Posted on

Did Penn State Football Deserve Permanent Death?



First, let me start off by clearly stating that I in no way support the actions of the Penn State administration, athletic departments, and football leaders in regards to their handling of the years of child sexual abuse at Penn State by Jerry Sandusky. 


Before yesterday’s unprecedented NCAA sanctions of Penn State, I called for the death penalty. But the death penalty I wanted wasn’t your traditional “SMU-type” death penalty were a team is banned for one to two years from competing in a sport. I was calling for a complete shutdown of the Penn State football program … a more “permanent” death penalty.

You see, the problem I have with the sanctions levied by the NCAA isn’t the fact that they aren’t harsh enough; nor is it the fact that the NCAA clearly violated the traditional due process of an investigation it typically affords its member schools. My problem with these sanctions is that Penn State football has a chance to recover (albeit a slim chance). What chance of recovery do the victims really have?

Stuart Mandel of Sport Illustrated wrote yesterday, “Penn State will remain at the front of the news for many years to come, not for the criminal acts of a former assistant coach or its leaders’ abhorrent inaction in handling him, but for its football players’ inevitable on-field futility.” He highlights the fact that the focus is now switched from the actual victims of these atrocities back to the Penn State football team and whether or not they can recover. And to me, that simply isn’t right.

The NCAA missed an opportunity yesterday to send a resounding message the football isn’t king and in fact isn’t bigger than everything else. Although the sanctions levied are crippling, they don’t serve as true justice for the children who were victimized. In essence, by allowing Penn State to still play football, even a reduced version of football, the NCAA sends a message to the victims that football is in fact still bigger then each and every one of them and too big to “completely fail.”

Had the NCAA implemented a complete shutdown of the Penn State football program, I believe they would have provided each victim real justice, helped to close one of the more egregious chapters in the history of The Pennsylvania State University, and really served to deter future atrocious actions of its member universities and administrations. 
Posted on

A little story of sports loyalty born from pain but eventually paid in full

My father is originally from Nigeria and didn’t grow up following American sports. He immigrated with my mother in 1982 to Houston, Texas to attended university. It is during his college years that he developed a passion for collegiate basketball; a direct result of the Phi Slama Jama era of the University of Houston Cougar men’s basketball team.
Behind the leadership of the flashy Clyde “The Glide” Drexler and always reliable Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon (a fellow Nigerian), the Houston Cougar’s experienced unprecedented levels of success, advancing to the NCAA Final Four each year during the period of 1982 to 1984. But for all their success, the Cougar’s never won it all and my father suffered for it.
In the 1981-82 season my father saw his Cougars lose to the eventual champion UNC Tar Heels in the national semifinals. The following year, his Cougars lost in the championship game to the NC State Wolfpack on a last second dunk by Lorenzo Charles; this loss caused my father not to eat for an entire week… No lies, my mother still talks about this!
But for all the heart ache felt, my father still rode with the Scarlet and White of his Cougars. In 1984, his final year of college and the year of my birth, he witnessed his Cougars fall short once again in the finals to the Patrick
Ewing-led Georgetown Hoyas. This time his “fast” lasted for two weeks!
In the 1984 NBA Draft, the Houston Rockets used the first overall pick to select Hakeem Olajuwon and paired him with fellow 7-footer Ralph Sampson. In an instant, my father’s sports loyalties were bestowed on the Houston Rockets. With the same passion he exhibited in college, my father rooted his guts out for Hakeem Olajuwon and his Rockets. The “Twin Towers” would eventually lead the Rockets to the NBA Finals 2 years later against the Boston Celtics. This would mark the second time in 5 years that the Rockets and Celtics were pitted against each other. And once again, a team with my father’s support fell short. The Rockets would eventually lose to the Celtics 4 games to 2.

The list of sports tragedies and heart aches my father experienced during his basketball fanhood would continue for another 7 years:

1986: Guy Lewis retires from coaching the UH Cougars ushering in a period of irrelevance that is still prevalent today

1986-87: The Rocket’s loss in the Western Conference Semifinals to the Seattle SuperSonics 

1987-92: The Rocket’s loss in the First Round of the playoff each year

1992-93: The Rocket’s loss in the Western Conference Semifinals to the Seattle SuperSonics
But through them all, my father remained loyal and diehard watching every game on television with his Heineken in hand.


My father’s sports loyalty was finally rewarded 12 years after he first started watching basketball. In the 1993-94 season his Houston Rockets would win their first NBA championship over the Patrick Ewing-led New York Knicks; a sweet-sweet revenge that my father still points out every time he sees Patrick Ewing on TV. The Rockets would soon follow up this championship with a repeat the next year over the Orlando Magic.

12 years of heart ache, tears, fasting or starvation, cursing, and isolation were finally rewarded with a taste of the promise land. The joy and jubilation on my father’s face when his Rockets won is a memory that I will carry with me to my grave. But it also serves as a reminder of what sports loyalty is all about.
Through the ups and downs, twists and turns, my father remained and still remains loyal to his Rockets and Cougars, even as the current General Manager of the Rockets tries his best to destroy the nucleus of the team in an attempt to lure Dwight Howard (who I despise by the way). 

True sports loyalty is sticking with your team through all the pain and suffering. It’s an impermeable marriage between fan and team whose bond is only further strengthened during the trials and tribulations of a sports season.
My father’s sports fanhood has taught me that above all, loyalty is eventually repaid in full. So with the new international football (or soccer for us yanks) and American football seasons right around the corner, I take you on a journey down my father’s path to sports loyalty to provide a small reminder that the pain and suffering that often awaits many of us sports loyalists is well worth it in the end.
So with that I say good luck to each of your teams this coming season. May they all bow down to my Chelsea Blues, Texas Longhorns, and Houston Texans.