"At Penn State, a Storm That Should Pass"

"At Penn State, a Storm That Should Pass" was the big, front page headline in the Monday Sports Section of the New York Times. The accompanying picture and article took up almost a full page.

And here was the subtitle:

"Education officials and crisis experts suggest that a sexual abuse scandal's effect on fund-raising, recruiting and admissions may not last a year."

And how long, do you suppose, will the effect on those abused boys last?

I am appalled and disgusted. This is what the sports writers and editors think is the most important thing to be discussing right now? Whether the scandal will hurt fund-raising and recruitment for the football team? Even in the New York Times?

But why should I be surprised, because this actually confirms the point I was trying to make in my post yesterday and the subsequent comments about the tunnel vision of everybody that is caught up in this college sports culture, this empire of athleticism that so absorbed people in its skewed priorities that the sexual abuse of children had to be hidden and ignored rather than risk bringing down that empire.

And now all they want to write about is how long it will take for this to be forgotten and things will get back to "normal."

What's even worse, the same mentality pervaded the Vatican and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church when forced, at last, to confront its complicity in shielding the priests who sexually abused children.

So far, it seems the college kids themselves have a better perspective on this than the alumni and the sportswriters.

If the "effect of the scandal" lasts less than a year, that itself will be another tragedy; because it will mean that nothing changed. And it, or something similar, will happen again.

Ralph