Is Penn State the biggest sports scandal/tragedy/drama of our time?

[21]

Got involved in an unwinnable debate on this topic, thought I'd throw it out for discussion.

Other 'nominees' included OJ, Tiger, MLB steroids, SMU death penalty, Magic/HIV, the murder of the Munich athletes, Pete Rose gambling....plenty others to choose from.

To me, OJ isn't a 'sports' story, it was a crime involving a former athlete but didn't impact sports per se.

Seems like only Munich and Penn State (from what we know right now) are the only stories that can't be softened or justified or 'accepted' over time.

Anyway, just something to argue about. Have at it.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Re: How does PSU rank among biggest sports scandals/tragedies/dramas?

Cue the "How could you RANK these things?!?!?!!?!?" bellyaching.

Munich is worse. They really wanted a Shiny Happy Olympics to counteract the memories of Berlin, and their lax security opened the door to tragedy.

Baylor basketball was horrific (including the blacklisting of the whistle blower assistant coach), but they didn't have close to the supposed squeaky clean reputation of a JoePa and his program.

 

[21]

Re: How does PSU rank among biggest sports scandals/tragedies/dramas?

Yeah, rank is the wrong word, I had something else there but it didn't fit in the headline space. Give me a minute, I can handle this.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Re: How does PSU rank among biggest sports scandals/tragedies/dramas?

Munich, by a mile.

 

[MileHigh]

I would say Munich, but damn, this is pretty brutal.

 

[imjustagirl]

Since I wasn't born until 1976, I'm saying this. Since technically Munich isn't "my time."

But yeah. It's baaaaaaaaaaad.

 

[YGBFKM]

Munich, by a mile.

Well, I would agree that the death toll makes Munich worse, but there may be a death toll in this one, too, once it's all said and done. If that's the case, and given that the allegations involve children, this scandal/tragedy will be right up there.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

It's on the short list, but once you expand outside the US it gets tough. Munich is obviously up there. They're not familiar to the vast majority of Americans, but the Hillsborough and Heysel stadium disasters were horrifying.

In the US, Baylor is up there with Penn State, with just a big difference in the prestige levels of the universities involved.

 

[Football_Bat]

The Baylor scandal in 2003 was pretty jaw-dropping too. A player actually did die and the stuff Dave Bliss was up to was pretty sickening, but nothing like Penn State.

 

[TigerVols]

I'd second the thought that Munich doesn't qualify as "our time."

It was definitely in a different era.

 

[Clerk Typist]

Here's another scandal that hit a football team of national reputation, exactly 60 years ago. It might be the most comparable scandal, though it had to do with cheating, rather than sexual abuse.
The U.S. Military Academy "cribbing" scandal of 1951 involved 90 Cadets, 37 of them on the football team. The same tests were administered to different groups of Cadets on back-to-back days. The first-day test takers told the second-day men what they would face, verboten under the school's "Honor Code." There were banner headlines across the country.
Coach Red Blaik said later that the charges would have been dealt with differently if football players, one of them his son, hadn't been involved. He remained as coach, and two years later, Army was winning again, going 7-1-1, including a win over Navy.

 

[Clerk Typist]

I'd second the thought that Munich doesn't qualify as "our time."

It was definitely in a different era.

Actually, it ushered in the era of global terrorism, and was played out on worldwide live television. (In the U.S., ABC covered it all day, right though Jim McKay saying, "They're all gone.") That's as current as today's headlines.

 

[MileHigh]

Here's another scandal that hit a football team of national reputation, exactly 60 years ago. It might be the most comparable scandal, though it had to do with cheating, rather than sexual abuse.
The U.S. Military Academy "cribbing" scandal of 1951 involved 90 Cadets, 37 of them on the football team. The same tests were administered to different groups of Cadets on back-to-back days. The first-day test takers told the second-day men what they would face, verboten under the school's "Honor Code." There were banner headlines across the country.
Coach Red Blaik said later that the charges would have been dealt with differently if football players, one of them his son, hadn't been involved. He remained as coach, and two years later, Army was winning again, going 7-1-1, including a win over Navy.

