Hefty Schedules (From October 31, 2011)

November is upon us. Crunch time has arrived. Thank goodness, because the first two months of the college football season just haven’t shown us very much. No, that’s not the whining of a Debbie Downer type – it’s just a reality which should guide our collective analysis of the nation’s top teams. It’s very important to establish the most central truth of the 2011 campaign and drive it home so that you’re conscious of it when November bursts into dramatic color: With the exception of LSU, the top teams in the United States just haven’t been tested very much. We don’t know which teams are pretenders and contenders; we don’t have enough evidence to sift the worthy from the weak.

Alabama’s best non-conference win came against Penn State… yes, a Penn State team that is 8-1 because it plays a backloaded schedule in a weak Big Ten and has loaded up on Mid-American Conference teams in non-league play. LSU beat Oregon and West Virginia away from home. Alabama – had it taken down comparatively strong non-conference foes such as Stanford and Georgia Tech – would deserve to sit on the same plane as LSU. Not yet. Of course, in the case of the Tide and the Tigers, we get to find out how things stack up this weekend, so that’s not a cause for concern.  

Look elsewhere, though: There’s just not a lot of information available if you want to make distinctions among other top-10 teams.

Oklahoma certainly showed against Kansas State that it can play at a very elevated level, but since Kansas State hadn’t played an elite team before getting thrashed by the Sooners, it’s hard to determine just how valuable or impressive OU’s win over the Wildcats was. Texas Tech beat Oklahoma, and that same Texas Tech team then got crushed at home by a mediocre Iowa State side. Do we conclusively know what Oklahoma’s made of? Do we know that is team will roll to an 11-1 record and put its foot down, or will it falter? We really don’t know that yet. What about the Oklahoma State team that OU will face in early December? The Pokes didn’t play anyone of note in non-league competition. Before the season began, road wins at Texas A&M, Missouri and Texas would have been extremely impressive, but those three squads – the Aggies, Tigers and Longhorns – are thoroughly mediocre. Since we don’t know how good Kansas State is, a thrashing of the Wildcats won’t give us an abundance of new information about Mike Gundy’s group. We’re basically waiting for Bedlam in the Big 12, which makes assessments of OU and OSU extremely premature at this point.

In the Pac-12, Stanford got punched in the mouth for the first time all season. The Cardinal responded well against USC, but this means that the fun’s just starting for Stanford. David Shaw’s team is just beginning to learn what it’s made of, and the Nov. 12 game against Oregon will take the measure of the folks on The Farm. Right now, there’s little meaning to be gained from speculating about Stanford’s BCS hopes or Andrew Luck’s Heisman chances. Oregon, Oregon, Oregon will tell the tale.

Boise State is very much a mystery. Georgia is an okay team that is winning games… and slopping around every Saturday in plug-ugly games brought to you by yet another wretched SEC East, a minor-league farm system compared to the major-league world of the SEC West. The TCU team Boise State will face on Nov. 12 is nothing close to the 13-0 team that rolled through the 2010 season. The Broncos will likely go 12-0… and remain a hologram, something unable to be touched or felt in real flesh. It’s not Boise’s fault that Georgia and TCU aren’t better, but the truth remains that the Broncos aren’t a known entity in the sense that they haven’t locked horns with one of the sport’s big boys this season.

If you want to establish a pecking order after No. 1 LSU, go on ahead. If you want to determine the Heisman Trophy favorites right now, go on ahead. You won’t be acting on a lot of high-value information. Let’s just wait for November to play itself out instead of insisting on various pecking orders and hierarchies. College football analysis and punditry don’t have to be this way. You don’t have to say something in week five or eight or nine if there’s not enough evidence to back it up. Late-October opinions (and anything earlier in the season) are so overrated. Early-December opinions? Those are the opinions worth advancing… and even then, a college football season often cloaks those views in uncertainty as well.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride – we’re finally going to learn about the top teams in college football. It’s been ten weeks in the making.

