On scandals and the NCAA

[chronarchy]

I don't have too much to say about the current "Penn State Child Sex Abuse Scandal," not really. I've read the reports, and others have read the reports, and a bunch of people who know more than I do about it have commented on it quite in-depth (as have a lot of people who know nothing about it). But there's something that bothers me about it that

Comments

[chronarchy]

It's a rough road, all around. Like tesinth says below, any program, given proper scrutiny, will get ripped apart if its looked at under a powerful enough microscope (and Penn State is under a thousand of the most powerful ones ever created). I am afraid that it's going to get much worse for Penn State before it gets better

[tesinth]

Well said. Besides institutional control the NCAA might look into at least one of the horrible incidents as a possible recruiting violation which opens the door to clearer (more justified by NCAA bylaws) sanctions

[chronarchy]

Thanks. I had not thought of recruiting violations, but I'd suggest that a key thing I worry about is not whether or not the NCAA can "get" someone on a violation, it's whether the NCAA can solve its systematic issue.

Typically, yes, the sanctions do come down far too hard on student-athletes. One of the issues is that they have too few punishments, and they are a bit too broad sometimes: occasionally, the sanctions force a student-athlete to go pro (cf. Pryor), which is the exact opposite of the intent of the sanction. Worse, they sometimes damage a student-athlete's ability to make money on a professional level, even when their infraction wasn't related to talking with agents or trying to market themselves on the pro market (cf. Posey's 10 game suspension).

[verginiamus]

What seems to illuminate this is Tank MacNamara comic strip with Enormous State University and now the series on how there things more important than football but the directors fall to grasp.