If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Following the NCAA's independent investigation into the widespread cover-up of child sexual abuse by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, the governing body of U.S. college sports has imposed unprecedented sanctions against Penn State University. Did they go too far?
In the old days (the last Olympics) the details of the Opening Ceremony would be a surprise. But with thousands of performers, each with a cellphone and Twitter account, nothing is secret any more.
No one dared cross Paterno -- no one, be he the president of Penn State, the athletic director, the head of security, members of the Penn State Board of Trustees, or even the Governor!
The impact of immoral behavior is huge. This sad situation is an illustration of why living according to a set of values is crucial to our culture.
Rather than dwelling on the past and drowning in anger and sorrow, I hope we seize this opportunity to wholeheartedly fight child abuse. I have struggled with losing an idol, but there is no grey area in the matter of reporting known child abuse.
The role of global, national and regional NGOs/nonprofits is to improve lives, communities and our world. Only a high-performing board -- in partnership with the CEO -- can truly achieve the organization's mission.
Yes the Joe Paterno statue had to come down. Statues are for heroes and we now know that Paterno wasn't one. Now we can get down to the real issues of how Penn State is going to move forward, and not get stuck on symbolism.
The university could still decide to relocate the statue to someplace else on campus, or nearby. Why is it so hard to un-honor a man who allowed loyalty to trump morality and abetted the grievous harm of children?
It might be easier to remove the statue altogether. But it would be even better to keep the statue and change the message.
The U.S. is the only country that combines amateur athletics with institutions of higher learning. At first, the idea of that didn't seem noteworthy at all, until the case of Penn State made me question the beast that's been created.
And so ends a fascinating period in Knicks history. Linsanity, like a comet, raced across the sky and fizzled out.
I believe that what happened at Penn State runs deep in American culture, and similar breaches will occur until America creates a culture where the value of doing the right thing is ingrained within education and business.
We are all the cure to this disturbing epidemic, survivors of sexual abuse and non-survivors alike, and it starts with us, as adults, to force integrity to the surface above all other things -- at the very least for our most important resource -- our children.
Perhaps it is when presidents -- and Boards -- stop asking questions, stop worrying about where the line of disclosure is and what side they're standing on, that evils like the situation at Penn State arise.
One of the many disturbing things about the Penn State abuse scandal is that sports, like religious ritual, is supposed to offer an effective means to sublimate violence. In this case, violence and power were allowed to grow wildly without proper ethical oversight.
To me, had Sandusky been effectively prosecuted in 1998 as he should have been, many young boys would have been saved from Sandusky's horrendous conduct, and Penn State's integrity and reputation would not have been so severely tarnished.