The Myth Of National Champions (From September 2011)

LONG FORM WEEKLY AFFIRMATION: A NATIONAL FOOTBALL MYTH

One of life’s deepest truths – especially in this information age – is that multiple tensions will coexist throughout our years on this planet, challenging us to hold many competing forces in a delicate balancing act. We are assaulted by seemingly contradictory messages at every stage of life, and are therefore vulnerable to all sorts of glitches in our thought processes. The superabundant amount of information in modern life has pressured the human organism by imposing even more demands on the brain. We must filter and sift through so much more raw material than we used to; it is as though our minds have become the hamster on the treadmill in the watchtower, never really stopping to make careful, deliberate distinctions. Deep breaths between actions are rare; accordingly, the slow art of finely-calibrated analysis suffers, causing us to think that we must pit competing tensions against each other.

It’s not as though human beings are at fault for failing to balance competing tensions. It’s hard, if not impossible, to wake up one morning and stand against a tidal wave of data you didn’t covet or expect. Insisting on “slow thinking” can’t easily be done – not when the demands on our time are even more urgent and so many snap decisions have to be made in the course of everyday life. When mass society produces transformational technological events that upend the ways in which the mind operates, we are – to an extent – prisoners of the new reality. We can make certain adjustments, but the larger flow of life forces us to follow paths we didn’t carve out ourselves. Cognitive complexity gets lost in the tiring chase to merely keep up with the daily blasts of information that demand our attention.

It’s okay. Life is difficult. Managing information is particularly challenging. Holding tensions in balance is one of the most unsettling endeavors we can possibly undertake.

With that having been said, let’s try to do just that.

College football’s argumentative subculture is very easy to identify. The swirling rush of each concentrated 12-game season is such an intense experience that it’s hard to reshape the contours of the arguments that come our way each year. We know that the Southeastern Conference is the toughest conference with the best track record in big-game situations. We know that one-loss SEC teams will always get pitted against unbeaten teams from other conferences if such a scenario exists at the end of a given regular season. In this argumentative subculture, SEC apologists will reflexively point to the difficulty of surviving the league intact over the course of the regular season. SEC opponents will just as reflexively cite the non-conference schedules of upper-tier schools in the conference. The debate really doesn’t change that much from year to year. The playoff-BCS-plus one arguments haven’t changed much, either.

It’s all rather boring and depressing… no, not that the SEC continues to make and win the most significant game of each college football season (there’s nothing wrong with that), but that the quality of various arguments isn’t really evolving. If you’ve argued about the BCS one year, you’ve argued about it every year. One national championship debate doesn’t seem to be all that different from another. The talking points are predictable; it’s only a matter of which side will adopt them.

In 2003, Oklahoma fans were in no position to tout their team’s non-conference schedule. In 2008, that’s exactly what they used to try to argue around the harsh reality of Texas’s 10-point win against the Sooners on a neutral field. That’s not an indictment of OU fans; it’s just one of many examples of how a limited sample size – 12 or 13 games – makes a college football season an insufficient determinant of the two best teams in the country, the two that play for the “national” championship.

These are not new revelations, but they demand repeating: A team’s 12 or 13 games are played primarily within a conference. Of the three or four non-conference games a team plays each season, almost all of them occur within that team’s home region. Most non-conference games involve substantially inferior opponents as well. The point is plain: Few college football powerhouses play very many games outside their conference and home region against credible opposition. When using a term such as “credible,” one should establish a reasonable metric. A non-conference opponent should either possess the reputation and cachet of an upper-tier program, or it should be coming off an impressive season. A “credible” opponent should basically possess a set of attributes that make a game something more than a slam dunk on the schedule.

Just how rarely do top college football teams challenge themselves out of their own conference and region against <i>credible</i> non-conference opposition? The Weekly Affirmation looked at the past 25 seasons and found that only <i>five</i> national champions (split or outright) played at least three regular-season non-conference games outside their region against credible opposition. Yes, your mileage may vary in terms of defining “credible” opponents; if you see certain teams missing from the schedules of recent national champions mentioned below, you might have a good argument to make. The teams included on this list as “credible” opponents are the no-brainers in this discussion. Excluded teams are the debatable ones. To further explain the parameters of these lists of credible opponents, consider the example of San Diego State on the 1991 Miami list. San Diego State has not been a particularly solid program over the long run of history. By that measurement, the Aztecs shouldn’t be considered a credible opponent for “The U” 20 years ago. However, the Aztecs of the early 1990s had a player named Marshall Faulk on their roster. They weren’t an automatic win and therefore deserve to be seen as credible.

