Penn State Football: Is This The Feeding Frenzy the NCAA Wished For?

Is this what the NCAA intended last year when, as part of the NCAA sanctions announced a year ago, they reduced scholarships for Penn State football by 20 scholarships per year for four years, and they allowed current Penn State football players to leave for other schools without penalty?

Fortunately many of the schools represented here in this mascot collection exercised restraint last summer on recruiting current PSU football players, and the one school that did not, Illinois, does not have a mascot so is not in these photos.  Chief Illiniwek, now gone, was never a mascot.  He was a spirit, I was told when I tried to acquire one the first time Penn State played Illinois in Champaign.

 Photos by Carolyn M. Todd.  All Rights Reserved.

Sure looks like the NCAA wanted a recruiting picnic full of mayhem that would cripple if not destroy Penn State forever.   A feeding frenzy of sorts.

And even if none of these schools pictured here directly tried to destroy Penn State, they are in fact represented on the NCAA Board and Executive Committee that discussed, approved and authorized the sanctions announced by Dr. Mark Emmert on the basis of a management advisory opinion piece called the Freeh Report rather than follow its own investigation rules.

Fortunately, few players transferred, thanks to the quick thinking leadership of the 2012 football team senior leaders, and the fact that the new coaching staff at Penn State, led by Coach Bill O'Brien, had earned the team's respect.

However, with 80 scholarships gone over the next four years, I can't help but think that Penn State's ability to be competitive over time, even with the most brilliant coaching staff around, will be crippled.

The feeding frenzy might not be so dramatic as it was last summer, but if nothing is done about these draconian scholarship reductions, sanctions that are particularly punitive to current students and players who had nothing to do with Sandusky's criminal behavior, it will be felt over time.

Penn State Football: On Losing Your Voice When It Comes to Sandusky

Media critic John Ziegler had it right in his newly published online book, "The Betrayal of Joe Paterno", which I recommend that you access here at his website www.framingpaterno.com.  In Chapter 5, entitled "The Firing", Ziegler describes the late night decision of the Board of Trustees to fire Joe Paterno via cell phone at 10 p.m., and then the ensuing "riot" downtown after it became known.

This riot of a few thousand people who were downtown when they heard the news consisted of a trash can fire and the toppling of a news van that created serious damage to the van.  But because all the national media were present, the images became something much more like a full scale riot in the minds of the public.

Never mind that five times as many students turned out two days later for a candlelight vigil on the lawn of Old Main to pray for victims of child abuse, and students and alumni in the next several weeks also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for child abuse prevention causes at that Saturday's game and beyond.   That didn't get nearly the publicity or the press images.

Penn State Football: Will Bob Costas Create New Discussion on Sandusky Case?

Tomorrow night, on Wednesday May 29 sportscaster Bob Costas will air a long-awaited discussion about the Sandusky scandal.  He has been rumored to have second thoughts after the Paterno family commissioned a report authored by former US Attorney General Richard Thornburgh regarding the Freeh Report's inadequacies.

According to ESPN:  "In addition to Thornburgh, former FBI supervisory special agent and former state prosecutor James Clemente, and Dr. Fred Berlin, a treating physician, psychiatrist, psychologist and expert in sexual disorders and pedophilia at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine, contributed independent evaluations of the Freeh Report."   The report was entitled "The Rush To Injustice Regarding Joe Paterno."

According to NBC's Vice President of Communications Adam Freifeld, “(The Freeh Report) will be the focus of Costas Tonight tomorrow at 11pm ET following hockey on NBCSN.”

Is this good news or bad news for Penn State fans waiting to hear some positive news about the role of Joe Paterno in this scandal?  It remains to be seen what Costas will say and what he will conclude.
One has to ask about the timing of this broadcast.  The show is not exactly prime time coverage!

Those of us who have lived through this saga remember all too well how overly-consuming the media coverage was in November of 2011.  Prime time coverage was not a problem when it came to media suggestions that former Penn State head coach and college football icon Joe Paterno was somehow at fault for not stopping Sandusky's crimes.

As to any effort at vindication, it appears to me that the media has given such news second fiddle at best.

Here is what John Ziegler, independent documentary film maker and creator of the website www.framingpaterno.com has to say:

"Having spoken to Bob Costas twice about the facts of the case and the nature of the show he might do on this, I am confident that he will take a fair and objective second look at the facts here. Unfortunately, he will not be taking an advocacy role here and the size of that audience at the time with limited time to promote won't be ideal."

Bob Costas' show will air on NBCSC immediately after the hockey program is concluded.  That is anticipated to be about 11 p.m. EST on Wednesday.