now, mostly because college football has become a virtual minor league for pro football. With college football coaches being paid millions of dollars, it is ridiculous that the players helping to generate revenue for their schools are paid nothing. The players are given a scholarship and a dream, and at the end of their eligibility, they often have neither a degree nor any recompense for their labor. Something else noteworthy about the Penn State scandal, the new university trustees decided to remove the seven-foot statue of Joe Paterno from outside 100,000-seat Beaver Stadium, a stadium that Paterno “built” by virtue of his excellence as a coach and by basically doing things the “right way.” The trustees literally removed the “idol from the temple” in agreeing with the report of Louis Freeh that concluded that Paterno failed to do enough to protect innocent children abused by Sandusky. Many loyal Penn State fans say Paterno’s life should not be tarnished by Sandusky. They say Paterno’s “body of work” is almost overwhelmingly positive. But I’m not so sure. Even though Paterno literally built Penn State on the football field, and even the university library is named for him, he was part of the monster that is college football, and even the NCAA could not abide child sexual abuse in what used to be known as “Happy Valley.” Smashing the idol of the most righteous figure in college football was a bold move by Penn State, but it does not go far enough. College football must acknowledge that it primarily exists as a minor league farm system for the NFL and therefore must start paying the players to address this reality. The college presidents must act and they must act now.


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Daniel Wiseman -- Bio and Archives

Daniel Wiseman is an independent political commentator, who focuses on national and international affairs. He spent nine years as a professional journalist in Wyoming before working in fund-raising, non-profit management, and is now working in New York City. Wiseman focuses his writing on how to bring the United States back to its Constitutional moorings.  He writes exclusively for Canada Free Press.


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