Should Penn State Get the Death Penalty?

[Trivers]

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/481264...lege_football/


Looks like officials are going from Penn State to state pen. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself.)

What say ye? If so, for how long?

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by BigRock

We can't do that kind of harm to Penn State football. The sport of football is just too important to the university.

SAVE THE PROGRAM, SAVE THE WORLD.

Signed,
Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, and Joe Paterno

Sadly, there is truth to the statement that it's important (critical, in fact) to the university. It's also critical to the state of Pennsylvania.

And we're all discussing ways to punish the program and those involved without throwing a death blow to the university and laying a big hit to the state of Pennsylvania. It's the reason why the death penalty doesn't happen anymore in sports.

[BigRock]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Sadly, there is truth to the statement that it's important (critical, in fact) to the university.

And do you know what that means? When a football program is critical to the survival of an academic institution? It means that somewhere along the line, things have gone astray.

But by all means, let's figure out a way to make sure we preserve the skewed reality where football rules everything and must be protected. I mean, it's not like that exact same mindset caused this entire situation in the first place.

Wait, what's that? It did? I stand corrected.

[manchambo]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Because this isn't a corporation. This is an institution with an $8.5B economic impact and the lifeblood of the state of Pennsylvania. It encourages Pennsylvania residents to stay in state, provides affordable tuition to good students, and then turns those students into future employed Americans who usually stay in-state to keep Pennsylvania's economy running. It is a public institution that, if it fails, Pennsylvania residents will have to foot the bill for the $8.5B per year (and beyond) of loss of impact.

The stats are below:
http://econimpact.psu.edu/

So you're telling the state of Pennsylvania that they should suck it up and lose $8.5B? You're telling students that they should just move to a new state or suck it up and pay a higher tuition rate because they were dumb enough to live in a state that funded Penn State? You're going to tell 44,000 faculty members and staff that they should get their walking papers, not because the university folded, but because some overzealous regulator decided they needed to go above and beyond the necessary punishment?

This isn't just a football program that happens to have a school attached to it. This is a critical piece to the Pennsylvania economy.

Can we overstate the importance of penn state football any more? Maybe the whole state of Pennsylvania would fail. And if that happened, would the united states be far behind?

Back in reality, there is zero reason to think that losing football for a few years would appreciably affect the well being of the school as a whole. Some reality checks: are there thriving schools without football programs? Of course. Are there thriving schools that have football programs that are lucky to break even or at best turn an insignificant profit? Oh my god yes. In fact that probably describes the majority. Finally, did SMU curl up and die? Of course not.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by BigRock

And do you know what that means? When a football program is critical to the survival of an academic institution? It means that somewhere along the line, things have gone astray.

But by all means, let's figure out a way to make sure we preserve the skewed reality where football rules everything and must be protected. I mean, it's not like that exact same mindset caused this entire situation in the first place.

Wait, what's that? It did? I stand corrected.

You're delusional if you don't think football or basketball isn't the critical lifeblood to money that comes in to many major D-1 universities and even to good high school football programs. In most cases, football money funds the entire athletic program, which is a critical piece to enrolling and attracting quality students.

The system may be flawed, but it is what it is. And it benefits nobody to rip the heart out of the chest if you know it's what keeps the body moving.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by manchambo

Can we overstate the importance of penn state football any more? Maybe the whole state of Pennsylvania would fail. And if that happened, would the united states be far behind?

You are talking about 44,000 jobs lost. You are talking about 100,00 students per year who will either have to resort for higher tuition or reduced quality of education. You are talking about stripping one of the most critical ways Pennsylvania is able to keep students and good residents in state. You are talking about potentially stripping away scholarships or affordable tuition to a 17-year old student who can't afford a private institution but has worked her ass off her entire life to get straight A's so she can get into Penn State. You are talking about stripping away $8.5B of economic impact. Indirectly, you are talking about taking away good future lawyers, doctors, businesspeople, etc.... And you're not even factoring the massive amounts of help state schools provide to businesses in terms of expertise, research, etc.... Penn State is one of the lifebloods, for example, of the Pennsylvania farming industry. I think it's rather hilarious that people actually think you can take a public university of that magnitude away and think it wouldn't have a devastating economic effect.

