Abstract
In the fall of 2011, the Pennsylvania State University campus was rocked by a sexual abuse scandal involving former football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. Details of the crimes and the multiple cover-ups by university officials shocked the nation. In this article, we first argue that more attention needs to be paid to the institutional hegemony the Nittany Lion football program had over the university, the town, the state, the Big Ten Conference, and the NCAA. We argue that the increasing corporatization of higher education and college athletics, at least, partially contributed to an organizational culture in which multiple individual actors were compelled to ignore signs of rampant sexual abuse happening on and around campus. Finally, we discuss the ways in which Penn State crisis, as a crisis of accumulation, is imbricated within a broader spectacle of corporatization and commercialization in intercollegiate athletics; and in so doing point to the role the media played in the construction and subsequent disruption of the Nittany Lion football empire.
Recommended Citation
Bass, Jordan and Newman, Joshua I.
(2013)
"Too Big to Fail: The Penn State Scandal and the Crisis of the Corporate University,"
Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics: Vol. 6:
Iss.
2, Article 5.
Available at:
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/jiia/vol6/iss2/5