The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Sudden Impact: Channeling Rahm

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Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel once opined succinctly about political opportunism: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

In the wake of the Penn State debacle, the Big Ten appears to have taken Rahm’s advice to heart, if we are to believe a breaking AP story:

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that the Big Ten is considering a plan to give its commissioner the power to fire coaches in the wake of the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal.

An 18-page plan being circulated among Big Ten leadership would include giving Commissioner Jim Delany the authority to levy sanctions including financial penalties, suspensions and termination of a school employee. The Chronicle said it had obtained a document laying out the details.

The Big Ten did not respond to requests for comment today.

So, now the Big Ten presumably wants to gain the power to usurp the authority of member university presidents in order to make its own personnel decisions on their turf? What’s next? The Big Ten has to be involved in their hiring, too?

That 18-page plan better damn well provide some extreme circumstances for triggering the removal of a coach by the Big Ten. Certainly a criminal act should result in the coach being dismissed, but that’s a no-brainer. No university president would ever allow a convicted criminal to coach. So, what circumstances would prompt a coach’s dismissal by the B1G? Should we judge someone before he is tried in a court of law? Should we react based upon Freeh Report allegations? I’m laughing.

Sanctions and financial penalties I can see. Personnel actions, no way.

Perhaps the NCAA and the Big Ten should spend their time developing a plan to divorce big-time football programs from universities and run their own NFL farm systems. The concept of a student athlete who performs at the highest level is in serious doubt at the Turkey coop. Yes, there are a few — damn few — who turn out great, but come on. Listen to some of our own Nittany Lion seniors talk. They’re barely literate, ya know what I’m sayin’? The charade of supposedly providing poor, minority lads a free education in return for representin’ on da field is a joke. In most cases, da kid is an indentured servant who winds up with a half-assed education. If he’s good at football, the gods will go to great lengths to make him appear to be a scholar. You know dat.

I know, I know. Penn State has always been the model, graduating more football players than anyone else and producing guys like Mike Reid, etc. Yeah, I know. A lot of good ones would have succeeded with or without football. However, would Penn State (or anyone else’s) football be successful without coddling some hard-core functional illiterates through their so-called education while they major in Parks & Recreation Management? This Turkey does not think so.

I say to the NCAA and the university presidents, either spin off the Junior NFL for some sort of annuity from the lucky purchaser, or raise the academic standards so that “student athlete” is no longer oxymoronic. Incorporating high-priced entertainment into the higher education milieu promotes corruption and distortion of values. That’s why football coaches are more powerful than university presidents in some cases. Not to mention any—just sayin’.

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Some more stuff in the same vein to ponder while you wait for the whistle to blow and you don’t feel like shooting any more paper clips at the ceiling. (You should be ashamed of yourself! There are loads of unemployed people out there who would love to be shooting paper clips for their meager penance.)

Remember Pat Forde? He has turned up as Yahoo Sports’ expert. Pat thinks it’s time for schools to seize control of athletic programs (novel concept though it is), and guess who should lead the way?

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Meanwhile, Ray Ratto writes that Peterno [sic] put the brand ahead of human decency. Ray’s about as subtle as a two-by-four between the eyes, and maybe he can’t even spell Paterno, but this is worth a read. Thanks to reader Joe for digging it up.

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Here’s one that will piss you off. Alabama Crimson Tide head football coach Nick Saban calls the Penn State scandal “A very, very criminal situation.” (I previously thought that that particular label should have been hung on that jackass on Jersey Shore, but that show has been cancelled, so I don’t care anymore.) Saban, in his articulate, cogent manner (note irony, please) added, “… that reflects poorly on a lot of things.” He’d like to tax the tickets and give the proceeds to some child abuse organization. He claims that he could have never gained as much power at Alabama as Paterno had at Penn State.

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Wow, thanks and a big tip of the helmet to David Regimbal of Land-Grant Holyland, an Ohio State Buckeye blog, for his sensitive and objective article, “When Penn State Comes to Town.” You’re used to sarcasm from this Turkey, but I’m swallowing the vitriol to state unequivocally that this piece deserves your attention, especially if you think everyone out there is using Penn State’s scandal to take potshots as anything even remotely associated with PSU. Good job, David!

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Back when the Turkey was a mere fledgling, Penn State freshmen had to learn the words of the Alma Mater. For some reason, and at some point in history, things got pretty loose and irreverent in Happy Valley, somehow causing the mutation of the Alma Mater’s opening line from “For the glory of old State” to “We don’t know the g*ddamn words”. In this time of Penn State soul searching, it is particularly important for students and alumni to carefully consider the real words. Justin Cortes of Onward State wrote a good article on the subject, interpreting and commenting on each line.

