Ramifications massive if Penn State receives death penalty

The volatile, highly emotional and completely heinous situation involving Penn State has delivered a wide range of opinions like perhaps no other subject in college athletics history.

That's understandable. The scandal where a serial rapist moonlighting as an assistant coach emeritus was allowed to have open access to his young victims and a place to perform those acts while those in power looked the other way makes any other issue appear minor in scope. Remember SMU receiving the death penalty in 1987 for repeatedly and illegally paying players? Those were adults making adult decisions. Last year every publication opined about Jim Tressel and tattoogate at Ohio State. That brings a shoulder shrug now, just like the USC-Reggie Bush disgrace.

The only college scandal that even approaches Penn State's situation was the Baylor basketball desecration in 2003. That's when Baylor Coach Dave Bliss paid out of pocket for two player scholarships, then one of those players (Patrick Dennehy) later was murdered by teammate Carlton Dotson. After the school and NCAA found a litany of major violations involving Bliss, who tried to strong-arm his assistant coaches and players to say Dennehy paid for his tuition by drug dealing, Baylor was obliterated. The program lost its 2005-06 non-conference season, every player immediately was emancipated to other programs and was on probation through 2010.

That was horrific. Penn State's situation is worse. At Baylor, it was strictly the basketball program making the poor decisions. At Penn State, it was everyone, from assistant coach Jerry Sandusky raping children to  assistant Mike McQueary failing to stop him in the act. The cover-up leads from head football coach Joe Paterno - the George Washington of college football - to athletics director Tim Curley to the university's head of police (Gary Schultz) to university president Graham Spanier. Everybody looked the other way including Spanier, the son of a Holocaust survivor. Everybody. They knew of a previous molestation involving Sandusky, discovered new details of another rape, yet failed to act decisively or save a child from 10 minutes of physical torture and 50 years of mental anguish.

Instead of turning over Sandusky to police, the leaders of a world-renowned research institution turned their heads. Now those officials face possible jail time and the university is at a crossroads. NCAA President Mark Emmert told PBS' Tavis Smiley the Penn State situation is an "unprecedented problem," which places it above the Baylor scandal or SMU's runaway, under-the-table spending practices that resulted in the football program's two-year suspension.

"This is completely different than an impermissible benefits scandal like (what) happened at SMU, or anything else we've dealt with," Emmert said on the show. "This is as systemic a cultural problem as it is a football problem. There have been people that said this wasn't a football scandal.

"Well, it was more than a football scandal, much more than a football scandal. It was that but much more. And we'll have to figure out exactly what the right penalties are. I don't know that past precedent makes particularly good sense in this case."

The difference between Penn State and the Baylor or SMU situations is the fact those schools unquestionably committed NCAA major violations. Penn State committed crimes against humanity, but it's in dispute regarding the NCAA rulebook. Is the scandal strictly a legal issue or should it involve the NCAA? That's ambiguous territory right now.

What isn't open to interpretation is how any disruption to Penn State's football program would affect the university and the State College community. Penn State football is revered with 107,000 fans waving white pom-poms on a Saturday. How would the death penalty affect the businesses in that region? What would happen to the hotels, restaurants or gas stations without that income? What about the players, who were in elementary school when the abuses occurred?

What would happen to Penn State's other sports? The football program generated nearly $59 million in revenue during the 2011 fiscal year, according to documents provided by the school to The Gazette. That doesn't include the $38 million in non-specific athletic revenue generated, $26.7 million of which were from uncategorized contributions. Those aren't donations with the fencing program in mind.

Penn State received $23.7 million from the Big Ten/NCAA that year. If the program gets the death penalty, does that revenue evaporate? Without the football revenue, could the baseball, lacrosse, gymnastics or track programs survive even one year? Without a football program, should the entire athletics department shut down for a year or two?

As a byproduct, what does that mean for the Big Ten? Should the league boot Penn State, the flagship athletics university for the nation's sixth most-populous state? Would the league replace Penn State, and if so, what's the ripple effect for college athletics? The Big Ten's decision to expand in late 2009 started a realignment wave that continues to this day. Small potatoes - but crucial to those involved - would be the league's divisional layout, future scheduling, annual championship game and the impact on the new college football playoff system.

All of these questions, penalties and speculation are rooted in an assistant coach's decision to rape children and his supervisors' decisions to ignore it to "protect" the program. Pretty damn selfish and irresponsible if you ask me.