NCAA College Football: Sanction PSU?

[Darth Quorthon]

Didn't see it posted yet:

Statue Removed, Lidrary name to remain

The Joe Paterno statue was removed Sunday morning from its pedestal outside Beaver Stadium, and it will be stored in an unnamed "secure location," Penn State president Rodney Erickson announced. Erickson also said the Paterno name will remain on the university's library.

Shortly before dawn in State College, Pa., a work crew installed chain-link fences to barricade access to Porter Road outside Beaver Stadium and covered the fence with a blue tarp.

The work crew then removed the 7-foot, 900-pound bronze statue by forklift and placed it into the lower level of the stadium. Erickson released his highly sensitive decision to the public at 7 a.m. ET Sunday.

Another thing that made me wonder was some of the discussion earlier about Sandusky. We've seen coaches-in-waitng ascend to the job they were waiting for (Jimbo Fisher) and bolt for other schools (Will Muschamp). Granted those are two recent examples that came long after Sandusky retired. Is it possible that Sandusky did get job offers from other schools but was reluctant to leave his "safety net" behind?

Edit:

Looks like NCAA sanctions are incoming:

Link

NCAA president Mark Emmert has decided to punish Penn State with severe penalties likely to include a significant loss of scholarships and loss of multiple bowls, a source close to the decision told ESPN's Joe Schad on Sunday morning.

But Penn State will not receive the so-called "death penalty" that would have suspended the program for at least one year, the source said.

The penalties, however, are considered to be so harsh that the death penalty may have been preferable, the source said.

The NCAA will announce "corrective and punitive measures" for Penn State on Monday morning, it said in a statement Sunday. Emmert will reveal the sanctions at 9 a.m. ET in Indianapolis at the organization's headquarters along with Ed Ray, the chairman of the NCAA's executive committee and Oregon State's president, the news release said.

[Col. Crackpot]

Your plan punishes thousands of people who did not report wrongdoings because they had no idea they were occurring.

The rotten cult of personality must be purged from that institution and an example must be set. Do others get the shit end of the stick because of it? Yes. Some good cells will be killed with the cancer. Collateral damage. too bad, so sad. We are dealing with an institution that facilitated child fucking by giving someone they knew was fucking children an organization full of children he could fuck and keys to a place where he could fuck them. Bulldoze the whole goddamn stadium as a warning to everyone else and replace it with a giant sign that says "This is what happens to institutionalized child fucking organizations run by surly jocks who think they are better than everyone else."

[Tsyroc]

ESPN and CBS sports are reporting that its looking like the NCAA is going to bring the hammer tomorrow.

Plus, I've started seeing people post about how the Pennsylvania legislature is still likely to get involved. PSU is a public institution funded in part by the tax payers of Pennsylvania. If the school is getting fined or having to pay out big settlements that's coming out of the pocket of everyone who pays taxes in the state. It isn't just the NCAA and law suits that Penn State has to worry about. For something like this there could be shit coming from all sorts of directions.

[Purple]

What happened to better the guilty get away than to have innocents damaged? Or how ever that went. "Collateral damage" as Col. Crackpot so charmingly put it is not a concept that is or can be compatible with justice.

[Col. Crackpot]

What happened to better the guilty get away than to have innocents damaged? Or how ever that went. "Collateral damage" as Col. Crackpot so charmingly put it is not a concept that is or can be compatible with justice.

So if a CEO of a small company can prove that his/her firm will fail if he goes to jail for a crime, we should just let them stay out of jail and run their company as if nothing happened? I'm not saying put innocents in jail. I'm saying the football program needs to go.

[Purple]

What happened to better the guilty get away than to have innocents damaged? Or how ever that went. "Collateral damage" as Col. Crackpot so charmingly put it is not a concept that is or can be compatible with justice.

So if a CEO of a small company can prove that his/her firm will fail if he goes to jail for a crime, we should just let them stay out of jail and run their company as if nothing happened? I'm not saying put innocents in jail. I'm saying the football program needs to go.

