having been a lifelong nittany lion’s fan, the child abuse scandal at Penn State has been shocking and saddening to say the least. as Paterno clearly failed in his responsibility as a community leader rather than simply football coach, the question that remains is why?  Megan McArdle’s piece in the atlantic sums up this argument neatly:

Nor are the laments about the power of football programs, and ambitious coaches willing to do anything to advance their careers. I mean, I am sure that there are a lot of people out there who fit that description, but it doesn’t answer the main question: how did covering up for child rapists become career-advancing?  How did a large group of people somehow tacitly agree to protect a serial offender guilty of just about the worst crime imaginable in American society?

With most of the scummy stuff that happens at companies or institutions, there’s some pretty clear purpose for it. You cheat on your taxes or illegally dump your toxic waste or violate NCAA recruiting rules or procure hookers for the clients because hey, you make more money that way. But no one has articulated any clear reason that any of the people involved should have declined to call the police. There must be some reason, but I don’t know what it is. Talking about the hierarchy and clannishness and self-protection of the football program describes the mechanism by which the secret was kept, but they do not explain the keeping.

McArdle’s feelings, similar to most people’s, can be summed up by this flow chart via adulting blog:

in any case, Paterno must certainly find an answer to that question, and fast. as he may unfortunately learn, being too old, unaccustomed, or uncomfortable to discuss child rape are not legally valid reasons to avoid dealing with it, especially given the extent to which it occurred. As Andrew Cohen points out, this initial unearthing of the scandal is hardly going to be the legal end to all this:

Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly must resolve these and many other questions before making any final decisions about what to do with Paterno (and McQueary, who so far also has avoided charges). If McQueary saw Sandusky anally raping a 10-year-old boy in the shower did he tell Paterno exactly what he saw? If not, why not? And if so, why didn’t Paterno communicate the precise nature of the allegation to Curley? Does McQueary’s ambiguity save Paterno? Is Paterno’s ambiguity actionable? Was Paterno covering up during his grand jury testimony for Sandusky? Was he throwing McQueary under the bus? And what happens now when the 84-year-old ex-coach tells the grand jury or the prosecutors: “I forget exactly what McQueary told me back in 2002″?

These unresolved questions tell us two things about the investigation to date. They tell us that the initial grand jury probe was not good enough — too many of the most important questions evidently were either unasked or left vaguely answered by the witnesses. And they tell us that it is still way too early to gauge the full fallout from this mess. Can you build a legitimate perjury case, or a failure-to-report-abuse case, against a legend like Paterno by focusing upon the degree of description the coach used in communicating what he knew of the episode? Kelly, the attorney general, has to ask herself that question before she goes after the most popular Pennsylvanian since Benjamin Franklin.

from a long piece in the atlantic by taylor branch, here is a view into the money machine that is the NCAA and it’s arbitrary yet ruthless board that enforces decisions that only further cement its existence as the preeminent authority on all things sports in college. it’s likely that many people will come to blame the culture they fostered, the privatization and commodification of college athletics, as the reason why Paterno’s ‘Grand Experiment’ was built up into the unquestionable empire it became. yet in many ways, his program, in fact, embodied the very line the NCAA was trying to sell: college athletics as an ‘amateur’ pursuit rather than corporate enterprise. tellingly, they have yet to issue a statement on the events on the past few days, nor is it clear what their stance would be.

But what Vaccaro said in 2001 was true then, and it’s true now: corporations offer money so they can profit from the glory of college athletes, and the universities grab it. In 2010, despite the faltering economy, a single college athletic league, the football-crazed Southeastern Conference (SEC), became the first to crack the billion-dollar barrier in athletic receipts. The Big Ten pursued closely at $905 million. That money comes from a combination of ticket sales, concession sales, merchandise, licensing fees, and other sources—but the great bulk of it comes from television contracts.

The moral logic is hard to fathom: the NCAA bans personal messages on the bodies of the players, and penalizes players for trading their celebrity status for discounted tattoos—but it codifies precisely how and where commercial insignia from multinational corporations can be displayed on college players, for the financial benefit of the colleges. Last season, while the NCAA investigated him and his father for the recruiting fees they’d allegedly sought, Cam Newton compliantly wore at least 15 corporate logos—one on his jersey, four on his helmet visor, one on each wristband, one on his pants, six on his shoes, and one on the headband he wears under his helmet—as part of Auburn’s $10.6 million deal with Under Armour.