Penn State marches on, and Ventura needs to step it up

The Penn State football program and the university were hit with sanctions by the NCAA that will cripple the university and hurt the football program.

Penn State will no longer have the winningest head coach in Division I FSC history.

As bad as it sounds, the program will still play next year and the players will be running out of the tunnel on college football’s opening day.

The $60 million Penn State was fined is a drop in the bucket for a school with an endowment of $1.72 billion (2011 Commonfund Institute report).

If the NCAA was going to get involved, then the death penalty should have been imposed. Instead, it seems it will be business as usual.

The football program at Penn State funds most of the other sports, if not all of them, give or take the basketball team. All of the athletes in the other sports programs would have been unfairly penalized.

So basically we have puffed up sanctions, from others laid out at places in the past such as USC! By the way the University of Southern California is doing fine and is considered a top team in the NCAA this year.

What came down on Penn State is really USC sanctions on pharmaceuticals. After taking away Joe Paterno’s 111 wins from 1998-2011, which drops him out of the top 10 of all-time, does anyone really think that Joe Paterno isn’t the winningest coach of all time? I’m sure while the statue of Paterno was being taken down on Sunday morning you might have been able to run in to some of the trustees enjoying a nice breakfast at the local diner in Happy Valley.

I do know this: with the board still in power and players running out of the tunnel next year, how much of the culture has really changed?

Ventura slippingThe Chicago White Sox went on a 10-game road trip and lost 5 games in the standings to the Detroit Tigers, dropping to second place. Robin Ventura had a couple of weak games as manager, including a wrenching 3 to 1 loss on July 19 to the Boston Red Sox. He pulled José Quintana out after 8 shutout innings and only 103 pitches thrown. He replaced him with Matt Thorton, who got into trouble and was replaced by Addison Reed. Reed gave up a Cody Ross homer, and the Sox dropped a game they should have won. Ventura definitely mismanaged that one. If he continues to bat Adam Dunn third against lefties, the Sox will be in dire straits. Ventura in the first half was Adam Scott at the British Open the first three days. Let#146;s hope in the second half he doesn#146;t manage to be Adam Scott in the final four holes.Ÿ Mike North#146;s column appears each Tuesday and Friday in the Daily Herald, and his video commentary can be found Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at dailyherald.com. For more, visit northtonorth.com.