Here’s a more precise explanation of these lists: The teams mentioned on the left are the 14 national champions from the past 25 seasons that played at least TWO credible non-conference opponents outside their regions during the regular season. (This obviously means that 11 national champions couldn’t meet that modest standard of regional diversity in their schedules.) The national champions are followed by the credible (non-conference, non-regional) teams they played.

     

2004 USC - Notre Dame and Virginia Tech
2003 USC (split title with LSU) - Notre Dame and Auburn
2002 OSU - Washington State and Texas Tech
2001 Miami - Washington and Penn State
1997 Michigan - Colorado and Notre Dame
1995 Nebraska - Michigan State, Washington State, and Arizona State
1994 Nebraska - West Virginia and UCLA
1991 Washington - Kansas State and Nebraska<br/>
1991 Miami - Houston, Arkansas, San Diego State, and Penn State
1990 Colorado - Texas, Illinois and Tennessee
1989 Miami - Michigan State, Notre Dame, and San Diego State
1988 Notre Dame - Air Force, Miami, and USC
1987 Miami – Arkansas and Notre Dame
1986 Penn State – Alabama and Maryland

Here are a few follow-up notes worth keeping in mind: First, Miami played in the Big East in 1991 but competed in only two conference games that year. Miami might as well have remained an independent program. Therefore, of the five college football national champions since 1986 that have played at least three non-conference, non-regional regular season games, only two of them played a full conference schedule as well: the 1990 Colorado Buffaloes and the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers.

A second important note is that in the Bowl Championship Series era, not one team has played at least three credible non-conference, non-regional foes in the regular season. A third note is that while 14 national champions have played at least two credible non-conference, non-regional opponents during the regular season, those 14 champions come from just nine schools.

In conclusion, a rational and reasonable person cannot process these facts and conclude that college football crowns “national” champions. This is a sport that crowns regional champions and stages one national game in early January to create the pretense that a team is superior on a national level. This is why college football needs to embrace the Bracket Buster concept. Give schools two paycheck/cupcake games in the non-conference realm, but not three or four. Settle the conference championships before Thanksgiving, give schools a break on Thanksgiving weekend (so that players and coaches can celebrate the holiday with loved ones), and then play two REGULAR-SEASON non-conference games on the first two weeks of December, matching teams from different conferences and, if possible, regions. Then college football can own at least a partial claim to having a <i>national</i> champion.

Right now, the notion of a national champion in college football is quite obviously a false one. Instructively, notice how the list of 14 teams does not include ONE SEC team. See, SEC fans? The Weekly Affirmation has shown that it is possible to hate this sport’s postseason arrangement and not make SEC hegemony a point of complaint or dissatisfaction.

What Should Penn State Do Now (Originally Published This Morning)

What should Penn State do now? This is a question which demands a whole host of answers across a wide range of issues. Some answers are easy and can be immediately put into practice; other answers depend on the knowledge of Joseph Vincent Paterno (what he knew, when he knew it); still other answers will have to wait until the legal system runs its course. With this being the case, let's provide the easy answers and then briefly touch on the other less attainable ones.

 
In light of an event this sickening and soul-crushing, actions are part of the proper response, but so is the manner in which they're carried out. This case is far too tangled and multi-faceted to be wrapped up in days or even weeks. It will take a great many months at the very least to process, investigate and prosecute. Therefore, the realm of what can immediately be done is limited, but within that realm, Penn State must act with the decisiveness that was so conspicuously absent from 1998 to the present day.

First, all the Penn State lifers who played a role in allowing Jerry Sandusky to roam freely must go. It's not up for debate or discussion because explanations aren't necessary in this case. The good ol' boy network so manifestly evident in State College must be thoroughly shattered and swept out of town. The only uncertain point is Paterno. If it is the case that he knew anything about Sandusky's deviant and despicable behavior - or the mere possibility of it - while Sandusky was still an employee (before retiring in 1999), Paterno should resign this very second and turn himself in to local authorities. If Paterno did not aid or abet Sandusky while Sandusky was still his defensive coordinator, JoePa should be allowed to finish the regular season, but once the regular season ends, that should be it for Paterno. There is now no good or legitimate reason for him to stay on as Penn State's coach in 2012. None. That's another point which shouldn't require much of any elaboration.