But in this case destroying the program might have wide ranging repercussions for the whole institution. Or am I getting this wrong? I am not sure how your American universities work but from what I understand their sports programs seem to be basically the one key prestige point for them. Sort of like how the royal family is for england. Kill that and dishonor it and they might as well close the thing down. Or did I understand that incorrectly? Basically I am in principal against the destruction of an institution just because it unknowingly benefited from the acts of members of a subordinate branch. If the institution it self had sanctioned it than fine. But if not than you can't well punish them.

[Block]

What happened to better the guilty get away than to have innocents damaged? Or how ever that went. "Collateral damage" as Col. Crackpot so charmingly put it is not a concept that is or can be compatible with justice.

So if a CEO of a small company can prove that his/her firm will fail if he goes to jail for a crime, we should just let them stay out of jail and run their company as if nothing happened? I'm not saying put innocents in jail. I'm saying the football program needs to go.

But in this case destroying the program might have wide ranging repercussions for the whole institution. Or am I getting this wrong? I am not sure how your American universities work but from what I understand their sports programs seem to be basically the one key prestige point for them. Sort of like how the royal family is for england. Kill that and dishonor it and they might as well close the thing down. Or did I understand that incorrectly? Basically I am in principal against the destruction of an institution just because it unknowingly benefited from the acts of members of a subordinate branch. If the institution it self had sanctioned it than fine. But if not than you can't well punish them.

You're entirely wrong. Penn State has a great engineering program among other things, and the football program being shut down won't change that.

[FSTargetDrone]

As someone who went to Penn State, I certainly wanted that statue to come down. But I am not pleased that the name remains on the library. Rename it for someone more deserving.

[Lord Relvenous]

What happened to better the guilty get away than to have innocents damaged? Or how ever that went. "Collateral damage" as Col. Crackpot so charmingly put it is not a concept that is or can be compatible with justice.

So if a CEO of a small company can prove that his/her firm will fail if he goes to jail for a crime, we should just let them stay out of jail and run their company as if nothing happened? I'm not saying put innocents in jail. I'm saying the football program needs to go.

But in this case destroying the program might have wide ranging repercussions for the whole institution. Or am I getting this wrong? I am not sure how your American universities work but from what I understand their sports programs seem to be basically the one key prestige point for them. Sort of like how the royal family is for england. Kill that and dishonor it and they might as well close the thing down. Or did I understand that incorrectly? Basically I am in principal against the destruction of an institution just because it unknowingly benefited from the acts of members of a subordinate branch. If the institution it self had sanctioned it than fine. But if not than you can't well punish them.

Penn State will be fine. While college football is a large revenue source, they and any other university can survive without it. Penn State has plenty of things to hang its hat on other than a college football program that protected a rapist.

[Coop D'etat]

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootbal ... e-football

Apparently the punishment will be a 30-60 million dollar fine.

[CarsonPalmer]

As someone who went to Penn State, I certainly wanted that statue to come down. But I am not pleased that the name remains on the library. Rename it for someone more deserving.

I lean towards taking the name off the library, but that's slightly more complicated because he paid for it, and his wife has her name on it as well, and she did nothing wrong. It's not like its the Joe and Susan Paterno Library because they thought he was a cool guy, but because he put up the funds.

But I do think that will be changed at some point.

[FSTargetDrone]

I lean towards taking the name off the library, but that's slightly more complicated because he paid for it, and his wife has her name on it as well, and she did nothing wrong. It's not like its the Joe and Susan Paterno Library because they thought he was a cool guy, but because he put up the funds.

But I do think that will be changed at some point.

I'm well aware of his donations to the school. That money helped a lot of people there.

