Different Day, Same Shit.

With Jerry Sandusky convicted and slated to be sentenced on child sexual abuse charges, all that was left was to address the issue of Joe Paterno and sanctions against Penn State. Joe Pa's dead, leaving the only thing anyone can do is make sure the legacy he left behind was tempered with the acknowledgement of what he failed to do: properly respond to and treat seriously those allegations of child sexual abuse made against Sandusky. Instead, Joe Pa opted to place preservation of the football program and university's reputation above protecting those who need protection most.

Ironically, that practically insured that his own reputation and that of the program and school would pay dearly. For example, take a look at the memorial created in honor of Paterno's coaching. Leaving it up would have satisfied die-hard Penn State fans still in denial over what has happened, but it would have flown in the face of countless victims who suffered under Sandusky's predations and Paterno's inaction. Chances are it would have been vandalized sooner or later. Now, it's a bitter reminder of how covering up a scandal can cause tremendous pain and suffering to the victims, their families, fans and the program itself.

I'll disclose right here and now that I'm not a big college football fan, despite coming from a state where "Go Tigers!" and "Roll Tide Roll" are almost religious mantras, with Jordan-Hare and Bryant-Denny serving as the sacred altars upon which any Auburn or Alabama fan worth his or her colors pay reverence upon bended knee. I can't say the cult-like following surrounding Joe Paterno and the Nittany Lions is exactly comparable to Alabama fans' slavish devotion to all that is Bear Bryant, but I'll go out on a limb and ask myself this question: would Alabama fans and officials react the same way if Bear knew about similar allegations against his assistant coach and did nothing about it?

As a result of this scandal and in addition to an ongoing DOE investigation for violations of the Clery Act, the NCAA considered sanctions against Penn State, one of which happens to be the infamous "death penalty." Here's a quick primer on what the "death penalty" entails:

The death penalty is the popular term for the National Collegiate Athletic Association's power to ban a school from competing in a sport for at least one year. It is the harshest penalty that an NCAA member school can receive.

The NCAA has always had the power to ban an institution from competing in a particular sport. However, in 1985, in response to rampant violations at several schools, the NCAA Council passed the "repeat violator" rule. The rule stipulates that if a second major violation occurs at any institution within five years of being on probation in the same sport or another sport, that institution can be barred from competing in the sport involved in the second violation for either one or two seasons. In cases of particularly egregious misconduct, a school can also be stripped of its right to vote at NCAA conventions for four years. The severity of the penalty led the media to dub it "the death penalty," and the nickname has persisted to this day.

It's called the "death penalty" because the sanctions often leave college football programs sucking wind, if they remain in existence, far beyond the ban period. Penn State fans have good reason to worry.

The NCAA didn't issue the dreaded "death penalty." Instead, the organization opted to hand down sanctions that have plenty of their own far-reaching repercussions:

1. Penn State faces a $60 million sanction, equivalent to the average gross annual revenue of the football program. Those funds go towards an endowment for outside programs preventing child sexual abuse and helping victims of such abuse. Penn State cannot use those funds for programs at the university.
2. Penn State's football team is banned from postseason play and appearances for four years.
3. All of Joe Paterno's wins from 1998 through 2011 were vacated, meaning he officially has no wins under his name from the time he became aware of and ignored child sexual abuse allegations to his firing in late 2011.
4. Penn State must reduce 10 initial scholarships, plus 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period. In other words, Penn State loses 90 scholarships for the full period and 90 chances to woo football prospects with full-ride scholarships. As CNN explains it:
   

   That means the football program can only offer the equivalent of 15 full scholarships to incoming freshmen or transfer students per year for four years beginning with the 2013-14 academic year and can only offer 65 full scholarships total each year beginning with the 2014-15 academic year. Scholarships may be divided among players as partial scholarships.

5. The Big Ten Conference added its own sanctions. For starters, Penn State is banned from playing in the Big Ten conference title game during the four-year ban. The university won't be able to share in the conference bowl revenues, either. Instead, the $13 million in revenues it would usually see will instead go towards children's charities.
6. NCAA President Mark Emmert gave Penn State players card blanche to transfer to other universities if they wish, without losing their eligibility. Other colleges can take these players, but only if they dock themselves the same number of players they accept next year.

So, what does this all mean? For starters, it means Penn State's chances of recruiting good players just turned to shit. Current players who are NFL material might not stick around, either. Penn State football's revenues will also be in the toilet for the next four years, making recruitment and athletic scholarship funding that much harder. The swift kick to the pocketbook also insures that other universities think twice about sweeping serious crimes under the rug. In a way, it means that instead of administering lethal injection to the football program, the NCAA effectively sentenced the football program to 25 to life, with possibility of parole.

The only silver lining for Penn State is that it might have a chance years afterward to make a smashing comeback, but I doubt Sandusky's victims give a damn about any of this, nor should they. By all means, the program should have been killed stone dead, but then the narrative would shift from making sure colleges don't cover up sexual abuse to the NCAA being "petty" and "vindictive" by shutting down Penn State football. That's the last thing anyone needs.