Second, this Saturday's home finale (senior day) against Nebraska needs to become a time when perspective, demeanor and decorum loom large. The great wisdom people in human history, the great moral and spiritual teachers (with Jesus very much a part of this long tradition), emphasize the way in which people and groups carry themselves. Jesus, for instance, told people not to be glum when fasting. Dietrich Bonhoeffer tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but he held that goal firmly in mind while also realizing that by attempting to kill another human being, he was putting himself at the mercy of God and falling short of a purely Christian standard. This admitted weakness led Bonhoeffer to express the idea that if he ever did succeed in assassinating Hitler, he would turn himself in and meet the occasion without any joy or happiness. He would accept the consequences of his actions and be willing to pay the price of imprisonment if need be. Accepting the consequences of bearing personal or communal shortcomings is the very act that must emerge in this last Penn State home game of 2011, this Twilight Zone environment in which football will - and should be - the last thing on anyone's mind in University Park, Pennsylvania. Penn State University should tell its marching band to stay home. The sound effects should be muted. The game should be stripped bare of any particularly celebratory or elaborate gestures, defering to the Penn State seniors and quietly thanking them for their contributions to the school. Any rah-rah pomp and circumstance, however, must not emerge. The halftime presentation should be 15 minutes of silent reflection, a time for a community to consciously come to terms with the unspeakable harm that has befallen many young and fragile lives. PSU President Graham Spanier's foolish statements over the past weekend are consistent with a rah-rah "We Are Penn State!" attitude that, if carried into this Saturday's game, would slip right back into a celebratory spirit that is not appropriate at this point in time. Spanier's championing of the institution he works for - over and against the victims of horrific crimes committed under (and because of) his neglectful watch - is so chillingly reminiscent of the American Catholic Church's denialist response to the sex-abuse crisis when it mushroomed in 2002. This Saturday, that "defend and promote the institution" mentality must be visibly and thoroughly expunged from the Nebraska game. Precisely because this will be the last game - the only game - at Penn State before a whirlwind of changes greet the football program means that it's the only occasion in which the university can send a proper message to the world. This message must take ownership of shame and moral humiliation. It must take ownership of the evil that was allowed to flourish because of willful administrative protectionism. If Penn State treats this as just another gameday, it will fail on a scale that's hard to imagine.  

Finally, in keeping with this notion that lavish celebrations are not in order at this point in time, it would certainly be best for the Penn State community and football program if a bowl game was rejected. Traveling, tourism, booking hotel rooms, and going to the expense of participating in a bowl game would not be right for a school that has betrayed a public trust, the trust of its students, alumni and donors. It's fair to allow this team - these kids - to play for a Big Ten championship if the Nittany Lions win their division, but a bowl game is a bridge too far and a display of inappropriate excess. Shutting down the season after Thanksgiving (or the first weekend of December) would hasten Paterno's departure and bring about the necessary process of overhauling a cancerous athletic department, eradicating the deep-set sickness that has turned Penn State University into a place of profound darkness in these colder than cold days.

Other answers to problems, other responses to questions, can wait. For now, the above answers offer a good start. In these next few days - especially through Saturday - one hopes that a school and its icon will do the right things for the right reasons under circumstances that are so horribly, grievously wrong.

