Coaches, priests, rabbis, youth directors: Context to the Penn State scandal

The scandal at what was until recently the nation’s most successful and “squeaky-clean” football program is far bigger than a football story.

Plug in different titles for the Penn State villains and you have the story of sexual abuse writ large. Just as there is a psychology to sexual abuse, there is a sociology to covering up sexual abuse.

One common element in the cover up, one sociological truism, is this: Hush, hush; don’t go to the police. Don’t let the university’s standards and conduct officer decide which misconduct disqualifies a football player from suiting up; let the coach decide. Don’t let the police decide which sexually abusive behavior of a priest rises to the level of a criminal act; let the archbishop decide. Don’t ruin all the other good work that a sexually abusive Jewish youth leader does; let the rabbi decide.

The new information that continues to gush out of the Penn State scandal only confirms the pattern of cover-up and denial — not to mention the malfeasance and immorality — rampant in these abuse scandals. The coach, the clergy, the therapist and others become the favored addresses of the mistaken impulse to protect the reputation of the victimizer — and of his institution — above the damage done to the victim.

It turns out that the child molestation that allegedly took place under Coach Joe Paterno was only one, albeit the worst, such case of misconduct that plagued the supposedly “squeaky-clean” Penn State. And not only that, but both Penn State’s President Graham Spanier and Coach Joe Paterno were called on it years ago. They still did not respond appropriately.

According to documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Penn State’s standards and conduct officer, Dr. Vicky Triponey, called to the attention of both the president of Penn State and its football coach, as long ago as 2005, that football players accused of, and even found guilty of, misconduct and crimes were treated differently from other students on campus. They were favored. And even that elicited the righteous indignation and nasty opposition of Coach Joe Paterno, as well as the more quiet, reasoned, deliberate — and perhaps on those counts, the more damning — opposition of Penn State’s former athletic director, Joe Curley. (He is now under indictment for perjury.)

A Penn State football player is charged with sexually assaulting a woman and temporarily expelled from school? Why, that’s no reason he shouldn’t play football! A student commits a crime off campus? Well, that’s no disqualification from playing football! Discipline is imposed on football players? How dare you. That is “overreacting” and going “overboard.”

In an email to Penn State’s President Spanier, Dr. Triponey, the conduct and standards officer, wrote of Coach Paterno: “I do not support the way this man is running our football program. We certainly would not tolerate this behavior in our students so I struggle with how we tolerate it in our coach.”

People speak of the “moral” failures at Penn State — how a witness to an alleged child rape by long time assistant coach Jerry Sandusky could inform his superior later (not the police) instead of stop the rape. Well, there is also moral triumph at Penn State. Dr. Triponey resigned from Penn State over “philosophical differences.” She met her moral responsibilities, and paid the price. The coach, the president, the athletic director, the alleged rapist — now all disgraced — cannot say they were not reasoned with by Dr. Triponey — not warned, not exposed to a different set of standards and procedures than the ones they upheld.

They cannot claim they were blindsided by this scandal.

Dr. Triponey wrote at one point: “[Mr. Paterno believed Dr. Triponey should have] “no interest, (or business) holding our football players accountable to our community standards. The Coach is insistent he knows best how to discipline his players . . . and their status as a student when they commit violations of our standards should NOT be our concern . . . and I think he was saying we should treat football players different from other students in this regard.”

The National Council of Synagogue Youth (NCSY) cleaned up its act after the Rabbi Boruch Lanner sex abuse scandal. (Other Jewish institutions have been slower to react, with devastating consequences for the victims.) The Catholic Church has suffered extreme financial losses for its long and widespread denial of the problems endemic to its training and procedures. For many institutions recently caught in the grip of abuse scandals, the learning curve has been steep and painful, but it has taken hold.

Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case with football, since it is highly decentralized, with unrelated programs all over the country, and a seemingly endless litany of cases of misconduct, abuse, rape, victim-suffering, trial, remorse, public astonishment and prison time. Nonetheless, perhaps the drama of the most successful football program in the country falling into disgrace will have its effect. Perhaps coaches and athletic directors everywhere will pay closer attention to themselves, to those who work for them, or both.

Do not count on it, however. There is one element to the prevalence of sexual abuse in the college sports context that may be unique to it. That is, higher education is being cut root-and-branch by state legislatures. Higher education is desperate to find new funding sources. Tuition is skyrocketing. Football programs are tailored to be cash cows — fundraising foci. That means the pressure to cut corners — to overlook or deny sex-abuse and other disciplinary problems in the personnel and the procedures of college football — is enormous. This countervailing force can slow the delayed, time-release awakening to the problem of sexual abuse in major social institutions across the country.

Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News