Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, earlier this month some of our darkest fears came to light. As parents and mentors of young children, we were horrified to hear and read about news allegations of a sexual abuse scandal involving the Penn State University football program. In piecing the news together, there were clues and red flags along the way, suggesting that the allegations are regrettably and probably true. Based on what is known now, it is also not inconceivable that the horrible actions alleged to have occurred at Penn State could have just as easily occurred at any other major collegiate sports program in the country. {time} 1120 What this sad and tragic episode affirms is that the abuse of children is real and alive in the sports world today. And it is just as alive and real in collegiate sports as it could be in any institutional system that has commonalities with big-time college sports. A little more than a week ago, even before the news of this scandal broke, I hosted two collegiate sports roundtables here in our Nation's Capitol. I invited sports journalists, economists, parents of former big division athletic scholarship recipients, and current professionally qualified basketball players and former collegiate student athletes to speak openly. They were asked what they thought about some of the NCAA's new proposed reforms, like compensating student athletes with a stipend and increasing academic accountability of student athletes who play in Bowl Conference Series tournaments.…”