Sanctification NCAA-Style

Published on by D. G. Hart

The deity of American athletics, also known as the NCAA, has decided to lift some of the restrictions on Penn State football:

George Mitchell, the former U.S. senator who is now Penn State’s independent athletics integrity monitor (a position created after the scandal to improve campus sports culture), said that after his first annual review of Penn State’s progress he determined the NCAA should “recognize and reward” the administration’s “good-faith effort” to change.

At Mitchell’s suggestion, the NCAA Executive Committee and the Big Ten Conference agreed to restore the scholarships that were revoked in response to last year’s Freeh Report. The findings of former FBI director Louis J. Freeh detailed the cultural and administrative failings that helped enable Sandusky to use his status as a former coach to rape children for years, sometimes on university property.

Initially, the NCAA said Penn State could award just 65 total football scholarships per year through 2017-18, significantly fewer than the 85 that programs at its level are used to handing out. But now, Penn State will receive an additional five scholarships each year through 2016-17. So essentially, the NCAA returned 20 scholarships it had taken away.

“This action provides an opportunity to recognize Penn State’s significant momentum, while also providing additional opportunities for student-athletes,” said Nathan Hatch, chair of the Division I Board of Directors and president of Wake Forest University.

(Yes, that Nathan Hatch.)

This makes me wonder if that Penn State stays on the course of institutional sanctification, will the NCAA reward Coach Bill O’Brien with W’s from their treasury of victories? They have 111 at their disposal.

64 thoughts on “Sanctification NCAA-Style”

  1. Speaking of college football, it seems to me that the high-flown rhetoric of coaches about making their players a) virtuous young men b) excellent, well-rounded students and c) the best football players they can be is akin to the transfos and culture warriors who would like the church to take on a similarly impossible and overly broad set of goals. Or the fundies and evangellyfish who assure us for the 5001st time that if WE would just all WITNESS according to the strategy of the month we would win (insert sphere/area) to X. Whatever happened to just giving 110% and taking one (or more) for the team?

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  3. I think the NCAA may be “federal visionists”. No judgment of theirs is ever final. And they give you points for doing some imperfect things. And then they sovereignly take away points from some in their little “covenant family”. It’s all so arbitrary. It’s not in the end about satisfaction of clear public law.

    from one of his fans—-“Leithart proposes that the internal/external approach to the New Covenant and the visible/invisible church distinction are not valid Biblical categories. He thinks that the phrase “body of Christ” is a reference to all who are in the corporate social community of the church. Though all in the visible community really partake of Christ, not all of these people will share in the eschatological kingdom due to their lack of continuing faith. Leithart argues that apostasy happens, that one can have a true relationship with Christ and subsequently be cut off. Leithart does not, however, abandon the concept of predestination. According to Leithart, God does predestine the elect unto this present aspect of justification but also predestines the apostasy of those who fall away before the second aspect of justification.”

    mark: Here’s hoping that the NCAA will be abolished even before the Federal Reserve.

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  4. McMark, I can see where Leithart would be very confusing and shifty on eligibility issues. Maybe you have redshirt for a while after baptism?

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  5. It’s easy to avoid NCAA idolatry during football season if you’re a Duke fan. I suggest being a Dukie for anyone struggling with that form of idolatry. You may need an alternate plan for basketball season, however.

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  9. Who is this Chortles Weakly guy? This is funny: McMark, I can see where Leithart would be very confusing and shifty on eligibility issues. Maybe you have redshirt for a while after baptism?

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  10. CW: Duke basketball is the focus of evil in the modern world.

    John Y: I don’t get it (what is evil about Duke basketball?) or have I missed something in past posts and comments?

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  11. Everybody hates Duke, except those of us who hate Dan and Roy (North Carolina) more. Resist evil with evil.

    Why no ruling on Miami yet, while already re-doing Paterno State? The NCAA answers to nobody. But only on certain given occasions, the NCAA speaks infallibly.

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  12. How can one use the words “hate” and “Duke” in the same sentence? Unless you say something like, “I hate any team that beats Duke”? I guess the old saying is true: haters gotta hate.

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  13. Besides, you gotta lay off the hate during football season. We had our best year in something like 20 years last year with a 6-6 record. Don’t old lifers show any mercy?

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  14. Re:Duke, I know wherof I speak. Covered them in my photojournalist days. Coach K is foul-mouthed arrogant snarler. The students (all from NJ apparently) are insufferable, and I witnessed an anarchic baachanalian display on their campus after one of their championships. Actually feared for my safety.

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  15. yep, k is even a patriot and a Republican, and from my perspective, that’s about as bad as it gets.

    but i still cheer for duke every time they put one more loss in the dean smith/ roy williams record.

    spectator sports without some hating? beyond my imagination…We need a culture where people like me are not allowed to watch.