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In our final impactful piece of the day, the editorial staff of the Collegian asks Penn State president Rodney Erickson to give up the open records exemptions granted to the university by the state, and permanently maintain the transparency that he promised for the investigation.

Well, that’s all she wrote — he wrote — for this edition of Sudden Impact. I didn’t touch at all on the potential “death penalty” for Penn State by the NCAA, as it is all speculation at this point. It is not looking good, though, based on the hints and quips one reads. The NCAA wants to see documentation of substantive, positive, preventive change in Penn State’s response, which is forthcoming next week. It would be an excellent show of good faith to the NCAA if somehow between now and then, Erickson would take the open records issue seriously and perhaps three or four trustees would admit to malfeasance and resign. In my mind, that’s worth a stay of execution.

Sudden Impact: Talking Heads Edition

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This morning, I was dismayed, but amused, by some of the Sunday morning TV news talking heads’ takes on whether Penn State football merits the “death penalty” being levied at the behest of the NCAA.

“Suspending Penn State football is really a dumb idea!” —James Carville

Speaking from the London Olympics site on Meet the Press, Bob Costas of NBC Sports was strongly in favor of Penn State giving up its football program either voluntarily or at the behest of the NCAA. Thanks, Bob. We appreciate the support.

George Stephanopolous asked his panelists on ABC’s This Week whether they thought that the NAACP [sic] should come in and shut down Penn State’s football program with the “death penalty.” Only after the panelists had all taken their turns did Wee George correct his initial faux pas.

First around the panel was milk chocolate toned Democratic adviser Donna Brazile, the only non-pasty skinned panelist this week. She was too kind to correct Stephanopolous about the mouthpo (which is a typo of the mouth), but she entered a sea of controversy by likening the situation at Penn State to that of the Catholic church in the wake of its long-term child molesting issues. As such, she believed that a suspension in order. ???? ??????? ????????

Conservative baseball überfanatic George Will believes strongly that not only should Penn State shut down its football program — for good — but so should every other institution of higher learning that has a big-time football program. He believes that academics and football are at best strange bedfellows, and the combination easily lends itself to corruption.

ABC political analyst Matthew Dowd, a Catholic, made an analogy that will send him to the confessional. Like Donna Brazile, he went papal on the PSU situation.

“If you took Jerry Sandusky and substituted Jerry Sandusky and put the word ‘priest,’ and then you put Joe Paterno and substitute the word ‘bishop,’ it’s the exact same thing,” Dowd said. “What you have is an institutional corrupt[ion] problem, that basically the ends of the institution become more important than the people involved.”

Dowd added something that hit at what this Turkey has been harping on all along: if you think that Penn State is alone in shielding the public and the legal authorities from its transgressions, think again. Just about all major universities have skeletons in their closets.

Meanwhile, Democratic strategist, cue-ball headed LSU junkie James Carville, said that it would be a “really dumb idea” to suspend Penn State football, as it would penalize people not even remotely responsible for Penn State’s recent scandal. In this Turkey’s opinion, Carville is right. ????? ?????? This is one of the rare occasions on which I’ve agreed with James, so please note it well.

Carville’s wife, Republican strategist Mary Matalin, said that she’s not a football fan, but understands that there’s quite a football culture in Baton Rouge. So her opinion doesn’t count.

Everybody’s got an opinion. We’ll take this beyond the Sunday morning TV stage to look around at some of the other media stories addressing the dreaded death penalty for Penn State.

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Bryan Fischer, the football recruiting blogger for Eye on College Football, a CBS site, addresses the subject by trying to convince the reader that Penn State should get the death penalty “in order to move on.”

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Some players’ reactions to the death penalty rumors were reported by Audrey Snyder for USA Today.

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Mike Greger of Metro Philly believes that Penn State won’t get the death penalty.

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According to Michael Sedor of PennLive.com, the Nashville Tennessean, the Birmingham Alabaman, and the Orlando Sentinel all want the death penalty for Penn State. He gives links to their articles. All southern papers, all in SEC country. Whoda thunk it?

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The Patriot News, as usual, is full of the best material on the subject. You can access a page of links to a Sunday morning’s worth of interesting and intriguing stories here.

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Bob Flounders writes that “Maybe we didn’t know Joe Paterno after all.”

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On a more positive note, Adam Rittenberg of ESPN writes about the community starting the healing process.

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Unfortunately, vaunted SI sports writer Rick Reilly feels differently about the whole thing, which he strongly condemns in his piece for ESPN.

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Also for ESPN, Howard Bryant writes that Penn State should drop football.

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More ESPN: The unpronounceable Gene Wojciechowski writes that Paterno empowered a predator. This includes a video of Mark May’s perception of Joe Paterno and Penn State.