It's just that at this point, seeing what was in the Freeh Report, I simply don't care about the Paterno family (frankly, the family needs to show some class and stop whining), their feelings, the feelings of the current students and alumni, nor the opinion of the local community. Not any of it. It's all irrelevant. All that matters to me is that Paterno was part of a long-lasting coverup that allowed more children to be harmed than might otherwise had he stood up and acted as the humanitarian he was made out to be. Everything else falls aside as far as I'm concerned and an example needs to be made. I want his name and remaining likenesses removed from public display all over the school. That means more must be done: paint over that mural, remove any portraits, stop selling the (now horribly ironic and distastefully-named) "Peachy Paterno" ice cream. That's just for starters. By his inaction, by his greater concern for a football program and the image of the school as a whole, he was part of an evil thing. If he was still alive now, he way well have faced legal action. Those things that are left behind in his honor just need to be taken away. I want it all gone.

[Tsyroc]

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootbal ... e-football

Apparently the punishment will be a 30-60 million dollar fine.

I've been thinking that a huge fine would be a good way to go. It punishes the university for the money it continued to receive while the scandal was covered up but doesn't automatically take away the livelihood of anyone who wasn't directly involved in covering things up.

[Block]

That's up to $60m as PART of the sanctions. Not just a fine.

[Sea Skimmer]

But in this case destroying the program might have wide ranging repercussions for the whole institution.

Any university which is nothing but a football program deserves to die, what, we are supposed to have publicly funded NFL training camps for schools? But no, Penn State will not be destroyed by this, not even remotely. Penn State has over eight thousand staff and 95,000 students at its combined campuses. Under a hundred play on the damn football team.

If the institution it self had sanctioned it than fine. But if not than you can't well punish them.

The board of trustees, as top leadership as it comes and the same people who decided to pull down the damn statue, specifically voted against reigning in the football program and specifically curbing the power and independence of Joe Paterno in years past, and after we known McQueary made specifically told Paterno that he saw a child being raped. They decided very to deliberately let him do whatever he wanted because he won football games even when all kinds of questions were raised about how improper the whole situation was on an institutional basis. That kind of mentality was dangerous, stupid and showed a complete lack of control and concern, which is why it was strongly questioned, but reform was avoided. They deserve to suffer for a lack of leadership like that when it has now been plainly shown to have had such grave consequences.

Its made worse by the way so many local fans, residents and employees are so damn delusional about the whole situation. Its not that many of them think its unfair to have collective punishment, they damn well deny that anything wrong happened at all and want to claim Pappy Joe was the best man ever and never did a thing wrong at all. Crushing such a mentality is a worthy goal in its own right.

Also I'll say again, this is a publicly funded school. It does not get to do whatever it wants. Its educating a significant portion of the youth of Pennsylvania and the United States. Standards damn well matter, and demanding some strict courtroom code of accountability is not desirable nor appropriate. I wonder what you'd be saying if this was a case of a giant corporate multinational company that had high level executives covering up the fact that someone was deliberately pouring mercury into drinking water for a decade, with its board of directors voting not allow inspections.

[Purple]

Wait, the board here knew of what he was doing? I was under the impression that it was something that was known in the football program but not in the general command structure of the organization as a whole. IMHO that is what should make the difference. If the leadership of the organization knew and allowed him to do it than they should be punished. If they did not know than the organization can't be held responsible unless them not knowing was due to deliberate misconduct on their part in the first place.

[Alferd Packer]

60 million dollar fine, 4-year bowl ban, and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998.

he NCAA has hit Penn State with a $60 million sanction, a four-year football postseason ban and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998, the organization said Monday morning.

"These funds must be paid into an endowment for external programs preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims and may not be used to fund such programs at the university," the NCAA said in statement.

The career record of former head football coach Joe Paterno will reflect these vacated records, the statement continued.

Penn State must also reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period, the release said.

"In the Penn State case, the results were perverse and unconscionable," Emmert said.

"No price the NCAA can levy with repair the damage inflicted by Jerry Sandusky on his victims," he said, referring to the former Penn State defensive coordinator convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse last month.

The NCAA said the $60 million was equivalent to the average annual revenue of the football program.

"There is incredible interest in what will happen to Penn State football," Ray said at the news conference. "But the fundamental chapter of this horrific story should focus on the innocent children and and the powerful people who let them down."