    Every time we go to a movie, we “support Hollywood”. Every time we turn on a college game, we support the NCAA.

    maybe i can go cold turkey this year….

    i only watch basketball

    i only watch games in which north carolina has a chance to lose

    i only…

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  16. “Coach K is foul-mouthed arrogant snarler.”

    Who isn’t these days?

    As for insufferable, have you ever been among Presbyterians much?

    But I see your point about the anarchic baachanalian display. All presbyies know if your going to have a baachanalian display it must be done decently and in order.

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  17. Just ban college football. It has only the flimsiest of connections to education, colleges make far more money than they “compensate” the players with scholarships, and the players risk concussion or other life-changing injury. The NCAA is part of a sham that is intended to make college football seem like it’s consistent with educational institutions by putting on layers of rules, some quite silly.

    Or stop the masquerade, let the marketplace decide what colleges want to pay their players, and have at it.

    But it would be better to just separate them. Make the NFL develop its own minor league instead of making its money off the free farm system known as college football.

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  18. Well Mark, anyone who hates UNC with that much passion can’t be all bad. I guess I can put up wit a little haterage going on up in here if it is mainly directed towards Tarheel country.

    Did I actually start this off by saying how we can avoid idolatry?!? My bad!

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  20. I covered UNC, Duke, and NC State. Blue-collar State was the only bunch I could relate to. An injured player for an opposing team lay on the court for several minutes in a meaningless early season game. A redneck NC State fan, losing patience, eventually howled “CARRY HIM TO THE VET SCHOOL!” I felt like I was at home.

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  21. MM,

    I am not sure a ban is in order, but detaching the athletics from the academic institutions could do a lot of good, and do away with the modern sham of amateurism with all of the money surrounding college sports. There’s already a mechanism for this – university sports clubs – where one’s team membership is predicated on being enrolled at the university. Then these schools could focus on their true mission as academies, and the sports clubs could organize under more sensible principles.

    Of course college baseball is safeguarded from the problems of basketball and football because of MLB’s expansive farm system – where more or less merit pay rules the day, and high quality prospects are paid based on their projected future value.

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  23. John,

    Why not just concentrate on Gospel issues- see what I mean about complex social issues in a fallen world.

    Well, because we’re 2ker’s, which means we also deal in the titanic matters of the present age, such as collegiate athletics.

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  24. Let’s not forget the FACT that Duke gets all the calls and therefore has an unfair advantage, or that their star white players have a penchant for the dooshiest haircuts imaginable, and that Christian Laettner had a perverse habit of stomping players. Heck, he even stomped one of my photographer colleagues who was sitting on the baseline at a UNC-Duke game.

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  25. Recent revelations about concussions may bring this to a head, Jed. In baseball injuries may happen, but they are incidental or freakish. In football, 250 – 350 pound man-boys run full tilt at each other in a collision that is inherently part of the game. And that has what to do with education? It’s anti-education, an example of ignoring medical, biological, and practical wisdom about the well-being of our college students.

    Interesting article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/05/16/do-no-harm-retired-nfl-players-endure-a-lifetime-of-hurt/

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  26. CW: Duke basketball is the focus of evil in the modern world.

    Out of thousands of sporting events attended, the angriest and most hostile crowd I have been in was Duke against Virginia Commonwealth in a round of 64 game tourney game in Buffalo a few years ago.

    Almost all of the 18,000 neutral crowd turned against Duke after VCU showed it wasn’t going to quit early, 17,000 insanely so.

    It was pure pleasure watching them get taken out.

    Poor Duke, it just isn’t fair to have them play an early round game that isn’t a maximum of 15 miles from their campus.

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  27. But Chortles, shifting a moment from the ACC to the Big Ten, can anything top the behavior of Bobby Knight of a few decades ago? ‘Course, coach K is more likely to get away with it because he doesn’t have a John Feinstein following him around all season.

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  28. My dad was a high school coach and he loved Knight, though my dad is a sweet guy. I tell everyone that we said we were baptists but our real religion was man-to-man pressure defense. The high sacrament was taking a charge.

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  30. It appears a root of bitterness has sprung up in some of you when it comes to Duke. I should pray for your sanctification, but maybe I’ll just quietly gloat when Duke whups up on whatever team you guys pull for instead. I’m not above a good nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah on occasion.

    It’s probably best we resume this conversation during basketball season, however, since I have no gloating rights with Duke’s 2-2 record thus far in football (which you have to admit is still pretty good for Duke football).

    Which leads me to this thought . . . Maybe transformationalists and Duke Football have something in common. No matter how much you want things to get better and work for it to get better, at best you’re still looking at a less than winning season.

