Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/83706
PSU's recent troubles echo a dark chapter from its past – a chapter that IMPERFECT PAST H ISTO R Y set the stage for its greatest triumphs football program today. Over the centuries, Shakespeare's W quote has taken on a different meaning than he may have originally intended. Nowadays, it implies that what has happened in the past should be re- membered as a lesson for the future. That definition surely applies to what coach Bill O'Brien and his players are facing for the next several years because of the oppressive NCAA sanctions em- anating from the Sandusky scandal. There has never been anything this dire in Penn State's football past. But there is some similarity to a period in the late 1920s and early 1930s when the university de-emphasized all sports with the elimination of athletic schol- arships. The de-emphasis also included a downgrading of the football schedule | hat's past is prologue," William Shakespeare wrote in "The Tempest," and the popular quote certainly fits the troubling circumstances surrounding the Penn State and a prohibition on scouting oppo- nents. What followed was the worst stretch of football in school history, a skid that virtually destroyed the reputation Penn State had earned since 1909 as one of the elite teams in college football. For seven years, from 1930-36, Penn State did not have a winning season, and in 1931 and 1932 it suffered two of its most embarrassing defeats of all-time – back-to-back home losses to Waynesburg. Unlike what is happening today to the football team, the retrenchment of athletics in that era was not forced upon Penn State by outsiders. Yet the school did take an undeserved hit two years after the de-emphasis started from a respected national organization that cited Penn State among many colleges where "athletic standards were not consistent with its educational and ethical values." Perhaps that sounds a little too similar to the claim by the controversial Freeh MAN FOR ALL SEASONS Hamas was a great all-around athlete at a time in Penn State history when students often competed in more than one sport. In addition to playing on the football team, Hamas won two national heavyweight boxing championships. report and the NCAA that the Penn State athletic department was so out of control and the "football culture" so omnipotent that four university leaders allowed a former football coach who was a child sexual predator to roam freely for 14 years.