The NCAA's announcement followed a day after Penn State removed Joe Paterno's statue outside Beaver Stadium, a decision that came 10 days after a scathing report by former FBI director Louis J. Freeh found that Paterno, with three other top Penn State administrators, had concealed allegations of child sexual abuse made against Sandusky.

The Freeh report concluded their motive was to shield the university and its football program from negative publicity.

The NCAA took unprecedented measures with the decision to penalize Penn State without the due process of a Committee on Infractions hearing, bypassing a system in which it conducts its own investigations, issues a notice of allegations and then allows the university 90 days to respond before a hearing is scheduled.

Following the hearing, the Infractions Committee then usually takes a minimum of six weeks, but it can take upwards of a year to issue its findings.

But in the case of Penn State, the NCAA appeared to use the Freeh report -- commissioned by the school's board of trustees -- instead of its own investigation.

"We cannot look to NCAA history to determine how to handle circumstances so disturbing, shocking and disappointing," Emmert said in the statement. "As the individuals charged with governing college sports, we have a responsibility to act. These events should serve as a call to every single school and athletics department to take an honest look at its campus environment and eradicate the 'sports are king' mindset that can so dramatically cloud the judgment of educators."

NCAA Division I Board of Directors and/or the NCAA Executive Committee granted Emmert the authority to punish through the nontraditional methods.

"It was a unanimous act," Ray said. "We needed to act."

Penn State athletics had been given no indication from the NCAA about what sanctions or penalties were to be levied on the department and football program, a source with direct knowledge of the situation in State College told ESPN.com's Andy Katz on Sunday night. If this were a traditional infractions case, the athletic department would have known up to 24 hours in advance.

A trustee said Penn State has hired Gene Marsh, a lawyer for Lightfoot, Franklin & White in Birmingham, Ala., and a former member and chair of the NCAA Infractions Committee. Last week, ESPN contacted Marsh, who also previously represented former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, and he refused to confirm or deny he had been retained by Penn State.

A former Committee on Infractions chairman and current Division I Appeals Committee member told ESPN.com's Katz on Sunday the NCAA's penalizing of an institution and program for immoral and criminal behavior also breaks new ground.

The former chair, who has been involved with the NCAA for nearly three decades, said he couldn't use his name on the record since the case could come before him and the committee he still serves on in an appeals process.

"This is unique and this kind of power has never been tested or tried," the former chair said. "It's unprecedented to have this extensive power. This has nothing to do with the purpose of the infractions process. Nevertheless, somehow (the NCAA president and executive board) have taken it on themselves to be a commissioner and to penalize a school for improper conduct."

The chair said that the NCAA was dealing with a case that is outside the traditional rules or violations. He said this case does not fall within the basic fundamental purpose of NCAA regulations.

"The purpose of the NCAA is to keep a level playing field among schools and to make sure they use proper methods through scholarships and etcetera," the chair said. "This is not a case that would normally go through the process. It has nothing to do with a level playing field. It has nothing to do with whether Penn State gets advantages over other schools in recruiting or in the number of coaches or things that we normally deal with."

The NCAA, the chair said, had never gotten involved in punishing schools for criminal behavior.

"The criminal courts are perfectly capable of handling these situations," the former chair said. "This is a new phase and a new thing. They are getting into bad behavior that are somehow connected to those who work in the athletic department.

"This is an important precedent. And it should be taken with extreme care."

Under NCAA rules covering postseason bans, players are allowed to transfer without sitting out a season as long as their remaining eligibility is shorter than or equal to the length of the ban. Only seniors could transfer and play immediately under a one-year ban, but a two-year ban would mean seniors and juniors could both transfer without penalty.

The NCAA, heavily criticized for its sometimes-ponderous pace in deciding penalties as scandals mounted at Ohio State, Auburn, USC and elsewhere, acted with unprecedented swiftness in arriving at the sanctions for a team that is trying to start over with a new coach and a new outlook.

