Paterno didn't see it coming, but Hutchins did
Surveying the events out of State College, Pa., in recent days, I was reminded of a comment from a wise man:
"A student can win 12 letters at a university without learning how to write one."
So said Robert Maynard Hutchins about the problems he saw in marrying big-time athletics to universities. In fact, as president of the University of Chicago, Hutchins pushed through a controversial decision to drop football at the school in 1939.
Just four years earlier, Jay Berwanger had won the Heisman Trophy playing for Chicago. Amos Alonzo Stagg was Chicago's coach for more than 30 years. And Chicago was a member of the Big Ten Conference at the time that Hutchins ended its intercollegiate football team, so this was no small decision.
Or, if you believe the true and only focus of a university is higher learning, maybe it was a small -- and obvious -- call.
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