(Editor’s note: This week’s guest columnist is Steve Morrison, a resident of Springboro who is a freelance writer and multimedia professional. He was an editor and writer at the Hamilton JournalNews and The Middletown Journal from 1987-99 who played one season of football at Miami University and graduated from there in 1985.)

What Penn State received was a severe but finite penalty. What it deserved was an indefinite sentence.

The disease is Bigness, its symptoms being Arrogance, Avarice, Corruption, Audacity, Pride and an unholy host of others.

Penn State is Ohio State. Is Oklahoma. Is Alabama. Is LSU. Is Florida. Pick a state’s biggest school.

Yes, of course, no other school’s lapses and violations by its football program are quite the same as Penn State’s turning of a blind eye to pedophilia. But it’s about the culture. And how are we to trust that the cumulative, under-the-radar effect of their methods isn’t as bad or worse?

The sanctions against Penn State came swiftly and stunningly after the Freeh report detailed the volume of scum that Jerry Sandusky and his bosses swam in. A $60 million fine, more or less equal to Penn State’s football program profit over two years. A four-year bowl ban, and the Big Ten saying, “Yeah, and you can’t play in our title game, either.” All players signed by or playing for Penn State allowed to change their mind or transfer, with no loss of or delay in eligibility. A loss of 10 scholarships per year. An expunging of all victories since 1998. The statue of head coach Joe Paterno mothballed.

All well and good.

But if you truly want to change attitudes, it must go bigger.

A five-year sanction period, followed by a review. If all is clean and clear, ratchet the fines and punishments back incrementally each year it remains so. Any further violations reset the clock.

The most important thing is that Bigness, the aura of impunity and sheer power madness that exist in virtually every top 25 program and beyond, be met with overwhelming ferocity.

These are institutions of higher learning. If Mark Emmert and the NCAA want to be seen as something more than the hypocritical stuffed shirts many perceive them to be, it’s time to change names. Nowhere in that acronym is academia even implied.

Too much money involved, you say? So what? Hey, boosters. Save that several grand you spend on ballgames each year and find another place for it — like, oh good golly gosh, I don’t know — perhaps a research grant or an endowment of some kind, maybe?

I love football. But when love for the game and its enticements get so monstrous that heretofore good men do nothing in the face of such terrible wrongs, what are we to do but strike back and hark back?

It’s time to go back. A simple fall Saturday. Don’t tell me we can’t get there from here.