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  31. “… Maybe transformationalists and Duke Football have something in common …”

    Considering their W-W, the only thing the transformers have in common with anything called “football” is thinking about that little round thing you move back and forth on the field with your feet, knees, and head.

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  33. “Considering their W-W, the only thing the transformers have in common with anything called “football” is thinking about that little round thing you move back and forth on the field with your feet, knees, and head.”

    I think that’s actually the plot line of Transformers 4: Age of Extinction. All the Transformers end up playing soccer which causes the apocalypse.

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  34. Chortles, Do I detect a Kentucky fan? Or worse, a Pitino fan? That would be even worse than being a NC fan. How far away from the triangle does your non-avator self live now?

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  36. McMark, never. Hate Kenstinky too. Can we blame Rome for all the crooked Italian-‘merican coaches? I live 400 miles further west now.

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  37. “Stuart, stop it. You’re sounding like Stellman about the papacy.”

    Denial . . .

    No, I don’t think so. I sound more like you than Stellman. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

    Anger . . .

    YOU sound more like Stellman!! Always going on and on about 2k and history and Reformed stuff! News alert: most of the world doesn’t care, man!!! Besides, Chortles started it!!!

    Bargaining . . .

    How about you just erase your comment comparing me to Stellman, and I’ll stop talking about Duke? That sound good?

    Depression . . .

    Man, I really got dissed on D.G. Hart’s blog. This is just as bad as Duke’s 94-95 basketball season. I think I’ll go home and curl up with Tim Keller’s latest book.

    Acceptance . . .

    Ok, D.G. I’ll cease and desist from the Duke talk. You’ve got a point: idolatry is what idolatry does.

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  39. I nominate Stuart for Creative Commenter of the Week. That, combined with “Stuart, I can’t sound like Stellman. I have hair” from DGH, puts the Stuart/DGH exchange into consideration for “Dialogue of the Week, Funny Guy Division.”

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  40. MM, and in an 80s pop cultural nod to JJS, it’s because Stuart is good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like him.

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  41. “Stuart, I can’t sound like Stellman. I have hair.”

    And you think Frame has fuzzy logic!

    Ok, ok, that was a groaner, but someone had to say it!

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  42. What does MM want? Oh, hell no. Umm, George and C-Dubs are winners. Stick it TKD boy, or fan kick it as you’re more inclined.

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  43. sean,

    I agree. Chortles and George are funnier.

    And Zrim, I appreciate your kind words but the truth is I’m bad enough, dumb enough, and there are already enough people who don’t really like me that much. After all, I am in the PCA. Who around here likes us?!?

    Now, with those admissions, maybe I can win the humility award.

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  44. Stuart, you just need to pick better company is all. Other than that, us slouchers in the PCA have to stick together in our misery.

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  45. Is it this type of post which attracts all the Machen/Hart warrior children types? And a motley crew of screwballs it seems to be. I like this comment by Chortles Weakly (I hope that is not your real name): Johnny Y, Chortles Weakly is a sensitive underachiever who hides behind a cool avatar. And what’s up with the Johnny Y?- I think DGH started that- is that a label of affection and acceptance or one of patronizing condescension to put me in my place? I am still learning Reformed protocol.

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  46. Sean,

    Hmmmm. Misery DOES love company. I think that’s why the presbyterian church was founded in the first place.

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  47. Sorry Jed but I am getting mixed signals from your response too- was that a subtle jab of sarcasm or some levity pointed at all the responders and post maker? I can never tell with oldlifers so I have to ask. Maybe I need to grow some bigger pecks.

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  48. Johnny Y, definitely a term of ensmearment, er…endearment. Old Life — where the men are men and the pietists are nervous.

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  49. C-Dubs is a steady .300 hitter with a high OBP but come on, Kubler-Ross’ five stages in the death of an Old Life comment? That’s a prodigious blast. Or at least it would make it over the right field fence in Yankee stadium.

    Let’s see, what else? Sean, you just oppose me on principle. JY, the key is to not care – I do that all the time with Sean’s comments and, generally, with most of life. I dress it up as trust in sovereignty.

    Stuart, is your avatar a Simpsons character?

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  50. Thanks, MM, but I’m more the .250 guy who’s a good base stealer and a solid SS. My arms are a little on the wienie side. And I am sort of a cancer in the clubhouse, just so you know.

    Liked by 1 person

  51. Well, wounded emotionally anyway, an arsenal of dance and cheer kicks is unlikely to do much more than create a breeze. Still, I’ve been sinned against by MM in violation of the ninth, and laughably in violation of the sixth, nevertheless, for purposes here, we will regard such a transgression with utmost gravity. Plus, I have suffered emotional injury by way of MM’s transgressing my own personal list, granted creedence here by way of sanctity of a soul and conscience endowed with the Imago Dei imprimatur-mine.

