What I find so remarkable in the unfolding of the Penn State
sex abuse cover-up is the consistency in the decisions reached by both the NCAA
and Penn State. They both held one value above all others.
If OpEdge was a TV or radio show, this moment is when we
would hear a hard rock base line followed by a slightly spacey sounding male
voice yelping a single word, ”Money!.....”
That the NCAA’s decision is all about the Benjamins, Grants,
Jacksons, Lincolns and McKinleys is fairly obvious.
The NCAA’s actions constituted a stiff fine, but does not
prevent Penn State from doing business in the future, as ending the football
program would have. Cleaning out some 13 years of Paterno victories cost no one
anything—except the pill of bitter pride for the players and coaches. Thanks to
the good fortune of dying quickly and unexpectedly, Joe Paterno never suffered
the torments of seeing 13 years of victories and the NCAA record snatched from
him because of his own hubris.
The $60 million and loss of bowls and scholarships hampers
Penn State, but a “death penalty” would have put thousands of people in Happy
Valley out of work and led to a major depression in an area in which college
sports, and particular football, is a major industry.
The Penn State decision was also about money. After the
revelations that Joe Paterno knew that Sandusky was raping boys on campus and
engaged in a cover-up of those horrifying facts, how could the statue of the
former saint remain standing?
But why keep the name on the library? It’s simple: Joe
Paterno raised the funds that built it, contributing several millions of his
own to the project. When people give that kind of money to any charitable or
educational institution, there is always a contract. I’m guessing that
somewhere there’s a contract in which the name of the library is bestowed upon
Paterno. And if there’s no contract,
there’s a letter of understanding, or public minutes, a mission statement or
something in writing.
Where there’s something in writing, lawyers lurk, and we
know what that would mean in the case of the Paterno Library: a long and very
ugly law suit in which the public would learn once again of the special
circumstances that might give PSU the right to change the name of the building.
In short, the statue is an amusement, but a library is real
money. Once a statue is gone, it’s easy
to forget it was ever there. But you can’t tear down a library.