Weekly Affirmation Special: Penn State

Weekly Affirmation Special Edition-Penn State
		By Matt Zemek Staff Columnist Posted Nov 6, 2011 You have an opinion on Joe Paterno. I have an opinion on Joe Paterno. Everyone's wondering about Joe Paterno. Everyone also wants a steep price to be paid by Penn State University administrators. It's necessary to get to that place, but one must tread carefully and with great nuance before arriving at precise, calibrated conclusions in this sickening, wrenching saga.
By Matthew Zemek   Mr. Zemek's e-mail: mzemek@hotmail.com Follow Mr. Zemek and the Weekly Affirmation on Twitter: twitter.com/MattZemek_CFN Penn State Of Horror… And Moral Complexity As you know, Saturday delivered a bombshell in the world of collegiate athletics. The charges of sexual abuse of minors, levied against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, were chilling enough in their own right, but further charges brought against two Penn State administrators created even more nationwide revulsion. Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Of Finance And Business Gary Schultz were charged with perjury and failure to report child abuse, bringing the dreaded C-word – “cover-up” – back into our common vocabulary. Moreover, the fact that Penn State President Graham Spanier expressed his full and unconditional support for Curley and Schultz, in the face of a formidable amount of evidence pointing to their involvement in the alleged cover-up, created the distinct impression that Penn State’s administration is still, even now, more concerned with the welfare of its own employees than with vulnerable young boys. Let’s establish one thing at the start: The comparison between the Penn State athletic department (and, for that matter, the university’s police operations, which also looks really bad in the 23-page grand jury presentment released on Saturday) and the American Catholic Church is an imperfect one. It’s true that only one man – Jerry Sandusky – is charged with sexual abuse. It’s not as though multiple predators had the run of the Penn State campus. The school in University Park, Pennsylvania, wasn’t part of a network of parishes or other places where Sandusky could have been reassigned to prolong his career. Again, the comparison is not a perfect one. However, it’s a comparison with many salient details and a few eerie parallels. It’s also a comparison that should be viewed beyond the narrow realm of legality and in the wider realm of morality. Let’s begin by framing the discussion: What are human beings made for? What is our purpose in life on this planet? Whether people subscribe to a faith tradition or not, I’d be willing to say that most human beings would accept the idea that we’re not just here to post no bills, avoid trouble, and make it to our gravesite after nine decades of life without calamity. I’d be willing to say that most citizens of this planet would treat life as an opportunity to be seized, a one-time chance (with second, third and fourth acts therein) to make a difference in the condition of the earth and the well-being of one’s fellows. We’re here to improve the quality of life for others, especially the vulnerable, the people who demand and need our protection as dependent beings… people like underage boys. We’re here to serve the principles of justice, not mere legality. We’re here to try to give voice to the best angels of our nature while striking down our worst features as complicated, flawed, biological beings, creatures who spend decades learning how to harness our emotions, hearts and intellects. We’re meant to give fullness of expression to that which is true and right and good; we’re not merely here to observe technical statutes or points of jurisdiction. If life is to be lived, it is to be lived in full. This is what should lie at the heart of this unfolding Penn State story and any attempt to resolve it. In making the (imperfect but instructive) connection with the Catholic Church, then, let’s realize that much like Penn State, the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse crisis in the United States involved careerists who formed a very entrenched internal subculture which persisted for many decades. The Boston Globe blew the lid off the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal with a series of stories that began in January of 2002, but the Church figures at the heart of the scandal, particularly Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, had been members of the Catholic episcopacy since the 1970s. They were assigned to Boston and Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. Law and Mahony were members of a very established, protective cocoon in which predator priests were reassigned to other parishes in diocesan communities. The institutional Church in America became a hiding place for abusive priests, in large part because a “good ol’ boy network” was so easily created and self-sustained. The clerical culture persisted for so long because of the longevity of its senior administrators, who were educated in seminary before the Second Vatican Council was convened in 1962. The priests formed in pre-Vatican II times were trained to think that the protection of the Mother Church – and its lifeblood the priesthood – was paramount in daily ecclesial operations. This isn’t supposed to be a history of the Catholic Church in America, I know, but the point is plain: The tentacles of a specific