Meanwhile, Joe Paterno's legacy gets hit with a huge asterisk and deservedly so. For over a decade, this man decided that quietly ignoring his assistant coach's pedophiliac behavior and the pain suffered by his victims was a small price to pay for preserving the football program. For many people, these sanctions are just the tip of the iceberg as far as punishment is concerned.

Meanwhile, many Nittany Lions feel that zeroing out Paterno's wins also unfairly punishes the players and staff that wasn't involved in the scandal. Well, life isn't fair and I'm pretty sure both Sandusky and Paterno knew their actions would have far-reaching consequences for the program, players and fans.

ah crap... so i lost every college football game i ever played in?
— Evan Royster (@Evan_Royster) July 23, 2012

No, Paterno did. He lost every college football game he ever coached when he turned a blind eye to sexual abuse back in 1998. It's a shame the players have to be caught up in the wreckage, but again, life isn't fair.

For Sandusky's victims, none of this can ever make up for the pain and suffering he caused. It never will. At least no one will be able to pretend that these crimes never happened, as much as no one can pretend that the monument to Joe Pa never existed.

By the way, with Paterno's wins vacated, it means late Grambling State University coach Eddie Robinson is once again the winningest coach in Division I football.

The State Farm Magic City Classic is one of the biggest events held in Birmingham's Legion Field, the city's premier football stadium that once played host to the Iron Bowl before the University of Alabama and Auburn University moved the event to their own respective stadiums. The Classic is a yearly football event that pits Alabama State University against Alabama A&M University, in effect making it the HBCU equivalent of the Iron Bowl.

For the city of Birmingham, it's a big deal, with 100,000 total participants -- 60,000 to 70,000 game attendees, plus another 40,000 that turn out for the pre-game city parade. $13.8 million to $15 million in potential revenue predicted for this year's game, according to the Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau. Last year, the game brought in $12.8 million. Supporters come in from all over the southeast and beyond, and hotels are usually booked solid around this time, despite the constant bitching from collapse fetishists about the high lodging taxes. It's no wonder the sponsors are bellying up to the bar.

In past years, the traffic to and from Legion Field was always horrendous, as was the parking. So when the traffic issue became too much of an issue, the city recruited several charter bus companies to shuttle spectators from satellite locations well outside of Legion Field. Problem solved.

And yet, there are plenty of the aforementioned collapse fetishists who remain intent on slandering the event and the attendees, as it not only features a largely black audience, but it also features a city that's moving about its own business without having to beg UA or Auburn to come back to Legion Field, or begging and pleading the benevolent Over-The-Mountain interests bestow their blessings and wealth on the event. In other words, it's the sign of a majority black city minding its own business without requiring the input or largess of traditional southern white interests. Given this city's rather fucked-up racial history, most of the arguments made by the collapse fetishists inevitably trend back to, yep, race. Shameful shit, this is.

In the spirit of the first Freeper post, I will now demonstrate to viewers of this blog what happens when the local yokels become wrapped up in the grips of color arousal (a term regularly used by Francis L. Holland).

Extreme Color-aroused Emotion, Ideation and Behavior Disorder (ECEIBD) is an illness in which extremes of emotion, ideation and behavior arise and become harmful in conjunction with the perception of and reaction to the skin-color of a person or persons. In patients with ECEIBD, perception of skin color is the stimulus or “cue” that elicits feelings and thoughts in the patient that may become manifest in extreme behaviors. In ECEIBD, these extremes of emotions, ideation and behavior are sufficient in quality and quantity to impair the individual’s functioning in one or more areas of life.

When afflicted with extremely color-sensitive emotion, ideation and behavior, people who are otherwise law-abiding and respectful of others may commit acts that are unlawful, violent, risk loss of employment and social position, and rend the fabric of society.

The following comments come from a news article posted on AL.com concerning preparations being made at Legion Field to accommodate moneyed spectators of the Magic City Classic with the addition of several luxury skyboxes:

But the word might get to the thugs that people with money and things will be inside private booths - how about bullet-proof glass? What a waste of money!

Will the booths have bullet proof glass?

How about a safe place to park your car during a game where you don't have to worry about the windows being busted out? So glad Auburn abandoned this place.

Translation: Surely a large black event such as this is bound to be riddled with crime, because blacks are naturally predisposed to crime. That's their nature, after all. Plus, I don't want to get my windows busted out because that's what those negros will surely do to my car. I'm glad Auburn moved their venue so I can remain safe among my own kind, with the only negros to worry about being the good ones running the ball on the field.

After UAB builds an on-campus stadium, there will only be 4 events a year at this dinosaur. The cost of keeping it standing cannot be justified. Bring on the wrecking ball, or they could just paint it with copper colored paint and the thugs would steal it over night.

Legion Field was constructed between 1926 and 1927, making it one of the oldest athletic venues in the city and possibly the state, after Rickwood Field (built in 1910). But while Rickwood Field was rightfully preserved as a historic landmark, some people see Legion Field as a rickety, broken down relic that should be razed for something more useful, like a prison or another structure that makes color aroused whites feel happy and secure. The ugly comment about covering Legion Field with copper paint for the "thugs" to pick apart is just another glaring indication of color aroused insanity.