Emmert had put the Penn State matter on the fast track. Other cases that were strictly about violating the NCAA rulebook have dragged on for months and even years. There was no sign that the infractions committee so familiar to college sports fans was involved this time around as Emmert moved quickly, no doubt aided by the July 12 release of the report by former FBI director Louis Freeh and what it said about Paterno and the rest of the Penn State leadership.

The investigation focused partly on university officials' decision not to go to child-welfare authorities in 2001 after a coaching assistant told Paterno that he had seen Sandusky sexually abusing a boy in the locker room showers. Penn State officials already knew about a previous allegation against Sandusky by that time, from 1998.

The leaders, the report said, "repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from authorities, the university's board of trustees, the Penn State community and the public at large."

Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted last month of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years.

Emmert had warned Penn State last fall that the NCAA would be examining the "exercise of institutional control" within the athletic department, and said it was clear that "deceitful and dishonest behavior" could be considered a violation of ethics rules. So, too, could a failure to exhibit moral values or adhere to ethics guidelines.

The Freeh report also said school had "decentralized and uneven" oversight of compliance issues -- laws, regulations, policies and procedures -- as required by the NCAA.

Recent major scandals, such as improper payments to the family of Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush while he was at Southern California, and players at Ohio State trading memorabilia for cash and tattoos, have resulted in bowl bans and the loss of scholarships.

Paterno won 409 games for the school in his 46 seasons as head coach.

Information from ESPN.com senior writer Andy Katz and The Associated Press was used in this report.

Wow. They weren't kidding when they said Penn State would wish for the death penalty.

[Col. Crackpot]

Harsh and fair. Also lets not lose sight of the affect of losing 20 scholarships for 4 years. I'd say the program is effectively crippled for a decade.

[Tsyroc]

How about the vacated wins from 1998-2011?

Seems somewhat appropriate if Joe really was involved in covering things up.

[Tsyroc]

As someone who went to Penn State, I certainly wanted that statue to come down. But I am not pleased that the name remains on the library. Rename it for someone more deserving.

The remnants of where the statue was looks like people were lined up against a wall and shot. There's the silhouettes of the statues of football players still showing, with pock marks where they had been anchored against the wall.

[CarsonPalmer]

I'd say the NCAA got this right. Punishments seem fair. The Big 10 will now probably ban them from championship games.

Incidentally, Bill O'Brien now has about 8 years of job security there unless he cheats.

[Surlethe]

The NCAA said the $60 million was equivalent to the average annual revenue of the football program.

Average annual revenue -- before the NCAA laid down the fucking law.

[Tsyroc]

I'd say the NCAA got this right. Punishments seem fair. The Big 10 will now probably ban them from championship games.

Incidentally, Bill O'Brien now has about 8 years of job security there unless he cheats.

Usually a post season ban also includes conference championship games.

At least that's why USC wasn't in the Pac-12 championship game last year, and why a crappy UCLA represented the Pac-12 South against Oregon.

I know people keep talking about the Big Ten adding it's own punishment to Penn State but other than subtracting more scholarships or extending the championship ban beyond the NCAA's ban I don't know what they could do. Another big fine? Loss of Big Ten Network funds for all Penn State related football programs shown on the network?

[Darth Fanboy]

Tsyroc in this case for whatever reason the Big Ten felt the need to announce theconference title ban, maybe conference bylaws are different? But the Big 10 is also taking away PSUs share of bowl revenue.

These were tough sanctions, the financial penalties make it in my mind equivalent to a death penalty plus the way this is set up the football players will get to transfer.

What a disgusting pile of shit this whole thing is.

[FSTargetDrone]

Its made worse by the way so many local fans, residents and employees are so damn delusional about the whole situation. Its not that many of them think its unfair to have collective punishment, they damn well deny that anything wrong happened at all and want to claim Pappy Joe was the best man ever and never did a thing wrong at all. Crushing such a mentality is a worthy goal in its own right.

Some, many, too many of them still just don't get it:

Posted: Mon, Jul. 23, 2012, 3:00 AM

As Paterno statue falls, bitterness reigns

BY TIM GILBERT
For the Daily News

Philadelphia Daily News

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — At 7:42 a.m. Sunday, the jackhammering started.