internal subculture penetrated the mindsets of men like Law and Mahony, creating a context in which it became easy for those Cardinals and other American Church leaders to do the wrong thing, not the right thing. We have much the same thing at Penn State University. Curley and Schultz, the two administrators charged with perjury and failure to report the sexual abuse of a minor, have both been associated with Penn State for at least 37 years (since 1974) if not more, dating back to their time as PSU students. Both men worked up the ladder at the school and have not only spent, but MADE, their adult lives in State College. The same is true for Spanier, the president, who became a PSU faculty member in 1973 before becoming the president of the school in 1995, which was right around the time when many of Sandusky’s alleged abuses began. As for Sandusky himself, the center of this sickening, awful story attended Penn State beginning in 1963. He was Joe Paterno’s graduate assistant in 1966 and then began a 31-season run on JoePa’s staff in 1969, continuing without interruption through the 1999 season. We think of Joe Paterno as an enduring, iconic figure, but what gets lost in the focus on JoePa is that just about every person of importance in this Penn State story had a longstanding relationship with the school, not unlike the senior leaders of the American Catholic Church. Moreover, details from the 23-page grand jury presentment in this case show that officials in the university police department allegedly played their own significant roles in covering up Sandusky’s alleged abuses. Ronald Schreffler, the detective who conducted the 1998 investigation of Sandusky, didn’t file charges against Sandusky. Schreffler testified that then-director of police Thomas Harmon ordered Schreffler to close his investigation. PSU counsel Wendell Courtney, for his part, worked for the school in 1998 while also serving as the counsel for The Second Mile, Sandusky’s charitable organization. You can see what everyone else sees at Penn State: A layered, dense good ol’ boy network that – if the allegations in the grand jury presentment are true – engaged in a systematic, extended cover-up of Sandusky’s abuses, willfully looking the other way and deciding to shield Paterno from knowledge of these incidents. Oh, yes – Joe Paterno. Obviously, he’s a focal point of this story. However, before focusing on JoePa, it’s worth paying attention to an under-emphasized dimension of this stomach-turning set of developments: The alleged role of Penn State’s police in not pressing charges against Sandusky. This forms a strong parallel with the history of the American Catholic Church in the 20th century. One thing that has to be appreciated about the relationships between diocesan Catholic leaders and the communities they served is that for much of the 20th century, high-ranking priests (parish pastors) and local bishops wielded enormous political power. They guided many aspects of the lives of their congregants and were unquestioned in the ways they exercised their authority, partly because priests were viewed as – if not omniscient figures – the people who knew what was best for everyone in a parish and its surrounding neighborhood. Priests were viewed as the sole people who were fit to interpret scripture, but that deference to priests didn’t stop with the Bible or with Sunday liturgy. The pre-Vatican II culture of the priesthood flowed to congregations in an all-encompassing way, and as a result, Catholic clerics assumed the role of kingmaker in their communities. This served to create a context that was even more conducive to cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests. Allowing for the fact that the Catholic Church and Penn State aren’t perfectly, equally comparable entities, the particular parallel – a lack of a culture of questioning – holds true at both places. The grand jury presentment is nothing if not a damning revealer of a pervasive environment in which questions were discouraged and decisive action was not valued at Penn State. The one person who stepped forth to ask a question in March of 2002, Mike McQueary, was a 28-year-old graduate assistant at the time. All of the people with seniority and longevity at Penn State, going all the way to Spanier at the top of the university’s structure, did not ask questions or express any appreciable desire to answer them; the young adult was the only grownup in the room. “Older White Men Keeping Secrets Buried” is the theme that can be legitimately applied to State College’s nexus of police and administrators, and it can also apply to Catholic diocesan communities around the country. The parallels between these different organizations aren’t perfect across the board, but a few of them are substantially and powerfully relevant. Having provided this background, one can now get to the two issues that are on the minds of many American citizens: What of Joseph Vincent Paterno’s role in this story, and what should be done to Penn State’s football program? First, Paterno. For so many reasons, he is – in many people’s eyes – a central figure in this story, but the surrounding dynamics of the case, at least those that are known at this point, suggest that the public’s focus should lie elsewhere first. This is where the parallels between the Catholic Church and Penn State break down. Paterno might be the iconic figure in this story – he is the face of Penn State to the