Back in reality, there is zero reason to think that losing football for a few years would appreciably affect the well being of the school as a whole. Some reality checks: are there thriving schools without football programs? Of course. Are there thriving schools that have football programs that are lucky to break even or at best turn an insignificant profit? Oh my god yes. In fact that probably describes the majority. Finally, did SMU curl up and die? Of course not.

Penn State is a school that enrolls 100,000 students. It is an extremely expensive school to run. You have to employ the faculty to cover all those students, pay for facilities, and have students that pay the room & board to house them because any reasonable person knows that the further you are from capacity to fill a building, the more your costs go up. Many schools thrive without a competitive program because they have higher tuition rates or else they don't offer quality educational programming. Most schools don't have the challenge of attracting 100,000 students in order to keep the school running. In most cases, they're happy with a few thousand.

More importantly, we know the direct impact. We're talking about $50M in direct losses if you take away their home games. I can't even imagine how many millions of dollars would be lost in alumni donations. You're talking about hundreds of millions dollars lost.

But like you said... no big deal. Most universities have hundreds of millions of dollars in money just lying around to cover it.

[RaiderH8r]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

You are talking about 44,000 jobs lost. You are talking about 100,00 students per year who will either have to resort for higher tuition or reduced quality of education. You are talking about stripping one of the most critical ways Pennsylvania is able to keep students and good residents in state. You are talking about potentially stripping away scholarships or affordable tuition to a 17-year old student who can't afford a private institution but has worked her ass off her entire life to get straight A's so she can get into Penn State. You are talking about stripping away $8.5B of economic impact. Indirectly, you are talking about taking away good future lawyers, doctors, businesspeople, etc.... And you're not even factoring the massive amounts of help state schools provide to businesses in terms of expertise, research, etc.... Penn State is one of the lifebloods, for example, of the Pennsylvania farming industry. I think it's rather hilarious that people actually think you can take a public university of that magnitude away and think it wouldn't have a devastating economic effect.



Penn State is a school that enrolls 100,000 students. It is an extremely expensive school to run. You have to employ the faculty to cover all those students, pay for facilities, and have students that pay the room & board to house them because any reasonable person knows that the further you are from capacity to fill a building, the more your costs go up. Many schools thrive without a competitive program because they have higher tuition rates or else they don't offer quality educational programming. Most schools don't have the challenge of attracting 100,000 students in order to keep the school running. In most cases, they're happy with a few thousand.

More importantly, we know the direct impact. We're talking about $50M in direct losses if you take away their home games. I can't even imagine how many millions of dollars would be lost in alumni donations. You're talking about hundreds of millions dollars lost.

But like you said... no big deal. Most universities have hundreds of millions of dollars in money just lying around to cover it.

Let'em dip into that endowment. Let the alumni hold a bake sale. Is it going to hurt? Hell yes. That's the point. This shit happens frequently. Offshore oil production is a hell of a lot larger economic driver to the gulf coast than PSU and nobody blinked when the US unilaterally shut it down for about a year. BFD, life will go on. If there is a void it will be filled. PSU can operate away on endowments and alumni til their tits tickle but be ****ed if public dollars get used to pay for the rape and institutional complicity. If the state of PA wants to fund the school I guess that's their prerogative but federal money should be spent shutting down and moving projects out of PSU ahead of cutting all federal money pending the final outcome of the final trial related to this.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by RaiderH8r

Let'em dip into that endowment. Let the alumni hold a bake sale. Is it going to hurt? Hell yes. That's the point. This shit happens frequently. Offshore oil production is a hell of a lot larger economic driver to the gulf coast than PSU and nobody blinked when the US unilaterally shut it down for about a year. BFD, life will go on. If there is a void it will be filled. PSU can operate away on endowments and alumni til their tits tickle but be ****ed if public dollars get used to pay for the rape and institutional complicity. If the state of PA wants to fund the school I guess that's their prerogative but federal money should be spent shutting down and moving projects out of PSU ahead of cutting all federal money pending the final outcome of the final trial related to this.

Good points. A few bake sales should cover up hundreds of millions in losses. Alumni donations minus a football program will not only stay the same but increase by hundreds of millions of dollars. That endowment is money sitting on the table to cover hundreds of millions in losses in perpetuity. State of Pennsylvania and federal funding shouldn't be used to fund one of the us's biggest research institutions. Oh, and eliminating penn state will have no visible impact on the economy, the state of Pennsylvania, and the US.