With the statue of former head coach Joe Paterno guarded by tarped blue fencing, onlookers and media could only stand across Porter Road behind barricades and a heavy police contingent as the statue was being removed. Besides the dust and smoke, the removal couldn't fully be seen by most of the public, only heard, sharply piercing the morning air.

Some onlookers cried, even sobbed. Others stood in stunned, somber silence.

And by 8:25 a.m., the 7-foot-tall, nearly 900-pound statue had been sequestered somewhere in Beaver Stadium.

"We are … Penn State" chants and shouts in support of Paterno followed, but they were merely shells of the chants heard at Paterno's statue on the night after he died.

Paterno, the man who won 409 games, the most in Division I football history, was enshrined outside Beaver Stadium in 2001. Having coached at Penn State for almost 46 full seasons, Paterno was a legend in the State College community, as the bronze statue and the wall behind it displayed.

Now, everything is bare save for silhouettes of the players Paterno once stood in front of and outlines where the plaques were.

On July 12, Louis Freeh released his investigative report into how Penn State officials dealt with former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky's child abuse. The report said that Paterno, along with three other university administrators, knew about incidents involving Sandusky and children in 1998 and 2001, but did not do enough to prevent him from repeating his actions.

After construction crews and police arrived at the statue about 6:15 a.m. Sunday, Penn State President Rodney Erickson released a statement confirming that the statue would be taken down, calling it a "lightning rod of controversy and national debate."

Most of the crowd didn't take kindly to the timing, resulting in an atmosphere that was more bitter than sobering.

"Erickson is a coward!" shouted onlooker Mary Trometter. "The board of directors are cowards! What happened to the openness?"

One of the people that showed up was Juror No. 3 in Sandusky's trial, Gayle Barnes.

"I think it was a wrong decision," Barnes said of the fact that crews arrived before Erickson released his statement. "I understand why they did it that way; they don't want so many people up here, they don't want a riot up here — I understand that completely. But I think that the university owes us, the students especially, because that's who makes this university. The students. The fans. The community."

Others agreed.

"It's a sneaky way to do this to avoid more inconvenience for the university," said Jill Byrne, a State College resident and one of the first to arrive. "They screwed over the alumni that might have wanted to come up here and get their last moments with the statue and be a part of it, and just screwed us over and did it in a sneaky way."

Paterno was revered in the Penn State community not only for his success on the field, but for his involvement in the community. He donated millions of dollars to Penn State, spearheading the construction of the Paterno Library nestled near the center of Penn State's campus. Paterno died of lung cancer on Jan. 22.

He was fired on Nov. 9, 2011, only a few days after the grand-jury presentment against Sandusky was made public.

To some on the scene, though, the removal of the statue was an example of Penn State giving in to outside pressures.

"It's very sad," said Leslie Bleggi. "It's a knee-jerk reaction. We've shown folks that we will bow down."

The former president of the student encampment outside Beaver Stadium that used to be named "Paternoville" (now "Nittanyville"), Penn State graduate John Tecce, was also on the scene.

He said he couldn't say that he'd do things differently if he were Erickson, and commended current football coach Bill O'Brien for his handling of the situation he inherited in January.

Still, he doesn't agree with the overall move.

"I think essentially putting the statue down puts the debate away, sweeps it under the rug, and isn't that what got us here?" Tecce said. "I think it's something that should be debated, both good and bad. In 20 years, when people [would have taken] their kids to the statue, what would they say? They would talk about how great Joe Paterno was, but they would also talk about how he had flaws. Isn't that humanity? Shouldn't that be a lesson that should be learned and talked about?"

The whole process of removal took approximately two hours and 10 minutes.

When the workers were finished, all signs of Paterno had been removed, including a quote that had been emblazoned on the wall: "They ask me what I'd like written about me when I'm gone, I hope they write I made Penn State a better place not just that I was a good football coach."

I hope people unfamiliar with the school can appreciate just how this man was and is still worshiped by the faithful.