The Only Thing Shocking About the Penn State Scandal is that it involves Children

I hate college football. I hate the myth of amateurism. (Why does an amateur team need a coach with a $1 million contract?). I hate the equally false term "student athlete," and I hate it when people say things like, "I don't like the NBA, because it is all about the money." So do they prefer college basketball, where the coaches get rich, while the players get nothing?

I went to school at a Southern college where football is a religion, and working as a reporter, I saw enough inside information to realize that big-time college athletics, football and basketball, is thoroughly corrupt.

College football is like the old saying about sausage, if you knew how they made it, you wouldn't consume it. I would compare college football to the porn industry. Most people wouldn't consume porn if they realized that porn actors usually wind up with diseases, drug habits and short life spans. So it was not totally surprising when the Penn State scandal erupted. What was surprising was that the scandal involved a series of sex assaults allegedly committed by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Scandals are a regularly occurrence in college football. This is bound to happen in an industry where you have to break the rules to win.

Every year a school is brought down by a scandal, whether its grade fixing, rapes, drugs or players getting money under the table. While I was rubbing shoulders with reporters and jocks in the South, I saw all of these crimes. Practically every year a jock would get hit with a rape allegation, which would usually not get prosecuted. I also saw jocks regularly involved in on-campus brawls which resulted in property damage, and also went unprosecuted.

These are minor crimes compared to the things I have read about other programs. From reviewing college sports, I had come to the conclusion that players and coaches at big-time football programs could literally get away with murder.

More sordid details keep leaking out every day from Penn State. The rape witnessed in the showers, the decade-long cover up, the refusal to bring the predator to justice, but what we keep running into is the power of the football program. How does a college coach have so much power he can silence law enforcement officials?

Of course I know the answer to this question. College sports is a multibillion dollar enterprise. And as long as college teams are winning and universities are selling merchandise, they are willing to tolerate drug use, violence and even prostitution. Yes, prostitution. My Southern college used to employ attractive coeds to escort new recruits around campus and "show them a good time."

From what I have heard Penn State is a company town and the football team is the town's biggest business. The football program made more than $50 million last year and Coach Joe Paterno made $800,000 a year, about six times what the governor of Pennsylvania makes! It seems that Paterno, who was head coach for more than 40 years, also had the ears of all the town's power brokers and was literally untouchable. The first allegations were reported to campus police in 1998 and they failed to act. And even after Sandusky was arrested District Judge Leslie Dutchcot reduced to his bail from $500,000 to $100,000 and said he didn't have to pay, but just needed to show up for his next court appearance. She failed to mention that she has volunteered for Sandusky's nonprofit, the Second Mile. (She has since been replaced.)

The common thread in this scandal is that the Penn State program seems to operate like the Mafia with its own omerta. Mike McQueary, the coach who witnesses a sexual assault, first told his father of the issue and not the police. And janitors who had also witnessed incidents also were terrified of retribution for telling the truth.

If you needed any further proof that morals at Penn State are completely askew, all you need to look at is the recent riot on campus, where students destroyed property and turned over a news van, because the media dared question Paterno. Speaking on Bill Maher's "Real Time," Daily Beast blogger Andrew Sullivan said that Joe Paterno was "the leader of a cult." It is clear that protecting JoPa and the precious football program is the most important thing at Penn State, even more important than protecting children.

Personally, I think the Penn State football program needs to be temporarily shut down and totally purged of officials who helped cover up these crimes. This case is high profile, but not the first time Penn State football players have run into legal programs. According to an article in the New Republic, "Between the years 2002 and 2008, ESPN counted 163 criminal charges from 46 Penn State players."

As shocking as the crimes at Penn State are, they are symptomatic of a system where keeping the team winning is of the utmost importance. I have always said that big time college athletes could get away with murder, and apparently at Penn State, they can get away with child rape too.