PENALTY: Litany for Nittany Lions

While some Penn State football players and parents decry the NCAA sanctions, the penalties levied underscore a fundamental truth: an individual’s actions do not occur in isolation.

True, the players are not guilty of Sandusky’s crimes. But the administrators and Coach Paterno who knew of Sandusky’s actions are guilty, and, like ripples in a pond, their cover-up impacted innocent people.

Sandusky’s actions certainly devastated innocent lives: not only the boys he molested, but every relationship those boys — now men — will have for the rest of their lives. Not only the boys’ lives, but the lives of their families, and so on and so on and so on. You see how it goes?

The NCAA sanctions are appropriate for exactly that reason: Life is about choices and the lives that are affected by those choices. The innocent may suffer as a result. Perhaps one needs to look beyond the comfortable confines on one’s own life to see how his actions affect others.

Those who rail against Penn State’s punishment should instead understand the greater tragedy: that somewhere along the line football (and money) became more important than the well-being of innocent children. Hang your heads in shame, Penn State supporters.

ELLEN OSTER

Athol