When the NCAA handed down scholarship sanctions and postseason bans for Penn State in the wake of the Sandusky child sex assault case, a lot of the commentary seemed lost in the weeds. Did the NCAA have the legal authority to punish a university because of a criminal case unrelated to NCAA bylaws? Was it the right number of scholarship reductions and bowl games lost? Should it be 20 scholarships lost per year, or 15? Four years or three?
The NCAA eventually backed off its sanctions because it did not believe it could legally prove its authority to intervene in court, and at the time I wondered if their decision didn't have a little to do with its inability to ask bigger questions about itself and college athletics, in general. A money grab as big as FBS football needs fans who live and die by their teams' fortunes every game of the season. Admitting something like football was too important at Penn State is something of an existential crisis for Mark Emmert.
Bigger than scholarships and bowl games lost, though, was the question, "Is it right to punish players, coaches, a football team, a university, and ultimately an entire town for crimes they didn't themselves commit?" Is that justice? My answer then and now is emphatically yes. Scholarship reductions and bowl bans sound at first like peanuts. Make no mistake, they absolutely are compared to prison sentences, hundreds of millions of dollars in justified fines and restitution payments, and physical and emotional support for the victims and their families. But there are no innocents when a public organization as big as Penn State football allows something like Sandusky to exist.
The entire university and all of State College had a hand in what transpired there. Their crimes were not Sandusky's. Their crime was that football was just too damn important. Whatever Joe Paterno did or didn't do, did or didn't know, this was his crime, too, and on a greater scale. I hope his statue is melted down and made into a memorial for the victims.
What do scholarship reductions and postseason bans do? They force a team to be uncompetitive, and no matter how much the team might win, those wins don't count and they result in nothing.
They make the football program unimportant.
That is exactly the kind of lesson both Penn State and State College, PA, needed. Unfortunately, school and state leaders -- as well as tens of thousands of fans -- believed their football team was too important to let go. They gnashed their teeth and promised blood. They won in court and got their important football team back. They did not care for an honest accounting.
If you haven't seen this, yet, please go read this timeline of sex assault allegations at Baylor posted on the college football subreddit:
Comprehensive Baylor Timeline Covering Now-Publicized Incidents
There are some incidents and even open cases listed here I wasn't aware of. National news media are starting to publish (long-overdue) columns about the cultural situation at Baylor (Something's rotten at Baylor and it's way past time to pay attention), and even in their moral chiding they only mention three cases. According to this timeline, there are four to five (former starting TE Tre'von Armstead and former practice squad player Mike Chatman being the ones presumably left out).
That is at least three, featured, scholarship Baylor players (Oakman, Ellott, and Armstead) accused of physical and/or sexual assaults while members of the team. There is tangible proof in police reports that Baylor knew of at least one incident each with Oakman and Armstead -- again, while they played for the team -- and it would seem unreasonable to contend that Baylor did not know about Elliott during his playing career, as well (you would have to think that six victims are all lying about reporting to Baylor student services, some of whom have asked for their student records to be released). All that is to say nothing of the tangled Ukwuachu situation, wherein coaches continued to advertise his return to the field up to three weeks before his felony rape trial.
In an honest accounting of what has happened within the Baylor football program, how is it possible to come to any conclusion other than football was just too damn important? How is the university innocent when it continues to stonewall the public about what happened then, is happening now, and will happen to make the necessary cultural and institutional changes? How is Baylor President Ken Starr innocent when his two official statements were released on New Years Eve and Superbowl Sunday? How are the fans innocent when a seemingly vocal majority refuse to acknowledge the football program's complicity?
You cannot compare the criminal cases at Penn State with the criminal cases at Baylor (and don't need to). But, the institutional and fan reactions to both are interesting. Just like the victim narrative from Penn State and State College, PA, Baylor and Waco cannot help but frame themselves as on equal footing with the women who had their lives stopped and torn apart. This column from Brice Cherry, Waco Tribune-Herald sports editor, makes me sick:
Brice Cherry: Changes in culture paramount for Baylor
Whatever his title, Cherry is not a journalist. He's barely a reporter. He's certainly not a worthy section editor. The news desk is now covering Baylor assault cases, which I imagine is Cherry's preference. Personal aside you can feel free to skip, having worked Cherry's job, it seriously depresses me when I see reporters so disinterested in doing real work. Game recaps and sunny recruiting news should not be what any reporter, no matter their section, aspire to do. If you want a cushy job with no conflict, go find a date entry position somewhere.
If Baylor won't act, someone else needs to. Either the Big 12 or the NCAA need to bring adults to the table who can put football aside and conduct an open investigation. If, as it appears on the outside, Baylor administration and coaches willfully ignored these violent crimes, then there should be program-level consequences and not just fired coaches and staff. The problem is, I don't know that there is anyone in the Big 12 or the NCAA who are so capable. In any honest accounting, that should be our collective shame.