    However, seeing as I’ve been saved by the grace of God from similar transgressions on my part, though nothing to the degree of disobedience and contempt exhibited by Mikelmann, in my magnanimity and state of grace I shall both extend forgiveness to MM and foreswear any retribution, justified though I may be in my righteous indignation, and unquestionably, were I to undertake would undoubtedly cause MM extensive bodily harm.

    Amen.

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  53. Forgiveness and reconciliation with Sean is nothing like the way Jay Adams wrote it up.

    Sean, I’m just an admirer, much like Captain Willard admired Colonel Kurtz.

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  54. Sean, I bet mikelwomann looks like a cheerleader when he kicks. But I’m on your side, and if you go up the river and set up camp in the heart of darkness I’ll be there.

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  55. MM,

    Back when the Simpsons movie came out you could upload a picture of yourself and have it “Simpsonized”. So that’s me as a Simpsons character.

    I actually look funnier in person.

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  57. John,

    Just a friendly jab, I respect you too much to ever come at you 6 guns blazing. My comment was just attempting to say that while dealing with weightier theological matters is something I enjoy, I can’t and don’t think I should even try to sustain that level of seriousness all the time. There’s more to life under the sun than that, and I think 2k gives us a good avenue for approaching non-ecclesial matters.

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  58. Jed,

    A compliment from an old lifer- that is a rarity. I appreciate that Jed- I need all the encouragement I can get these days. Life has been very difficult lately and it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, I am hanging in there in the most dire of circumstances. Thanks!!

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  59. I’ve been skimming and reading a bunch of sports pages from 40 or so years ago and sports was way better back then. Sports articles were about….get this….sports. The papers covered all kinds of games and athletes at all kind of levels. Little whining, little drama, little sociology — just games, boxscores, etc. It has been great fun.

    I’ve had to listen to Iowa State’s football coach (who I like) whining and crying the last two days about not getting calls against Texas. Never mind that Iowa State had the ball inside Texas’ 5 yard line, up 3, with less than 5 minutes left in the game. ISU settles for a field goal and then lets Texas march down the field and score a touchdown with less than a minute left. Stop whining, score a touchdown, and win the damn game next time.

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  60. The deity of American athletics, also known as the NCAA

    This link should take you to the OL second annual NCAA bracket tournament challenge. I accept any and all responsibility for this this year, but the real mastermind was none other than J.Paschal himself, the Cohen movie buff. We must give credit where it is due, yo.

    So if you want to help increase the number of participants from last year’s turn out of 4, click through, or reach out to me,however you like. We are playing for fun, but trash talk is always welcome for such things.

    I’m at andrew [dot] d [dot] buckingham [at] gmail, for anyone who wants more info.

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  61. Imagine if the NCAA were as merciful as the Roman Catholic Church (or the reporters of the Boston Globe/Crux):

    By the end, the main charge seemed to pivot not on what Pell knew, but what he should have known — not what he did, but what he should have done. Those are serious questions, but there was no suggestion of any act that would rise to the standard of a crime, and the same questions could be asked of virtually anyone else who was in Ballarat at the time.

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  62. Some NCAA franchises that get caught cheating are hoping that their pre-emptive attempts at self-atonement will get them out of purgatory early. But usually they do this on years they are not ranked in the top ten. http://www.dailypress.com/sports/virginia-tech/dp-spt-teel-column-acc-image-20160209-column.html

    “The Tar Heels fired Davis in 2011 and voluntarily forfeited victories from 2008 and ’09, and less than a year later, the NCAA barred the football team from the 2012 postseason, costing North Carolina what would have been its first appearance in the ACC championship game.

    In what ranks among its most tortuously prolonged cases, the NCAA has yet to fully address UNC’s academic missteps — resolution is expected no earlier than this spring. But a 2014 report commissioned by the school said that the scam endured 18 years and was designed “to offer classes that awarded high grades with little regard for the quality of the student’s work.”

    More than 3,000 students, nearly half of them athletes, were ensnared. A vast majority of the athletes were from football and men’s and women’s basketball, though Davis and basketball coaches Roy Williams and Sylvia Hatchell have maintained their innocence.”

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  64. rest in peace, because Dean affirmed desegregation before Kentucky, while continuing to support the Carolina economy with his purchase of nocotine sticks? Or is this a “law has nothing more to say once you are dead” thing? So “liberty university” is no longer the legacy of the senior Falwell’s lust for power? And we can no longer make fun of Reagan’s second wife’s use of astrologers?

    the new york times went out of its way to give the dead a pass, and as billy graham told us, tricky dick went straight past purgatory to heaven…

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