Absolute Capitulation

“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.” – H. L. Mencken.


Mark Emmert threw in the towel today.


He threw in the towel, declaring defeat to the football culture at Penn State University, but, also, to far more than that.


This morning (September 24), Mark Emmert took the first steps to neuter the unprecedented penalties to Penn State University for it's complicit role in the child rape and pedophilia spree Jerry Sandusky carried on under cover of the Penn State football program.


Starting next year, Penn State was only allowed 65 scholarships for football. The new “penalty” has it at 75 next year, 80 in 2015, and back to 85 in 2016. There is a possibility the bowl ban may go away after this season.


Basically, most people says it's the NCAA admitting it over-reached.


I'm sorry. Fuck you if you believe that.


Any sanctioning body must have the ultimate Power of Zot to deal with anything that goes so far beyond the pale that it basically falls under “conduct detrimental to sport” – or to any human decency.

As far as I, personally, am concerned, the cover-up (up to and probably including the disappearance/murder of an investigating district attorney and now two sources indicating that boys were being shopped to pedophilic donors to Penn State's football program) makes Penn State University a co-participant in pedophilia and child rape.


That said, though, I think there is a larger message here. To find it, we have to go back 24 hours.


Mark Emmert, in an apparently-unrelated statement, said that Division I, as it is presently governed, will die this year. Meetings in October and January will examine a complete re-draw of Division I, probably meaning at least a recognized split (before it becomes a non-NCAA breakaway) of the money conferences and schools.


It does appear that the money conferences (the Big Five remaining top-level football conferences) will probably form their own division next year. Whether that division simply is for football, though, is unclear. It is quite probable that this year could be the final March Madness basketball tournament in present form.


Now, juxtapose that to Penn State and today's announcement, and it becomes clear:


The NCAA will not survive long enough, vis-a-vis governance of Penn State University's athletic programs within the Big Ten Conference, to see the end of the four-year bowl ban.


By the end of the 2015 football season, the conferences, spurred by a probable massive defeat of the NCAA to the O'Bannon lawsuit, will probably end up having to form loose confederations, such as the BCS now, to govern college sports.


The day and age of amateur college sports is over.


The day and age of an independent sanctioning body for such, ditto.


You're even, now, seeing players put patches with “APU” (for “All Players United”) on their uniforms to protest the NCAA.


Only an idiot would probably not see what's coming: Not only is the NCAA going to lose a bankruptcy-level verdict in the O'Bannon lawsuit, but the governance model which follows will not only force the players to be paid salaries by the universities (yes, making them employees thereof, instead of true students), but also, then, that the college athletes (whether in just an individual given sport or across what collegiate athletics would be post-NCAA) will then become unionized, just as their professional counterparts are in the major sports.


And ESPN especially -- and the other sports networks to lesser extents -- will have a large voice as to who plays who when.


Yes, the capitulation to Penn State and the culture of football there is angering.

The problem is that it is now even apparent to the President of the NCAA that he and his organization are dead to rights.


There will be no NCAA within three years. There MAY (and this is in question!) be a sanctioning body for non-revenue producing (D2, D3, NAIA-ish) schools for their athletics.


But I fully expect the five major D1 conferences (the ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big XII, and Pac-12) to break away completely (the split in D1 might delay this a year, but the O'Bannon verdict will finish anything left over) and create a “BCS” confederation for all sports.