Penn State president wants to place less emphasis on football by Kevin Johnson and Kelly Whiteside STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Penn State University is reassessing the role of its giant football program in the wake of a child sexual abuse scandal that has led to criminal charges against a former assistant football coach and the ouster of iconic head coach Joe Paterno. In his first extensive interview since taking office last month, Penn State President Rodney Erickson told USA TODAY on Tuesday that he is seeking to transform the university's public image from a football school to a "world class research institution."

In a wide-ranging discussion, the former geography professor talked about the task of steadying the sprawling university in the aftermath of "shocking" abuse charges; an ambitious effort to reach out to child abuse victims across the country; and an attempt to remake a school — long known as "Linebacker U" for the NFL-caliber players it produced — more in his own image as Penn State's soft-spoken former chief academic officer.

The abuse charges, Erickson said, should supply new "urgency for discussions about the role of big-time athletics and where they interact with higher education."

Jerry Sandusky, a key contributor to the university's enduring football success, also is the primary suspect in an ongoing investigation in which he is charged with 40 criminal counts of abuse and misconduct. On Tuesday, attorney Charles Schmidt told the Associated Press that a 19-year-old man has filed a complaint with state police alleging he too was sexually abused by Sandusky.

The new accuser was first reported by WHP-TV in Harrisburg.

Former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and former senior vice president Gary Schultz are charged with perjury.

Sandusky said in two media interviews that he is innocent of the charges. Curley and Schultz, accused of providing false information to a Pennsylvania grand jury investigating the matter, have denied any wrongdoing through their lawyers.

All three men face preliminary hearings next week. More than a month after the charges were announced, the stunning nature of the allegations contained in a 23-page grand jury report that detailed incidents of alleged abuse by Sandusky during a 15-year period still evoke a sharp reaction from Erickson.

"I was shocked," the president said, adding that those feelings quickly morphed into "tremendous sadness and heartache for the victims."

He also says there was "devastation that this could have happened at Penn State."

Four days later, Erickson — then the university's academic chief — was thrust into his current role.

From the start, Erickson said the university would confront the issue of child sex abuse. And in one of his first major initiatives as president, Erickson said Tuesday that Penn State is establishing a national Center for the Protection of Children to conduct research and provide treatment to sex abuse victims across the country.

The president said the center, which will draw experts from the university's 24 campuses, will be housed at Hershey Medical Center's Children's Hospital and will be initially funded with part of $2 million in college football bowl proceeds it is slated to receive from the Big Ten Conference.

"We are going to learn from this tragedy," Erickson said. "We are not going to run away from the issue of child abuse."

The president said he has not followed recent media interviews in which Sandusky has repeatedly asserted his innocence. But Damon Sims, Penn State's vice president of student affairs, said Sandusky's public denials have prompted sexual abuse victims, unrelated to the Sandusky case, to come forward and seek help at university treatment outlets.

"There are people who are in various forms of anguish over it," Sims said. "Those folks have come forward in droves in our counseling and psychological services offices."

Erickson declined to comment on the ongoing criminal investigation. However, he vowed that students, taxpayers and university donors would bear no responsibility for the mounting legal fees, potential settlements and other costs associated with the inquiry.

New identity challenge

Of the school's many challenges, the most daunting may be the stated desire to shake the university's dominant identity as a football powerhouse and its association with the recent scandal.

"I don't think we need to promote ourselves as simply a football school," Sims said. "I think the way we present ourselves to the world as an institution we ought to talk about things that are more oriented to seriousness of purpose that is deeply embedded here."

And school officials, including Erickson, are actively trying to promote that academic side of university life, while tending to the concerns of businesses looking to hire Penn State graduates.

Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said corporate recruiters are signing up for a spring career fair at a higher rate than they did last year at this time. This week, Sims also is leading a delegation that includes the director of career services and deans from its schools of engineering, business, and information sciences and technologies, to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington to reassure longtime recruiters.

"We need to refocus the spotlight on those things and de-emphasize the spotlight on athletics," he said, adding that a de-emphasis does not equate to "damaging" the program. "I think we also need to understand that there's all this other stuff that's more important to us than football."

One way to demonstrate that, Sims suggested, was the selection of the new football coach.

He said it would be a "terrible mistake" to pay a new coach on a scale equal to other recent football hires, including Urban Meyer at Ohio State where he is expected to earn $4.5 million per year.

Paterno made at least $1,022,794, but Penn State has not released his contract.

Yet former Penn State All-American running back Lydell Mitchell, 62, said any effort to "de-emphasize football makes no sense whatsoever."

"We never want to forget those victims," he said. "But to try and put this all on football is just ludicrous. I don't want to say that Penn State football made the university, but it certainly put it (on the map). We can still have a world-class research school; that is what we've been striving for."

Former Nittany Lions linebacker Chris Devlin, a 1975 graduate who later played in the NFL, said football has "become bigger than life," at both the collegiate and professional levels. Yet he said diminishing the sport's standing at the university may not be the answer, either.

"I think the lessons we learned through sports are great, but … I certainly don't think that de-emphasizing football at Penn State is going to change that course," Devlin said. "It (seems) like it might be a little overreaction."

There are others, however, who side with Erickson and other university officials.

Sarah Labance, 39, an environmental engineer in Vernon, N.J., who earned three degrees at Penn State, said university officials are taking "a step in the right direction."

"They definitely need to take strong measures. I think the scar that's going to be left, and the taint on the school, will take a long time to heal," she said.

"If the president dials down football a little bit, that's a good thing," adds 1981 graduate Marc Brownstein, 51, of Philadelphia, president and CEO of a brand communications agency and a board member of Penn State University's College of Communications. "Penn State is still going to fill that stadium every Saturday in the fall, I'm quite certain of that. But they're going to (re-establish a commitment to academics) That's what a university is about. That got out of balance. This will help center it a little bit."

No role for Joe Paterno in rebuilding

Whatever becomes of Penn State football, it will certainly happen without Joe Paterno for the first time in nearly 50 years. Paterno won't be part of the rebuilding process or have any input into who the university might hire as it's next coach, Erickson said. Nor has the president talked to the former coach in the wake of his dismissal.

Paterno was the architect of what he called the "Grand Experiment," the notion that athletic success and academic achievement weren't mutually exclusive. Over the years, the experiment seemed to be working. The Nittany Lions garnered two national championships, numerous bowl victories and graduated most of its players.

"Clearly Joe Paterno has had a significant impact on the university over the years," Erickson said. "My hope would be that after some time passes that we can reflect on the many positive contributions that Joe and of course his wife, Sue, have made to the university and to the academic side to the university as well. That will surely take place in due course."

But for now, the university will wrestle with how to de-emphasize the spotlight on football without damaging the program's success, if that's even possible.

"We at least need to try," Sims said. "That would become the new great experiment. Can you properly position athletics and not compromise academics?"

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