Tag Archives: Justice

The Revitalization of A Legend

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College Football got a little of its dignity back last week. Let’s look at what happened and the ramifications:

  1. The NCAA’s primary purpose is to exploit athletes to make money for big time programs and conferences. They have arcane rules used to keep players as indentured servants and then hand out wrist slaps to keep the public thinking they are holding up noble ideas why in reality they are down in the muck taking a piece of the pie.
  2. Some programs stand up to this, like Notre Dame. One man truly believed in the ideals of a student athlete and spent over 50 years creating a world where sons and grandsons would play and be allowed to get a degree. The degree might have been in something we consider trivial, like parks management, but they would have earned it and gone through the process and the work for it and would be much better people for the rest of their lives because of it.
  3. The NCAA hated this man and his principals. For decades they tried to find something wrong with his recruiting and coaching in their vast rulebook. They could finding nothing. He was clean, at least as far as regular on field on issues.
  4. Then they got their silver bullet and shot it immediately. A terrible child sex abuse scandal perpetuated by a former assistant coach who was probably dismissed for it in 1998 but with no criminal proof found in an investigation. Sandusky was seen abusing a child on campus and the Penn State administration did nothing about it. They were found guilty and fired.
  5. Joe Paterno was told and reported it to his higher ups, as is NCAA policy. He followed the letter of the law. Could he have done more? Sure. Hindsight is easy. Should he have done more? Probably. It is blight on his character and program, one those still alive still have to bear the burden of.
  6. However, the NCAA response was vindictive and irresponsible. They finally could bring down that man they had tried so hard for decades to tarnish. They exceeded their authority and knew Penn State would cave because at the time they just wanted the scandal to go away.
  7. The Paterno’s knew better. They hired an investigator to rebut the Freeh report.
  8. A state senator investigated the internal NCAA communications and knew they were overreaching their authority.
  9. A lawsuit was filed and instead of going to court, was settled, restoring the wins stripped away from a legend.
  10. The statue that was ungraciously removed is the next step to redemption.
  11. The fraud Bobby Bowden whose fans were crowing over the demise of Paterno, who knew the only way Bowden could be the most winningest coach was through using the system, crowed about how terrible Penn State was to get their way. Those people and Bowden have now been exposed and put back in their place – 2nd. Remember, if you aren’t first, you’re last.

And so now the world is a little bit brighter. Penn State can start to hold its head up again, and the Big 14 can grow from this as their legacy as a historic conference gains the winningest coach ever back. I personally can’t be fully back on board till the statue is back, but I understand how some are ready to board the band wagon. There is a good chance the statue will be back though, here’s hoping.

The Truth About Ferguson

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Here are some unpopular thoughts and musings I have been having about Ferguson. It could just be because I have been watching The Wire (Season 3!), but anyway I don’t hear this on any media and I think it gets the closest to the truth.

  1. Michael Brown got his justice. He attacked a cop, in his car, after robbing a store. He then charged that cop. He never put his hands up, that is just liberal agenda based media spin.
  2. I don’t feel that sorry for his parents. Sure it sucks they lost their son, no one should have to though that, but it seems pretty clear they did a bad job of raising him and keeping him away from bad elements. Ferguson isn’t west Baltimore or Watts or Compton. He had options and choices. Sure, they were hard but there was opportunity. He didn’t appear to take advantage of any of them.
  3. Cops are a tight nit brotherhood. They go through a lot and really only have themselves and their families that care about them. It is not an easy job, especially today with forces like defense attorneys and the Al Sharptons of the world keeping them in check. This is a necessary check though. We as a society give these people massive power. It must be held accountable.
  4. This is why when a cop is killed they go rabid. One of their own, one of the only people who care about them has been killed. They go all out, a lot more than if you or me was killed. Perhaps it just because they are desensitized to us getting killed but not their own. Is that a good thing? No. Is that a reality we need to judge things by? Yes.
  5. I ranted about the militarization of the police here before, but it is still a problem. The Police Military Industrial Complex feeds these incidents and raids. Most of it is in vain due to a failed war on drugs and an overreaction to the war on terror. These are things people don’t want to think about, preferring to just make it black and white (on either side.) but it is not. This is a complex problem with root causes no politician wants to face because it opens them up to attack. They think the American people can’t be rational about this. Perhaps they are right.
  6. Prosecutors and police are like Peas and Carrots. They go hand in hand. You can’t build a successful case as a DA without the cooperation of the police. They need the evidence and the testimony of the police. They cannot step outside those bounds and be seen going after a cop. That is a sure way to kill your career which is based off networking. Most DAs want to run for office, as a DA or a judge. Good luck getting elected if you cross the police. Even if they leave and become defense attorneys they need connections with judges inside the system to win cases. Burning those bridges to prosecute a cop who you know is innocent? Not likely.
  7. And that brings us to the Grand Jury. Most Grand Juries are shams used by prosecutors to get a trial. They are short and only show the prosecutor’s side. Not this one. The DA did his best to show all the evidence, acting really as a defense attorney for Officer Wilson. He was not trying to get that case to trial. By him being fair and showing all the evidence he did his side a massive blow. Was it justice? Perhaps, but it was outside the way of things are done and the system we have setup. It looks great to the media and the pundits because they can spin it pro cop.
  8. Would Officer Wilson have won a trial? Hard to say, but based the evidence we have, it looks like it. He was denied this chance to defend himself in open court. He was also spared months of heartache and huge financial bills. He avoided the finicky nature of a jury and the chance he could have been convicted. Which would not have been justice. You have realize the circus this trial would have been and what he would have gone through. It would have been a nightmare for him.
  9. So in the end the right result was reached, but it was unfair and biased and that is the way our system works. Even as we try to make police accountable huge forces work against that and they have a lot of money and resources. There number one weapon though is the ignorance, especially of white America, of what the system really is and how it really works. People don’t want to know these details, they want to think of police as Andy Griffith, but the reality is far, far from Mayberry.