Penn State's black eye

Daily Collegian readers were greeted with three Page 1 stories today about football players in trouble.

We have those three stories packaged here online, with disturbing detail concerning Chris Bell's alleged threat toward another player in a campus dining hall. Coaches broke it up.

Bell is thrown off the team, we now know, in a move that had to be made quickly.

Penn State will get national attention today regarding all of this, here in early April. Is that what the Nittany Lions need?

We've had two incidents involving groups of players last April and last October, and of course charges are still out there on those. We have the Austin Scott case, the incidents involving Andrew Quarless, and now today's news about Chris Bell.

Am I forgetting any?

These off-the-field incidents take away from Penn State's on-the-field mission, and it seems it should be top priority to stop these from happening.

Blue/white is coming and there's reason for optimism, isn't there?

Comments

[zug]

There is obviously some major problems with the team if you have one of your star recruits threatening to skewer a team mate. What kind of team building is going on down there? I know, Liberal Jay has them all holding hands and singing " kum bae yah" at orientation and all --- but more needs to be done. The whole program is starting to assume an appearance of shame to me. I used to like PSU because of what it stood for. The nameless jersies, the plain uniforms, the integrity, humility and honor. Now I am starting to wonder how different they are from any other program.

[PSUEnthusiast]

This news is unfortunate but I personally will refrain from blanket statements in the face of sparse information. We live in a news and information age where the need for speed to release news and the need for volume can supersede discretion and accuracy. Notwithstanding this current troubling report, I would offer this observation. The year that the Texas Longhorns won the national title they had the dubious distinction of being the number 1 party school in the nation - PSU ranked number 2 at that time. Some of what we hear may reflect new and/or renewed commitments to enforcement in ways that resemble zero tolerance. The legal drinking age is 21 and on a campus where alcohol certainly is not scarce, and where I presume the average age of a dorming coed is under 21, added effort must also be devoted to prevention. I've interacted often and directly with several of these players. I believe that there is humility and honor - the jerseys are still nameless and the uniforms still plain. As far as the integrity issue is concerned I would like to see a stronger universal commitment to mentorship before I pass such judgment. But I doubt that such will happen because it is the opinion of most that these players are privileged.