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DesertAttorney

Shed No Tears for Paterno

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"But the real scandal is the very structure of college sports . . ."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests. We did.
But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!"

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it's an indictment on Penn State's athletic program. It's reaching to go further.

"And I'm not going to sit here and listen while you bad mouth the United States of America!"



Seems I'm not alone in my views of big time college sports.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/11/16/sports/s013928S86.DTL



"Get off my lawn!" ?

Of course you're not alone. But complaining about the excess of others, or how it used to be better has been going on for a long time.

Cal and Stanford have been fighting over (and stealing) the Stanford Axe since 1899. And yet a couple years ago when Smoot won the Nobel for physics, he came out to the field at a game and the students chanted "NOBEL! NOBEL! NOBEL!"

Stanford routinely rates as the best NCAA program in terms of overall success across all sports. Cal placed 2nd last year. it is quite possible to embrace athletics without destroying the academic mission of a university. Frankly, the focus on research over undergrad education seems more serious a concern.

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Hey look! McQueary's CLM



CLM?

What's happening with him points out the problems common to the whistle blower. For the past couple days, he has somehow now become the most evil, responsible person in the entire affair. Some of it is fans of Paterno, some is just fatigue with the main story, and the rest is some fair criticism of how he handled an event (though definitely a lot of arm chair quarterbacking going on).

He probably fell off the track to become a head coach with all of this.

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it is quite possible to embrace athletics without destroying the academic mission of a university.



It is certainly *possible*, but how many colleges with big time programs actually do it?

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Frankly, the focus on research over undergrad education seems more serious a concern.



Yes.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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it is quite possible to embrace athletics without destroying the academic mission of a university.


It is certainly *possible*, but how many colleges with big time programs actually do it?



difficult to make objective judgments.

i believe Cal, Furd, UCLA, and perhaps U-Washington do, among the schools I am familiar with. USC and Oregon, otoh, perhaps not.

National programs further away: Michigan, Duke, Northwestern. My sentiment says that Texas, the SEC schools (Alabama, LSU, Auburn, all Florida football powers) fail, but there's definitely a cultural shift that makes it difficult to appreciate.

Still, there's perhaps 50 big time sports programs out there and only a smaller subset are top tier schools academically. The cases of academic fraud are pretty low - most violations are about money - and usually done by just a few guilty parties. Most of the damage done by rogue football programs are at the expense of its rivals. While there is valid reasons to tell the NFL and NBA to make their own minor leagues like baseball, these are the only sports that draw meaningful revenue, both directly and indirectly (higher alumni donations).

offshot question - Are the standards different for a "state" university like Oregon State, Boise State, Washington State?

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It's an old joke in academia that all a college president has to do to be considered successful is to ensure there is:

A winning football team to keep the alumni happy

Enough sex to keep the students happy

Enough parking to keep the faculty happy.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Frankly, the focus on research over undergrad education seems more serious a concern.



Yes.



Did you just agree with that? If you did then we found something we agree upon. It's progress!

As far as this thread ... pedophiles and people who help pedophiles should go to prison.

PS: All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

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Frankly, the focus on research over undergrad education seems more serious a concern.



Yes.



Did you just agree with that? If you did then we found something we agree upon..



Probably a topic for its own thread.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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