Really? A test vs. harboring and covering up an *cough* alleged *cough* child rapist on your campus? For a decade?

Post-birth of ESPN (which is to say, the birth of all sports as we know it), this is the worst scandal. But Munich was epic.

 

[dixiehack]

The cribbing scandal was significant because of where it happened. These were the young men the country was counting on to keep us safe - and during wartime no less. It would have been a blip on the radar at any other school except Navy.

If we're going back this far, the on-field attack on Drake's Johnny Bright deserves mention.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

Biggest scandal? Yes.
Biggest drama? Probably.
Biggest tragedy? No. But, whereas we know all we're probably going to know about Munich, I think we've just scratched the surface on this one, particularly if it opens the door to further revelations -- at Penn State and elsewhere. We might look at this a lot differently in a year or two.

And I watched the Munich Olympics. It's "our time," as far as I'm concerned.

Edited to clarify for the enraged shopper armed with breast milk and a biting wit.

 

[Care Bear]

JD, may I ask your reason(s) for not placing this story under the "tragedy" category?

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Here's another scandal that hit a football team of national reputation, exactly 60 years ago. It might be the most comparable scandal, though it had to do with cheating, rather than sexual abuse.
The U.S. Military Academy "cribbing" scandal of 1951 involved 90 Cadets, 37 of them on the football team. The same tests were administered to different groups of Cadets on back-to-back days. The first-day test takers told the second-day men what they would face, verboten under the school's "Honor Code." There were banner headlines across the country.
Coach Red Blaik said later that the charges would have been dealt with differently if football players, one of them his son, hadn't been involved. He remained as coach, and two years later, Army was winning again, going 7-1-1, including a win over Navy.

Really? A test vs. harboring and covering up an *cough* alleged *cough* child rapist on your campus? For a decade?

Post-birth of ESPN (which is to say, the birth of all sports as we know it), this is the worst scandal. But Munich was epic.

I don't mean to speak for Clerk, but I'm assuming he means some similarities between the two incidents, not actually comparing child molestation to test cribbing. AT least, I would hope that wasn't his intent.

They do have some similarities. For Penn State, you have McQueary and the mess that he is in. For Army, it was an athlete in a different sport who had to wrestle with the notion of either reporting the incident and being seen as a squealer to his fellow cadets, or keeping silent and violating the school's honor code. The Army football team was given favorable treatment over the other cadets, bringing a bit of a football-first culture. Both programs also had pretty clean images with the public, leading to a "How could this happen here?" element to the whole thing.

There had also been speculation that Red Blaik would resign after the incident, even though he didn't have anything to do with it. But, according to Maraniss' book on Lombardi, Blaik had a press conference to say he was staying, leading to a standing ovation, including by the sportswriters (different era back then).

So, while no means is there a question over which is worse, there were some intangible similiarities.

Oh, and Munich is the worst. Not only the deaths, but the fact that violence occurred at an event which is supposed to symbolize world peace made those deaths even more painful.

 

[Bubbler]

This is on the list of the worst of the worst not only because of the monstrous crimes Sandusky is accused of, but because of the institutional cover-up that went with it. I can't think of a precedent for that. Even the Baylor scandal was a Dave Bliss issue, not neccesarily a Baylor University issue.

In terms of tragedy? It depends on how you want to define the term. In one sense, the ignorance of common sense safety rules in auto racing in the 50s, 60s and 70s was a "tragedy" because so many died needlessly and not just drivers. Look up the LeMans disaster of 1955 for just one example.

The European soccer disasters PC mentioned were failures of society and the sport to deal with them. Throw the Bradford City stadium fire in that group too. Hooliganism itself was a tragedy of sorts when it was at its peak in the 70s and 80s.

On a one-person level, Andres Escobar's execution was a tragedy.

It's all bad. That's what we all know.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

JD, may I ask your reason(s) for not placing this story under the "tragedy" category?

It is a tragedy. Just not the biggest. That's what I meant. I should go back and edit. I was answering the question in the subject line.

Munich was not a "scandal," in my mind.

 

[Oggiedoggie]

Are the two NCAA football plane crashes in 1970 in the running (Wichita State and Marshall).