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Casey McDermott of the Daily Collegian addresses Penn State’s failure to comply with the Clery Act.

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That should give you plenty to chew on for a peaceful Sunday evening. As always, comments are welcome.

 

 

Sudden Impact: Neither Sudden Nor Impactful — Discuss!

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It’s a lazy Sunday morning. Artificially Sweetened asked me last night whether I wanted to get up early and do some kind of a hike today, but I deferred my decision until this morning because I felt lazy all day yesterday. But when I got up this morning, she was sleeping peacefully, so I decided that I would pen another blisteringly incisive Sudden Impact post.

I’ll try not to obsess too much on the ancillary issues surrounding Showergate this time. After all, we’ve been saturated of late by the overabundance of media takes on the whole sordid affair. The media, of course, can’t win. No matter what position they take, they’ll always be wrong in about half the people’s eyes, and this is all augmented by the hue and cry of the moralists: THE VICTIMS!!!!!!

Not that this Turkey is anti-victim, but enough, already. That there are victims doesn’t mean that the analysis should cease. Unearthing the means in which the culture of secrecy found in universities today can produce future victims is sufficient reason for letting the media digging continue. Of course, there are a lot of flimsy “facts” floating around, but the intelligent reader, which I assume you all are, can differentiate the facts from the fabrications.

Further, there are opportunists out there feeding the frenzy. Vicky Treponey has released saved emails from her tenure as VP Student Affairs that she seems to be using in an attempt to either vindicate her denouement at Penn State or obtain retribution for it. She clearly couldn’t win any battles with Paterno herself, and with only a weak president to whine to, she didn’t get much institutional support for her prerogatives, either. My feeling is that anyone who can’t knock heads without all the behind the scenes subterfuge is probably not worthy of a vice president position — even in academe.

Triponey’s LinkedIn® profile lists her present occupation as Interim Vice President for Student Affairs at The College of New Jersey. That fact is confirmed by The College of New Jersey’s web site. (Coincidentally, the Ewing, NJ school’s football team, an NCAA Division III Centennial Conference member, has as its mascot, the lion.)

As for the victims, their pain and suffering will not be assuaged by writing articles about them instead of digging up skeletons in Penn State’s closets. The latter will serve future generations well. Even if some of the conjectures are way off base, at least we’ve got them looking over their shoulders up there in the ivory tower. I say, keep the pressure on until we determine culpability. The Freeh report will say a lot, but I am still suspect of anything initiated by the BOT, who deserve an investigation themselves.

To sit back and wait until the whole thing blows over is to increase the chances that those who have succeeded in obfuscating facts in the past will feel not even the sting of a wrist slap, and thus will not be deterred from arrogantly repeating the transgression.

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Starting right guard John Urschel, a transfer from Canisius, is another PSU academic standout, having already graduated with a 4.0 GPA. But he’s just a junior in terms of his football eligibility. Read a great article about him by Guy Cipriano.

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One has to wonder whether Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett paid Jason Kutulakis to write such a glowing op-ed tribute to the gov. He wants to give Corbett credit for his handling of the Sandusky case.

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The Patriot News has put together a sampling of what columnists around the country are writing about Joe Paterno. While it is easy to condemn a dead man, some of the articles make their points more gracefully than others.

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With the report from former FBI Director Louis Freeh due any day now, all eyes are on the Penn State board of trustees meeting this week in Scranton. Will the report be released then? You’ll have to wait until Thursday or Friday. We’re at DEFCON 3 until then.

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Cory Giger of the Altoona Mirror writes that NCAA sanctions are unlikely for the Nittany Lions.

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Giger also interviewed some people about town about their take on the late coach’s culpability in the purported cover-up and the surrounding media frenzy as they await the Freeh report.

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Pete Curkendall was a Penn State defensive lineman whose coach, Jerry Sandusky, convinced him to do an internship with The Second Mile foundation. Now, Curkendall is impelled to act on child predator issues. Frank Bodani of the York Daily Record tells the story.

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Jeremy Roebuck and Susan Snyder of the Philadelphia Inquirer believe that the Freeh Report might go far beyond Sandusky into the inner sanctum of the Penn State football program and its legendary former head, Joe Paterno.

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One more writer, Peter Hall of the Morning Call, weighs in on possible Freeh findings and repercussion.

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In news from outside of Happy Valley, for all of you particle fans, ScienceNews has published a list of links to all of its articles about the legendary Higgs boson.

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Well, that ought to be enough reading for a lazy Sunday morning. Those of you who aren’t lazy are out playing a round of golf, canoeing, playing softball, and wilting in the heat, so you can read it on Sunday evening, or, of course, as you drink your morning coffee at work on Monday morning.

AS just woke up, so I’m going downstairs to watch her eat breakfast.