But billions of dollars in losses is a good way to really stick it to penn state. It's a good way to punish all Pennsylvanians who had the stupidity to live in that state. It's a good punishment for all those who had the audacity to have a wrong opinion about their football team. But at least this will teach everyone an expensive lesson.

[Dylan]

In April Sara Ganim, 2008 Penn State graduate and local reporter for The Patriot-News won the Pulitzer Prize for her hard work and coverage in the Sandusky sexual abuse scandal. Well-deserved.

A quote from Sara Ganim:
"I have a police scanner on my nightstand. I fall to sleep and wake up to the morning news. I work 60-hour weeks digging and investigating, chatting up sources, and peeling back layers until I find amazing stories."


Nice piece in Glamour magazine about how Ganim broke the story: Meet the Woman Who Exposed Jerry Sandusky
http://www.glamour.com/inspired/maga...jerry-sandusky

[OnTheWarpath15]

Originally Posted by BigRock

And do you know what that means? When a football program is critical to the survival of an academic institution? It means that somewhere along the line, things have gone astray.

But by all means, let's figure out a way to make sure we preserve the skewed reality where football rules everything and must be protected. I mean, it's not like that exact same mindset caused this entire situation in the first place.

Wait, what's that? It did? I stand corrected.

Great post.

[RaiderH8r]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Good points. A few bake sales should cover up hundreds of millions in losses. Alumni donations minus a football program will not only stay the same but increase by hundreds of millions of dollars. That endowment is money sitting on the table to cover hundreds of millions in losses in perpetuity. State of Pennsylvania and federal funding shouldn't be used to fund one of the us's biggest research institutions. Oh, and eliminating penn state will have no visible impact on the economy, the state of Pennsylvania, and the US.

But billions of dollars in losses is a good way to really stick it to penn state. It's a good way to punish all Pennsylvanians who had the stupidity to live in that state. It's a good punishment for all those who had the audacity to have a wrong opinion about their football team. But at least this will teach everyone an expensive lesson.

Penn State- too big to fail so we'll continue ass raping children. Thanks taxpayers.

Maybe Penn State should get it over with and just become a Catholic institution.

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by RaiderH8r

Penn State- too big to fail so we'll continue ass raping children. Thanks taxpayers.

Jesus, shut up. There was ONE GUY doing this, and he's in jail now. Do you really think the next dude who tries to bugger some kid in the shower and gets caught will get a free pass?

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by RaiderH8r

Penn State- too big to fail so we'll continue ass raping children. Thanks taxpayers.

it's unbelievable the attitude some people have

big school,big company ... just let them do what they want because we don't want to lose jobs.

holy shit

[RaiderH8r]

Originally Posted by frazod

Jesus, shut up. There was ONE GUY doing this, and he's in jail now. Do you really think the next dude who tries to bugger some kid in the shower and gets caught will get a free pass?

At Penn State? I give the odds 50-50. It is clear those mouth breathers have their priorities all ****ed up.

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by frazod

Jesus, shut up. There was ONE GUY doing this, and he's in jail now. Do you really think the next dude who tries to bugger some kid in the shower and gets caught will get a free pass?

i know you hate RaiderH8er but he's right

you just CAN'T let this pass

I bet if it was your kid you wouldn't want PSU football to get off this easy.

as far as i can see the football program lost a 110 year old figurehead coach in paterno(main loss is recruiting rep) but they aren't going to lose much else.

If the alums step up with big money the entire school is barely going to blink in terms of impact. They are just going to buy their way right out of it.

The main penalty is going to be PR.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by RaiderH8r

Penn State- too big to fail so we'll continue ass raping children. Thanks taxpayers.

Oh, give me a break.

We're talking about severe punishments for those responsible. We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and a huge smear on their reputation which will hurt their ability to raise money and recruit applicants in the near future. We're talking about the guy guilty of the charge being sentenced to 400+ years in prison. And most of us here are supportive of a USC-like ban where they have to forfeit several postseasons and return a bunch of scholarships, which will be a huge blow to the football program. Everybody is saying that these measures are extremely appropriate even though it's a huge blow to the university.

I'd say hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and severe punishments to those involved and to the football program is enough. We don't enforce punishments with vendettas. I get that the charges here are disgusting and the people involved are scumbags. But it's not disgusting to the tune of billions of dollars in yearly losses.