First down on the front page:
"Penn State scandal prompts anger, reflection; After shocker at school, should sports ever be king?" November 13, 2011|By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff
The sexual abuse scandal at Penn State, perhaps the most shameful in the history of college sports, has brought a national outcry, led to the firing of the university’s president and legendary head coach Joe Paterno, and plunged a football-crazed campus into turmoil.
It has also sent a shockwave through higher education, renewing the long-running debate over the outsized influence of big-time college athletics, the entitled status sports enjoy on campuses hungry for prestige and payouts, and the hard trade-offs involved in building competitive teams....
Who is responsible for that?
Related: Globe Speaks Out About Paterno
Also see: Jerry Sandusky Pimped Out Kids To Rich Donors
Reported on a Boston radio station and the Globe ignored it.
That's intentional grounding and loss of down.
“You’re making a deal with the devil,’’ said Sol Gittleman, a Tufts University professor and longtime critic of the college sports industry. “It’s big-time money, and these programs become larger than life. It has nothing to do with higher education.’’
With the exception of the University of Connecticut basketball teams, there are no Penn State-like powerhouses in New England, where college teams - at least in the big money sports of football and basketball - are not nearly the fan draw, or booster obsession, that they are in other parts of the country.
Yet even here, aiming high in sports is often seen as a way to raise a school’s profile and attract strong students and faculty....
It was, in short, a day when the university began to forge its way back, after being slammed time and again this week for seeming to care more about protecting the football program’s storied image than protecting young children.
Authorities have condemned Penn State for failing to report suspected abuse by Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant coach under Paterno who is charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year span. University employees were told of at least two instances but did not alert police, authorities say. Paterno was told of one, and informed his superiors - but he did not press the matter further.
Education specialists predict that the alleged failures at Penn State will prompt college administrators to analyze their sexual misconduct policies and reemphasize reporting requirements....
All cosmetic crap without getting at the deeper and more sinister aspects.
At the top levels, college sports are a huge source of revenue, and even at smaller schools, major sports are often seen as a way to generate alumni support and boost their profile with nationally televised appearances.
I hope you kids are taking notes.
Last year, the NCAA signed a 14-year, $10.8 billion television deal for the wildly popular men’s basketball tournament.
I like the concept of sport; however, I am often reminded of the quote from North Dallas Forty:
"Every time I call it a game, you call it a business. And every time I call it a business, you call it a game."
Too much money poisons and pollutes whatever it touches.
With that incentive, colleges have spent escalating sums to field top teams. In its report “Restoring the Balance,’’ the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics found that from 2005 to 2008 athletic spending rose much more than academic spending. In many major conferences, universities spent between six and 10 times more on athletes than non-athletes.
Since most athletic programs do not turn a profit, that spending comes from other priorities, the commission found.
I'll give you one guess from where, kids.
“If the business model of intercollegiate athletics persists in its current form, the considerable financial pressures and ever-increasing spending in today’s college sports system could lead to permanent and untenable competition between academics and athletics,’’ the report concluded.
What are you going to "school" for again?
An earlier Knight Commission survey had found that a large majority of presidents at universities with major football programs said the current trends are not sustainable.
Some critics say the high-stakes pursuit of athletic glory has warped universities’ priorities, and created in some athletic programs an insular, above-the-rules mindset.
“When you get to that level of finances, sometimes people make egregious mistakes in judgment,’’ said Dan Lebowitz, who directs Northeastern University’s Sport in Society center. “What happened at Penn State shows how sports trump too many things.’’
Hey, this is AmeriKa!!!
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Charles Clotfelter, a Duke University professor and author of “Big-Time Sports in American Universities,’’ said the Penn State scandal is “an order of magnitude different’’ from others that preceded it, and that universities need to have a frank conversation about the tension between sports and academics....
He has no idea how true those words are.
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Take $$ out of sports? Who do you think i$ bringing that football game to you?
"The Greatest Bar in the North End, where dozens of Penn State fans wearing the school colors had gathered to watch the football team play Nebraska. The bar staff did not allow reporters inside....
Where you gonna go to watch the game then, Globe?
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