I think many misunderstand what happened this week in Waco, Texas.
Yes, Baylor University's Board of Regents fired football coach Art Briles. Yes, the Bears' football program is under more than a little scrutiny.
But at the heart of the issue is Baylor itself.
It allowed a culture of which Briles, drunk with success and power, took advantage. It allowed a separation between football program and university. It allowed cover-ups of sexual violence in the name of victories and, ultimately, fat bank accounts.
Many are now hoping what happened at Baylor rings in a new era of awareness. But many also hoped that to be the case after the horrors at Penn State.
WVU president E. Gordon Gee, reached this week after Briles' ouster, said he understands - and sincerely wants to make sure such sins aren't repeated in Morgantown.
"This has always been the problem with intercollegiate athletics," said Gee, who has now held more university presidencies than any other American. "I actually did away with the athletic department at Vanderbilt because I felt the notion of isolation. I felt it was something we should not or could not tolerate.
"At West Virginia, our athletic director [Shane Lyons] is also our associate vice president of the university so the athletic department and university are one, so that we don't have separate rules for any part of the institution. I think to do that was very, very wise and, at least in our instance, I feel very confident we are fully integrated and we treat our student-athletes as we treat all our students. We try to make sure there is a commonly understood culture among all of us."
Gee's experiences with athletics have ranged from the dismantling of Vanderbilt's athletic department to the ouster of former football coach Jim Tressel at Ohio State, where Gee was also president. In this week's instance, Gee's school isn't involved, but his friend and peer, Ken Starr, is being removed as president of Baylor and shifted to chancellor.
"All this saddens me greatly," Gee said. "First of all, it saddens me for Baylor and the students that have been victims of these acts of abuse. That should not happen on any university campus.
"It's the role of all of us to work aggressively to make sure our campuses are safe for all of our students. Judge Starr, Ken Starr, has been one of the really wonderful leaders of higher education and a sparkling university president. I know in his new role he'll continue to do his best for Baylor and higher education. I know he wants to do the very best for the students at Baylor."
Gee was asked how he can make sure what happened at Baylor doesn't happen at WVU.
"We're learning all the time," he said. "We have a very aggressive set of policies in place at our institution. To say something newsworthy cannot happen on your campus is foolish. I wish that weren't the case. But the university must respond and create a safe environment. That's our goal. It's what we've been doing at the university for some time."
Lessons, Gee continued, can be learned.
"When the Penn State thing happened, I did a reverse engineering of every aspect of that while I was the president of Ohio State - so we fully understood," said the WVU president. "We will do the same thing when any issue like this happens on other campuses whether it be at Missouri, Baylor or North Carolina. We take a look at each one of those and ask, 'But what are we doing to make sure those issues aren't on our campus?' "
A criticism in Waco isn't just of Baylor, but of the local police force, which works with that of the school.
"Our [WVU Police] Chief [Bob] Roberts and the Morgantown police have a wonderful relationship," Gee said. "I know we're very diligent in working closely with the [Morgantown] police, but not in any sense of denying or abrogating their responsibility and our own. It's a close relationship, but it's a close relationship built on mutual trust and the expectation that we'll all follow the same rules.
"The beauty of a college town is it is a college town. Morgantown is one of the great college towns in the country with 30,000 residents and 33,000 students and we're cheek to jowl. We need to make sure we're all on the same page."
Indeed, all state schools - all schools, for that matter - should learn from Baylor. Policies should be reviewed and, if possible, enhanced.
Because job No. 1 of administrators should be - must be - to make sure our sons and daughters are in the safest college environments possible.