Here's another good essay, this one by Michael Goodwin, about the moral embarrassment that is Penn State football:
Penn State's Cowardly Lions
and it can be argued that it applies more often than not to football in other places and at other levels.
An excerpt:
All of which gives rise to these questions: Those men and women who remained silent in the face of this evil -- are they truly good? Or are they cowards who were simply not willing to take a modest personal risk for the preservation of the one thing they supposedly valued most?
I believe they are cowards. Their goodness was found wanting when it was needed most, and so was shallow if it existed at all. They are sunshine patriots who could not be counted on when the stakes were highest.
In life, even more than in football, courage is required.
