Richard Schwab Writes

Sandusky scandal should shake up football's domination of higher education






Former Penn State assistant football coach (defensive coordinator) Jerry Sandusky has been charged with sexually abusing eight young boys, sometimes in the campus athletic facilities, over a fifteen year period. He faces a forty count indictment.

The allegations against Sandusky have toppled long-time head football coach, Joe Paterno and University President, Graham Spanier.

Penn State Athletic Director, Tim Curly and Vice President for Finance and Business, Gary Schultz face charges of perjury and failure to report under Pennsylvania child protective services law.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General has blasted Penn State for failure to report suspected sexual abuse of young boys. University individuals warned university administrators about suspected abuse more than a decade ago.

How can this be? What's wrong with this picture?

At Penn State, the head football coach had more power than the university's President. College head football coaches bring in the cash and are extremely well compensated.

USA Today's 2010 analysis of college football salaries revealed sixty football coaches who make more than $1 million a year. Alabama pays $5.1 million, Iowa pays $3.8 million; the average pay for a major college football coach is $1.36 million. Some football coaches earn 5 to 10 times what is paid to their school's President.

At Penn State, Paterno's football program generated $50 million in one season according to the U.S. Department of Education. Last year, the football teams in the six major conferences made a combined profit of $1.1 billion.

Penn State's failure to report the child abuse allegations resulted from an imbalance of power.

An inner circle of power that was all about protecting the university's image and its cash-cow football program. As a result, nobody stopped things when they should have. As a result, nobody was looking after the best interests of children.

College Presidents should use the Penn State tragedy to re establish their schools' educational missions and deal directly with the commercialization and excess of college football which make the football coach the most powerful person on campus.

University Presidents and the NCAA should unite and consider establishing a salary cap for their head football coaches. How about $400,000.? A salary in line with the average pay of college Presidents.

Richard O. Schwab was formerly associate head of school, and middle school head, Cincinnati Country Day School. He is currently neighborhood team leader, Glendale Organizing For America Community Team (www.gofact.blogspot.com)

A One-Two Punch

A one two punch! My Column, "Occupy Wall Street far more popular than Tea Party" and GOFACT Volunteer Recruitment Coordinator Paul Breidenbach's brilliantly sarcastic Letter To The Editor, "Forum's objectivity questioned" are published in today's Tri-County Press. I have copied both below.


"Occupy wall street far more popular than tea party"

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that Americans support the Occupy Wall Street protesters by a two-to-one margin (37% in favor, 18% opposed.) While more Americans view the Tea Party negatively (28% in favor, 41% opposed.)
And, a recent Time Magazine poll found even more positive results for Occupy Wall Street, showing 54% held a favorable view of the movement, compared to just 27% with a favorable view of the Tea Party.

Why is this? Because there is a deep strain of anti-establishment feeling in America which started at the end of the Bush Administration. It is the reason Barack Obama was elected.

Both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement share a frustration. Though they are very different in the objects of their frustration. Occupy is frustrated with the financial system. The Tea Party is frustrated with government.

Occupy is concerned with social and economic inequality, corporate greed and influence over government. Occupy's slogan, "we are the 99%" refers to income inequality in the U.S. between the top 1%, who control 40% of the wealth, and the rest of the population. The Tea party looks at politicians and government as the problem and has the backing of billionaires like the Koch brothers.

Occupy looks at the influence of money, Wall Street, and big banks on government and elected officials as the problem. The movement is in 70 cities and 600 communities throughout the country.

A Washington Post- Pew Research Center poll shows the majority of Tea Party support comes from Republicans, while backing for Occupy protests arises from Democrats. Occupy has met with near universal derision from Republicans. Mitt Romney called them "dangerous." House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) claimed they were a "mob." Herman Cain denounced them as "un-American." Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) said the protests were an "attack upon freedom."

Is it any surprise the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (signed into law 7/21/10) passed the House along party lines (223 -202) and the Senate (59 - 39) once again along party lines? The GOP continues to paint the law as big- government over regulation.

A volunteer with Occupy Wall Street stated, "business folks should be able to make money... but we have to have a culture to come together, take care of each other, and make sure that the consolidation of wealth and power doesn't mean that folks who have the most are also rigging the game for the future. And that's what's happening."

This is a social justice message that is consistent with the traditional Democratic message. That's why if there was a logical political alignment for the Occupy movement, it would be with the Democratic party.

For sure, neither Occupy protesters or Democrats want to promote the Bush legacy of unregulated speculation which does harm to our economy and communities.

Richard O. Schwab was formerly associate head of school, and middle school head,

Cincinnati Country Day School. He is currently neighborhood team leader, Glendale Organizing For America Community Team (www.gofact.blogspot.com)

Paul Breidenbach Speaks (Be Prepared for Great Irony)

This appeared in this week's Community Press along with another sensational article by Richard Schwab, which we shall post next:

Forum's Objectivity Questioned

I was happy to attend a candidates' forum last week at Glendale's Town Hall, which gave me confidence that Glendale and the Princeton City Schools will be in reasonably good hands no matter what the outcome of the local races that will be decided early November.

The event did make me wonder about the sponsorship, though. It was put on in this case by a coalition between MoveOn.org, Occupy Wall Street, and GOFACT, which claim to be non-partisan voter-education organizations, but are actually closely aligned with a particular party and a narrow set of policy options. Since these organizations chose the questions the candidates answered, we were treated to the usual boilerplate:

-- how to opt out of the ridiculous testing spiral that's ruining the public schools that work and doing nothing to improve the ones that don't;

--whether we can pool Glendale citizens to purchase health insurance;

--how to induce hugely profitable corporations like GE to support the local schools;

--how to take advantage of the linguistic gifts of immigrant children in our schools to teach foreign languages in the primary grades;

--how much of the greenbelt we should plant with cannabis for the dispensaries and the Amsterdam Cafe on the square;

--whether Glendale should impose a tax on calls that go through the architectural gem that Cincinnati Bell built on Sharon Road.

The event made me wonder if the electorate might be better served if forums like this one were sponsored by truly neutral organizations, for instance the Glendale Tea Party. The result might be a outside-the-box discussion of innovative ideas for dealing with the challenges that face us, ideas that people might not have had much chance to hear, such as tightening our belts and keeping taxes low. Just a thought.

Connie and Daughter

Our next congresswoman, and her daughter.  GOFACT got her over the top in Glendale, along with Connie's tireless efforts!