Penn State's spring semester began earlier this week. Among the school's enrolled students were Nittany Lion quarterbacks Rob Bolden and Kevin Newsome, both of whom had seemed sure bets to transfer away from Happy Valley.
But JoePa has somehow kept them both in Happy Valley. Bolden's return perhaps assisted by Paterno's refusal to release the young quarterback from his scholarship.
College is supposed to prepare a young person to survive and succeed in adult life. That's supposed to be more important than the football team's depth chart. Still, many young men – and I assume Bolden is no exception—view a major college athletic program as a step towards a potentially lucrative sports career.
Joe Paterno's reputation as a model coach is partly based on the assumption that he stresses the importance of the classroom over the playing field.
Paterno's handling of (Bolden) certainly doesn't fit that image. And I wonder what it's going to do to Penn State's recruitment of quarterbacks in the future.
Follow this link to read the remainder of Walters' argument.
Are you disappointed with how Joe Paterno handled the Rob Bolden situation? Should he have let Bolden go? Did Paterno not take the moral high ground in the Bolden saga?
Explain your reasoning below.