American public – but he is not (and was not) the person in charge of Penn State University or its athletic department. Spanier is the president of Penn State and Curley is the AD. When McQueary (the 28-year-old grad assistant) went to Paterno in March 2002 with reports of Sandusky’s abusive activity, Paterno passed that information to Curley, the person who was most centrally responsible (with Spanier’s blessing) for ensuring that Sandusky was barred from campus and did not enjoy the privileges he was granted within the PSU athletic department upon his retirement from Paterno’s coaching staff in 1999. Let’s appreciate this fact: Paterno did not cover up in March of 2002. He did not diminish the nature of the information McQueary brought to him. He did not sweep this under the rug, and since Sandusky was not under his employ in March of 2002, Paterno did not have the foremost obligation to pursue the investigation. That was in Schultz’s hands, as the man tasked with overseeing the university police. Unlike Cardinal Law or other Catholic clerics, Paterno did not cover up… at least not in March of 2002. If it turns out that he knew of Sandusky’s behavior before Sandusky left his post in 1999, THEN Paterno would join Spanier, Curley, Schultz, Courtney, and university police officials – Schreffler and Harmon in particular – as someone who committed the unforgiveable sin of knowingly putting underage boys at risk. Right now, though, we have not arrived at that point, and so we must wait to see if Paterno possessed any pre-1999 knowledge of Jerry Sandusky’s darkest side. I know that waiting isn’t the proper response to the abuse of kids – the Catholic Church institutionally dragged its feet for a long time on that issue, without question – but it IS the proper response in terms of assessing Paterno’s role (and his culpability) in this situation. Let’s also underscore the point – with skepticism and cautiousness – that Paterno is not a hero in this, but he’s also a long way from being a true villain unless further (and more damning) revelations emerge in the coming months. Other figures in this drama can be seen in sharper relief, with more clarity and anger. It really is Paterno who is shrouded in uncertainty at this point, with more details about the Sandusky timeline yet to be disclosed. It’s distinctly inconvenient – intellectually and emotionally – to realize that a man who has generated so much newsprint and TV coverage can be unknown in one very important episode, but that’s the reality we have with Paterno on November 7, 2011. We haven’t arrived at a “Nixon Tapes” moment; we’re asking, “What did JoePa know and when did he know it?” That question has not been answered… not as it applies to 1998’s PSU police investigation of Sandusky. We’re just going to have to sit with the contradictions and tensions of Paterno’s actions for awhile, waiting for more answers to disturbing and troubling questions. While he fulfilled minimum obligations and did not cover up Sandusky’s (reported or alleged) behavior in March of 2002, Paterno – given the severity of the issue and the implications of Sandusky’s actions – should have done more. At the very least, Paterno not only could have, but should have, made personal inquiries, using his influence to make sure that the interests of those (potentially) wronged by Sandusky were fully served. Given everything he’s meant to Penn State, to college football, and to intercollegiate athletics over 46 years as a head coach, Paterno should not be the kind of coach who merely fulfills minimal obligations and doesn’t lift a single finger to do more. That’s an absolutely valid, fair and powerful line of criticism. Yet, in the same breath – and this can’t be repeated enough – Paterno was NOT the man who was responsible for keeping Sandusky in and around PSU’s athletic facilities in 2002. It was NOT his call; it was Curley’s call. Paterno existed in a larger context that was not conducive to the level of bold, crusading action that some critics are viewing as a baseline standard of conduct for JoePa in the wake of his March 2002 discovery of Sandusky’s disturbing behavior. It’s precisely because Sandusky was such a longtime associate of Paterno that it would be hard for Paterno to be the lead figure in a robust investigation. Ethics guidelines would suggest that Paterno would have had to recuse himself of the primary role in such a pursuit, or at least limit his powers or leverage. Realistically, since when does a longtime friend and boss conduct his own investigation of his trusted employee? Friends don’t investigate friends; the job should fall to an independent and reputable outside authority. One must re-emphasize why the seniority and longevity of so many of the principles in this Sandusky saga underscored the need for Penn State administrators to bring state and county officials into the situation. Having said that, it’s worth noting that a very prominent person in local county government – then-Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar – decided in 1998 to not press charges against Sandusky following Schreffler’s investigation… yes, the very same investigation Schreffler claims Harmon, the director of campus police, wanted to be closed. You can see that Paterno’s role in this is not only unknown, but it’s pretty far down the totem pole in terms of the most urgent questions that need to be answered. The bottom line on Paterno is that the bottom line – in