James Carville: Suspending Penn State Football Is a 'Really Dumb Idea'

[pwaldo]

http://news.yahoo.com/james-carville...cs.html?_esi=1

Democratic strategist James Carville argued that it would be "a really dumb idea" to suspend the Penn State football program, despite an independent investigation finding that top university officials, including former head coach Joe Paterno, worked to conceal child sex abuse allegations against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

"Look, this is awful, gut-wrenching," Carville said of the Penn State abuse scandal this morning on the "This Week" roundtable. "And people that I really respect are talking about the death penalty for Penn State football. That is a really dumb idea. Lives have been ruined, so the answer to it, let's go out and ruin more lives?

"Let's take a kid who's a football player who was in the second grade when this happened and let's suspend the program. Who knows what he's going to do with his education?" Carville added. "Let's take every contract that's been signed … everybody that has a motel in Happy Valley, let's ruin their lives as a retaliation."

Carville argued instead that the Penn State football program should be allowed to continue so it can generate money, which can then be used to compensate the victims of Sandusky's child abuse.

"Let Penn State football play, let them make money, bring the trial lawyers in, pluck that chicken clean," Carville said.

[AUTaxMan]

I agree. This is outside of the NCAA's jurisdiction.

[theonedru]

my fav part

"Let's take a kid who's a football player who was in the second grade when this happened and let's suspend the program. Who knows what he's going to do with his education?"


I dunno get a job would be a good guess

[AUTaxMan]

my fav part

"Let's take a kid who's a football player who was in the second grade when this happened and let's suspend the program. Who knows what he's going to do with his education?"


I dunno get a job would be a good guess

Because the football player was clearly enrolled at Penn State to get an education.

[pghin08]

Forget even the football team. What if you were say, a restaurant or bar owner in State College? If there's no Penn State football, it effects your business on a massive scale. That's not fair, in my eyes.

[mrveggieman]

I don't agree with suspending any program because of the actions of people who are no longer involved with the program but I do see a bit of hyprocracy in the ncaa. They shut down SMU's program in the 1980s for 2 seasons for paying players under the table but then turn around and suggest that they are powerless do anything about one of their member institutions who allowed a sexual predator to rape and sexually abuse young boys. The ncaa is completly full of it and has about as much credibility as rush limbaugh.

[Star_Cards]

The "punishment" philosophy of the NCAA is idiotic at best. They punish people all the time for things that other people do. It's makes zero sense and they need to stop. If they aren't able to punish the actual people who commit rule infractions or even worse as in this case then so be it. The law is taking care of this case so why do they even need to worry about it. I get that this happened at the institution of PSU, but the people who built up that institution are being dealt with and are no longer there. If they take away scholarships or suspend football for a year or give a death penalty it will do nothing but punish people who had zero involvement in this case.

I see where people say they need to set an example, but in this case it's up to the legal system to set an example. Covering up this sort of thing will get you in trouble way more worse than anything the NCAA can/will do to you... or better yet, to you former employer.

The NCAA's brand of punishment is like hiring a guy who eventually steals from the company, firing him, hiring a new employee to take over and then punishing him for what they fired the previous employee for. It's completely backwards and idiotic.

[*censored*]

I don't agree with suspending any program because of the actions of people who are no longer involved with the program

So do you believe that Ohio State should not have received any penalties since the five players involved in the tattoos-for-memorabilia are gone and the coach it happened under is no longer there?

Fact is, this was covered up for years all the way up to the highest of powers in the school. Something has to happen to the football team or the athletic department as a whole. I would be entirely in favor of the death penalty on Penn State for allowing things like this to happen on their campus under their watch and then covering it up to pretend it never happened. This is a blatant "lack of institutional control."

And if there's no death penalty involved, it still needs to be a harsh penalty, like no bowl games for 3-5 years and a slashing of scholarships. It will harm some players, yes. But they can get on with other schools. It will harm Penn State itself far more than the players.

[mrveggieman]

So do you believe that Ohio State should not have received any penalties since the five players involved in the tattoos-for-memorabilia are gone and the coach it happened under is no longer there?

Fact is, this was covered up for years all the way up to the highest of powers in the school. Something has to happen to the football team or the athletic department as a whole. I would be entirely in favor of the death penalty on Penn State for allowing things like this to happen on their campus under their watch and then covering it up to pretend it never happened. This is a blatant "lack of institutional control."

And if there's no death penalty involved, it still needs to be a harsh penalty, like no bowl games for 3-5 years and a slashing of scholarships. It will harm some players, yes. But they can get on with other schools. It will harm Penn State itself far more than the players.

The tatoos for memorbillia is trivial matter in my book. Who in the hell cares? If Ohio State was never punished I would have not lost a second of sleep over it. It is not a crime in my book. I do think that there should be some type of punishment for everyone involved in the penn state scandal. Mabey the ncaa should do something like any proceeds penn state gets from going to a bowl game for the next 5 years should automatically be given to organizations that assist abused children. They can even take a precentage of the revenue that they get from the regular season. The system is indeed broken and needs to be fixed.

[*censored*]

Trivial or not, it's still an issue of a player receiving something because of his celebrity status. Money or items, it's the same deal. Ohio State got punished and deservedly so. And I say that as a Buckeyes fan.

But the system definitely needs overhauling. The problem though is how? If you don't penalize Ohio State for it, what's to keep them (or other schools) from doing it again?

A member at another board I read and occasionally post at put it well. Here's his post.

Two points on the "death penalty" and why I'm in favor of it.

First, as a practical matter, it has never actually meant "death". It's more of an indefinite suspension with the ability to apply for reinstatement. So "killing" PSU athletics isn't exactly "killing PSU athletics".

Second, as to what it will accomplish, it should serve to put every athletic department on notice that for certain crimes, issues and violations, there is no possible justification at this point for covering it up. A cover-up of something of this magnitude by those in charge has to result in a massive and practical punishment.

The death penalty, which likely eliminates athletics for a year or two, is the only appropriate measure for the NCAA to take.

I get the losses that could be suffered here for PSU. I'm fully aware of the harshness of the penalty. It's not as though there isn't legal precedent for an employer getting shut down completely for a number of violations. Enron employed 20,000+ before it was brought down, directly and indirectly, by the system of fraud perpetrated by Kenneth Lay and his minions, and the percentage of those who knew what was going on there vs. PSU was similar. Arthur Anderson had 80,000 employees when that all went down, and a very small percentage of those employees were involved in the scandal. They were all innocent, and they went down because the employer committed crimes.

Here, the death penalty against PSU athletics will not result in the apocalyptic job loss that occurred then, nor will its punishment carry with it the permanency of that situation. PSU as an institution will survive whatever punishment it gets.