Would that Sunday could at last close the book on the funny pages. There will be nothing left for BWI posters to say short of, "Let's join the NFL," or to propose forming a new conference of schools that will accept pedophilia and administrative cover up as practices - all for the right to play Penn State in Joe Paterno Memorial Stadium.
I've laughed, joked and pointed fingers at these folks, but I have to remember my freshman year at Ohio State and recall that I was one of the estimated crowd of five thousand who lined up at 15th and High behind TBDBITL and marched to Capitol Square over the decision to not go to the Rose Bowl. More than most people, I should realize how easy it is to lose perspective over football.
Still, I look at some of the BWI responses and their sense of victimization, and I wonder if they don't have the wrong victim -yes, of course those young men Sandusky abused - but the revelation of the crimes and the administrative cover up and the ensuing penalties victimizes the Big 10 and the individual institutions and were the RoBOTs to push this to such a point that the NCAA would feel pressured to revert to the original punishment of a four year death penalty, the conference and member schools would be even further punished.
There has to be a price for having a member school where such a lack of control was allowed to take place, and it doesn't seem beyond the reach of reason to think that administrators at the sister schools were aware of the amount of power Paterno had accumulated and said or did nothing. Academicians gossip too, and professional conferences bring people together where such topics are often openly discussed.
The other Big 10 schools can not help but be tarnished to some degree by the news itself as well as the outrageous and insensitive remarks found on the BWI threads, and by the notion outsiders will have that this is a conference where football, not academics, rules. It certainly has to amuse the private school folks at one end and SEC fans at the other.
We may be taking joy at the destruction Penn State is experiencing, but that destruction lowers the collective strength of the conference, the SOS for each school, the potential revenue for/from BTN and from the other networks. It destroys the assumed balance of Leaders and Legends, devalues the next decade of games with Penn State, threatens the conference championship game and weakens the conference's image and impact in the vital eastern market.
In short, fans at Big 10 schools should probably be feeling less joy and more anger and a sense of being victimized by the failures of Penn State.