all its fullness – won’t be known for awhile. Last but certainly not least, one must deal with the matter of the PSU football program’s future. It’s true that the NCAA deals with athletes and the ways in which schools do or don’t field teams. Current NCAA bylaws, structures, policies and other mechanisms really aren’t suited to this kind of investigation. This is not a controversial point. However, what’s also just as clear is that Penn State’s athletic department is already guilty of committing the NCAA’s ultimate sin, a loss of institutional control. This, too, should not be a slightly controversial claim. When an athletic director, Tim Curley, puts underage boys at risk in a manner that’s chillingly similar (though not identical) to what Cardinal Law and others did in the American Catholic Church, it is plain that the soul and center of an athletic department has completely lost its way… not because of the disastrous consequences, but because of the callous disregard for human life and the public safety of distinctly vulnerable individuals who were harmed precisely because of their proximity to a Penn State football coach (Sandusky). A more particular detail which needs to be explicitly stated here is that much as the Catholic Church was a repository for powerful hopes and beliefs on the part of parents and children, Penn State football – with its good name and track record of success – was also a large, prominent entity young boys wanted to be close to. It really is Tim Curley who can be most easily linked to a Catholic bishop, with Spanier –as the president – being more akin to a Vatican official with knowledge of the situation. Systemic institutional sin was and is at work here; the Catholic Church paid a powerful price, and the people who invested their hopes in it were punished whether they liked it or not. Similarly, it is unfortunate that the football players and other athletes at a wayward athletic program must live under the dark cloud created by an event such as this, but it’s worth saying that the dark cloud is already a punishment in and of itself. The notion that Penn State players can escape punishment is a faulty one; they have already suffered a psychic blow and a certain sense of shame attached to being part of a university whose high-ranking officials endangered the lives of young people. Therefore, since the PSU athletic program lacks any institutional control, and since the black cloud of scandal dwarfs the Miami program of today or the SMU program of the mid-1980s, there is only one realistic solution: PSU’s athletic program deserves the death penalty. If Ohio State, Boise State, North Carolina, USC and other programs got their hands dirty over tattoos, cash payments, grades, tutoring, agents, and runners for agents, can Penn State be given a LIGHTER sentence or even no sanction at all before the NCAA? Matters of jurisdiction and bylaws and structures and procedures have their rightful place in an orderly society, but so does the demand for justice, for recognition of the not-very-controversial idea that Penn State’s sins are a trillion times worse, a trillion times more damaging to the public trust, a trillion times more awful a betrayal of a public’s expectations and standards. Perhaps you might think – with considerable justification, I might add – that the NCAA needs to be completely overhauled if not blown up. (I agree.) Perhaps you think – also with substantial justification – that punishing athletic departments simply can’t be done the way it’s always been done if players (the innocents in all this) are to avoid a punishment they do not deserve. Perhaps you think – with much legitimacy, wisdom and validity – that this situation at Penn State must achieve reform for the future more than anything else. Those are all good and healthy places in which to direct this conversation. As a Catholic, however – a person who sees the likes of Cardinal Law and Cardinal Mahony not in jail because of legal technicalities and matters of jurisdiction – I cannot get past the notion that these actions (or lack thereof) at Penn State demand the accountability which comes from punishment. Power brokers and administrative elites so often get off scot-free in our society while those at the bottom of the socioeconomic and politico-cultural food chains go to prison. A healthy society brings justice to all its members, and a healthy society also views all its citizens as equals, giving them equal treatment and respect. Plainly put, Penn State’s athletic department – the recipient of many dollars public and private but also the bearer of so much accumulated goodwill – has forfeited its right to be seen as a safeguard of the public trust and as a guardian of young people’s lives. This athletic department does not deserve to partake of the riches afforded by the Big Ten and its lucrative TV deals. If SMU football in 1987 and Miami football in the coming years are going to be sidelined for a decade due to massive NCAA penalties, how can Penn State not receive an even harsher punishment? In a just society, the NCAA would be overhauled, but in a first-things-first context, Penn State football must meet the biggest hammer of all. Forget Joe Paterno for a moment – that drama might not resolve itself for a good long while. What counts at this point is to make sure Penn State officials and leaders pay a very severe price for their sins of commission and omission over the past decade and a half.