The place needs a lot of work done to it in order to keep it a viable venue, which is why events such as the Magic City Classic should be welcomed with open arms as major revenue generators. At any rate, whenever UAB finishes building their on-campus stadium, one would have reason to believe that its use would largely be restricted to UAB events.

The real reason you did not take your game to Atlanta or Nashville is they were not really interested in this second rate, meaningless to everyone but the second rate graduates of those substandard educational institutes that only continue to exist due to outdated federal lawsuits.

This comment strikes out against Alabama State and A&M grads somehow being "second-rate" by coming from a "substandard" HBCU, most likely said by someone who genuinely believes UA and Auburn to be the end-all-be-all of higher education in the state.

Meanwhile, the only reason people outside of the state of Alabama care about UA or Auburn is because of their football programs. Barring that, they wouldn't be of any importance or recognition outside of the state. At any rate, taking the game to Atlanta or Nashville would defeat the whole purpose of having a "mid-point" location for the game.

Move the Lions from Legion Field to the Railroad Park and then level the place and spend 90 million dollars on yet another "entertainment district" that no one will come to. Or build The Summit at Legion so that the Summit on 280 won't have city buses hauling thugs to it.

This is one reason no one really wants to fund public transportation in the region. Because of color aroused fears that such will be used to shuttle roving gangs of black "thugs" back and forth the suburbs and exurbs.

Luxury Suites at Legion Field, isn't that like putting $10,000 rims on a $100 car?

The Truth said "Luxury Suites at Legion Field, isn't that like putting $10,000 rims on a $100 car?"
LOL,,,good one!
It's the same mentality...Cadillac in front of a slum house...$200 shoes, food stamps in the pocket...

Ah, the welfare meme. I don't know how it fits into the color aroused collapse fetishist argument except how it paints the facility as a welfare basket case that should "act its income level." That, or "those negros don't deserve nice things -- they wouldn't know how to take care of it, anyways."

Any comment about the total waste of taxpayer dollars all for 1 event at legion field is sure to recieve accusations of racism.

How come it is that when one can not defend an action one always resorts to attacking the critic as a racist?

Must be nice to get a pass on every responsibility based on the color of your skin.

They have name for that don't they?

Ah yes, I believe it is called racism.

It is a shame when a people become exactly what they despise the most.

It's a shame when conservatives attempt to head-game people into believing they themselves are "racist" for pointing out continuing acts of racial bigotry where it continues to exist, and to ignore said racism under the belief that they somehow lack the moral authorization to point it out due to their own "racism."

Besides, how are the additions being made to Legion Field a "waste of taxpayer money" when the investment will come back ten-fold? At any rate, taxpayer expenditures and investments that don't go to the things that the collapse fetishists like or understand are always deemed a "waste of taxpayer money."

Meanwhile, several pockets of sanity:

I am very confused and don't understand why anyone who has no intentions of every darkening the steps of Legion Field would care or post a negative comment. If A&M and ASU fans, faculty, students, alumni. etc. are comfortable with this location everyone else should mind his or her business. I haven't seen any post from their fan base mocking Auburn or Tuscaloosa. I for the life of me don't understand why people debilerately entice racial division.

I am very uncomfortable with all this THUG commentary it's certainly a racial overtone for something ugly. I am blessed to be around beautiful people everyday from all types of backgrounds and ethnicities and for parent(s) who instilled christian principles. Have a GREAT game......

Amazing how any article about Birmingham brings out the idiots and the racists. I have been going to games at Legion Field for 30 years and have never had my car broken into or felt threatened in any way. Maybe that's because I'm not afraid of black people.

The yokels and collapse fetishists aren't necessarily "afraid" of black people -- on a deep level, they despise and loath the fact they can no longer openly use blacks as their own personal punching bags in front of "polite" society, instead having to employ dog whistles and code words that obscure what they really wanted to say. Refreshing honesty about your own bigotry that was validated and supported by your fellow peers was something that became a complete liability shortly after the Civil Rights era. To be refreshingly honest about your own bigotry today is to ostracize yourself from most "polite" circles. If the Tea Party was to be refreshingly honest about its own views and underlying bigotry, the mainstream media will relegate it to "joke" status and that would be the end of the Tea Party.

I do realize that, as with any online venue, there are usually a few trolls in the midst with the expressed goal and desire to incense and inflame with outrageous commentary, many of the quoted people are ordinary men and women who've found a venue where they can commiserate their outdated views with like-minded people. Imagine most of these people being 65+ retirees who've graduated from hunting and pecking through their emails and Word documents to firing off missives whenever stories involving Birmingham, blacks, crime or all three pop up.

I know the Magic City Classic will be successful this year, as it always is every single year, despite the moaning and whining from the collapse fetishists.

The Magic City Classic game starts on Oct. 29 at 2:30 p.m. The parade starts at 8:00 a.m., so bring a warm windbreaker to beat the early-morning wind chill.