News that the National Collegiate Athletic Association has begun to relax some of the sanctions on a disgraced university American football team has thrown the spotlight back on to one of sport’s most distasteful episodes.
Penn State, which previously had one of the best college football programmes in the US, was rocked by an abuse scandal in 2011 that shook the game, and the institution, to its core.
Jerry Sandusky, a figure as well known in college football as the top Premier League managers are known in England, was exposed as a serial child abuser.
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But the scandal was much more than just a sexual-abuse issue – it also highlighted the extremes to which the authorities would go to cover up such behaviour in order to protect the lucrative football set-up at the university.
It is hard to find a British equivalent to the importance of sport at American colleges. The nearest we get over here is universities agreeing to lower the entry level for potential students who show particularly good sporting prowess. (Even then, some universities publicly deny that such a policy officially exists).
But across the pond, it’s very different. Lucrative sports scholarships are offered to the most promising students as colleges try to get as large a slice of the financial pie as possible.
The stats show why the universities attach such importance to their American football teams. According to research by Forbes.com, the Texas Longhorns – college football’s most valuable team – was worth $133million at the last count, with revenue clearing the $100m mark for the first time. Each Longhorns home game attracts more than 40,000 visitors to Austin, and a single game can bring anything up to $10m of direct spending into the local economy.
Overall, the 20 most valuable teams are worth an average $86m, with team revenue of $65m. The figures are phenomenal – and remember we are talking about college sport here.
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The Penn State scandal hit that college’s team hard. According to Forbes, the Penn State Nittany Lions saw their value fall from $100m to $79m last year, with the team slipping down the financial rankings from third to 13th.
“The sudden slide was expected as the team felt the first financial implications of the Sandusky child abuse scandal,” said Forbes.
These figures help explain – although clearly not excuse – the attempts by so many at the college to keep the scandal hidden from sight (although there is a strong likelihood that the punishment would have been a lot less harsh had someone blown the whistle earlier on).
Sandusky, a legendary assistant football coach at Penn State University, was able to get away with his crimes for years, possibly as far back as the 1970s, and right under the noses of people who should have shopped him.
Several senior officials at the college were charged with perjury, suspended or sacked for covering up the incidents or failing to act. These included the school president, who resigned, while head football coach Joe Paterno and the athletics director were kicked out.
An editorial in the Staten Island Advance newspaper reflected the horror felt by millions of Americans. “What is ... shocking in this case is what all those people around Sandusky didn’t do for all those years. And few of them will pay any price for their disgraceful failure to act.
“They were much more interested in protecting the Penn State brand and Nittany Lion gridiron mythology – as well as their own standing – than they were in protecting young boys who were systematically brutalised by Sandusky.”
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A report by a former FBI director found that allegations of Sandusky’s child abuse were raised as far back as 1998, and senior officials at Penn State were complicit in failing to disclose them. These officials were accused of showing a “total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims”.
As a result of these findings, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) imposed massive sanctions on Penn State in July last year. The punishment included a fine of $60m and a reduction in the number of annual scholarships the college could give for football players.
At the time, NCAA president Mark Emmert said the punishment was designed “not to be just punitive, but to make sure the university establishes an athletic culture and daily mindset in which football will never again be placed ahead of education, nurturing and protecting young people”.
That statement was a clear indication – if it were ever in doubt in the first place – that the key figures at the university had put the lucrative sport higher up their list of priorities than child welfare.
The NCAA has now announced that some of its sanctions are being relaxed. Former US senator George Mitchell – best known over here for his work trying to broker the Northern Ireland peace process – has been appointed “athletics integrity monitor” at Penn State, and he has reported that the university has made good strides towards making sure such a scandal can never happen again.
The number of scholarships the Nittany Lions will be allowed to issue from the start of the next school year will rise from 15 to 20, and then to 25 the following year. This will be a big help to the university as it looks to rebuild its team, the pride that comes with that team – and, of course, the huge financial benefits.
In the 海角视频, we often moan about the vast sums of money being chucked at sport – and particularly at soccer, as our American friends like to call it.
The cynicism isn’t restricted to people who don’t like the game. There are plenty of fans who happily shell out hundreds of pounds a year on season tickets and hundreds of pounds a year more on television sports channels, who also think the amount of money that finds its way to the players is distasteful.
And while defenders of free-market economics will tell you that sportsmen and women are worth what people are collectively prepared to pay them, there’s no doubt that some of the sums involved are more than a little obscene.
But what we can do, the Americans can do bigger and better. The NFL is worth billions of pounds – as is our Premier League – but the money that goes to university teams is something we find hard to relate to. At least the bucketloads of cash that we throw at sport goes to adults.
The Penn State affair highlighted the toxic dangers of mixing vast sums of money with vulnerable youngsters – people who perhaps would not want to risk losing their future lucrative careers by blowing the whistle on the behaviour of a popular coach.
We should not tar everyone with the same brush. Without underplaying its importance, what happened at Penn State was restricted to that college and one man. There’s no suggestion that that sort of behaviour took place elsewhere.
However, what should have been “simply” a child-abuse case became something much bigger – a cover-up of epic proportions designed to protect a college’s reputation for sporting prowess and its huge income stream. Fortunately, it was eventually all exposed, and Penn State continues to suffer tough punishment, notwithstanding the easing of the scholarships sanctions.
But it is proof that the love of money really can be the root of all evil.