Blue White Illustrated

LAST WORD TIM OWEN | OWEN.TIM.BWI@ G M A I L . C O M early Christmas present, you proba- bly found yourself at a loss. You browsed what you thought was the list of the NCAA's 1,273 schools, conferences and organizations, searching for the designated "Penn State Nittany Lions" link to click on. As you scrolled down, you saw a list of teams arranged in alphabetical order: "Pellissippi State Purple Panthers, Peninsula College Pirates, Pennsylva- nia Quakers, Pepperdine Waves…" "Wait a second," you probably O thought. "Who the heck are the Pur- ple Panthers? And second, where in this list are the Penn State Nittany Lions?" You double-checked and triple- checked and then checked one more time before it hit you. There were not 1,273 schools on that list. There was a school missing, and it was obvious who it was. I wasn't Christmas shopping that Tuesday morning, but I witnessed the website's glaring omission. Then cu- riosity got the best of me, so I made a phone call. I wasn't the only one. On the other end of the line, a young-sounding man answered. His name was Mike, and he identified himself as a sales agent for ShopN- CAASports.com. Acting as an inter- ested customer, I asked Mike why I couldn't find Penn State apparel any- where on his website. "Oh, we've been getting this ques- tion," he replied. Then, unprompted, he continued, "We've been told to tell customers that it was an intentional decision to no longer sell Penn State merchandise." An intentional decision? Yes, Mike reaffirmed. Because of the NCAA sanctions? That, he said, he did not know, which understandably is a 'Glitch' in the system n the morning of Nov. 13, if you logged onto the official online store of the NCAA hoping to buy some Penn State gear for an confusing question since sanctioned schools like Ohio State, Southern Cal and North Carolina were still listed. So, I played reporter and asked to speak to Mike's supervisor. The su- pervisor declined comment but con- firmed, for a third time, that it was in fact an intentional decision to remove Penn State apparel from the site. That phone call took place at 10:30 a.m. By 11:30 a.m. – after the story went viral and Nittany Lion fans vent- ed on social media sites, Internet message boards and the NCAA's cus- tomer service phone lines – Penn State was back on its list of schools, this time with an apology notice. "Due to a technical glitch," it read, "Penn State product is currently not appear- ing on The NCAA Shop." How quickly a story can change. In fewer than 60 minutes, the omission had gone from "an intentional decision" to a "techni- cal glitch." Then around noon, the on- line store was back up and running, selling overpriced polo shirts and stale Silas Redd No. 25 jerseys. The timing of the "glitch" couldn't have come at a worse moment for people trying to dispel the conspiracy theories that have recently taken root among some Penn State fans, espe- cially since the Nittany Lions have been on the short end of some ques- tionable calls. Count me among the group that was trying to do the dispelling. After my little experience with the NCAA's fan shop, though, I can see the valid- ity of the argument: If the NCAA told its "official" online store to stop sell- ing Penn State merchandise – cer- tainly something that wasn't in Mark Emmert's value-sized sanction pack- age – then what else can the organi- zation deprive Penn State of? If you ask some of the conspiracy theorists – probably the same people with "Behold a Pale White Horse" in their book collection – they'll tell you that everyone this side of the Pacific Ocean has it in for the Nittany Lions. Maybe in a sense they're right. The nation has a lot of lingering anger about the school's involvement in the Sandusky scandal. But is the NCAA, and in turn the Big Ten, really going to get even with Penn State through its officiating? Is it going to call Adrian Amos for a questionable roughing-the-passer penalty against Purdue purely out of spite? Is it going to disregard a bla- tant hold on Michael Mauti that al- lows Braxton Miller to leap into the end zone for an Ohio State touch- down only because it thought Joe Pa- terno knew more than he let on? Is it going to risk its institutional integrity and say that Matt Lehman didn't break the plane of the Nebraska end zone because the university presi- dent got nailed for perjury? Doubtful. Bill O'Brien has had some obvious misgivings about the officiating this season – "After the season, when we get together [with the Big Ten], I'm going to have some questions," he said – but he, too, said the conspira- cy talk is farfetched. "I would tell our fans that nobody is against Penn State," he said a few days after the Nebraska game. He then paused for a moment and reit- erated for emphasis: "No one is against Penn State." But that doesn't mean the NCAA won't keep its distance from the Nit- tany Lions while the scandal plays it- self out. It's going to do whatever possible to separate itself from a pro- gram that lately has been better known for child molestation and per- jury charges than sports. If the NCAA can, even if it's as simple as not sell- ing Penn State merchandise on its site, it's going to keep the money out of Penn State's pockets. Unless, of course, it affects the NCAA's wallet, too.

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