Down with the Golden Calf!

Laura Lovins, a Penn State University sophomore from State College, Pa., , center, reacts while listening to a television in the HUB on the Penn State University main campus in State College, Pa., as the NCAA sanctions against the Penn State University football program are announced Monday, July 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

>>>Penn State football slammed with NCAA
sanctions

111 Penn State victories have been wiped from the
record books. The team is banned from bowl games for four
years. The football program itself is spared, but there
will be fewer scholarships.

The NCAA demands a $60 million endowment for
victims of child sex abuse, confiscating every penny
Penn State would have earned from its football program.
All because NCAA President Mark Emmert and the college
presidents are unanimous that football cannot become
religion.

“The result can be an erosion of academic values that
are replaced by the values of hero worship and winning at
all costs,” says Emmert.

On Sunday, the Joe Paterno statue, Penn State’s Golden
Calf, was hustled to a garage inside the stadium.

But more than just punishing Penn State, Emmert seems
determined to reassert control over America’s college
football culture.

“One of the grave dangers stemming from our love of
sports, is that the sports themselves can become too big
to fail, indeed too big to even challenge,” says Emmert.

It’s the Wall Street metaphor. But Wall Street is still
too
big to fail and so is college football.

You can erase a team’s record, but not the thrill of
winning. You can take away sports scholarships, but you
can’t kill the urge to compete.

The very fact that Penn State agreed to a penalty
of $60 million with nary a peep reminds us of
the unbelievable sums they expect to earn after this is
over.

The real power in college football is not the NCAA,
it’s the money. And while that statue may be in hiding, I
bet it comes back.

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