NCAA College Football: Sanction PSU?

[Darth Fanboy]

As someone who was at first skeptical about the demonization of Paterno when the story first broke, I remember when the first grand jury reports came out and removed any and all doubt that Paterno should have been fired and the book thrown at the people involved.

Now the Freeh report comes out and makes everything even more lopsided against Paterno's legacy. Whatever sympathy his death may have garnered is not just gone but obliterated.

The question is wether or not you believe that the NCAA should sanction the football program in this instance. Penalties range from simple loss of scholarships, postseason bans, and up to the "death penalty" which for the uninitiated means a full on suspension of the program for a duration of time. It is referred to as such because not playing for a year has an incredibly stifling effect on a program and for a team like Penn State that sells 100,000 plus tickets to every home game will absolutely cripple the funding for their athletic department and not just the football program.

Honestly, while this would severely punish the other athletes of the other Athletic Programs, I do believe that Penn State football should be suspended 1-2 years and its athletes allowed to transfer immediately. Sandusky's deprivations were concealed to try and protect a storied program, but that should never have been prioritized over protecting Sanduskys future victims or securing justice for his past victims. Halting PSU football for one or two years sends a strong message to other football programs that no matter what in any instance will it be acceptable for criminal behavior of any kind to be covered up to protect the image of a program. If the Big Ten weren't a BCS conference, i'd imagine that this would be more widely touted as a punishment than a mere bowl ban which seems to be the popular option thus far.

[Gandalf]

I say the program should be shut down for a year or two, if only to serve as a cautionary example to other programs. Run a bad program, and get kicked out.

Is it possible to revoke past titles? That's been done in Australia, when the Melbourne Storm were found in breach of the salary cap, they lost their titles for the last few years.

EDIT, Forgot to add: Can the league mandate that the people be let go?

[Block]

I think PSU should lose its program for 5 years. Basically the upper administration allowed the rape of young boys to continue for years after there were suspicions and then proof that something was going on, in order to protect the reputation of the football team. Since that team seems to be their primary concern, it needs to be taken away from them for a good long time. 2 years isn't enough.

[Questor]

Interesting question, given that the death penalty seems to be the consensus here:

Release all athletes, given the fact that every program will get annihilated without the football team, or just release football?

[Darth Fanboy]

@ Gandalf

Vacating wins and stripping titles is something that has been done, but Penn State hasn't won any real title or a truly relevant game in a long time. Some might point to the Orange Bowl but that wasn't for all that much. There is also the issue in this case that there was no cheating or unsportsmanlike activity with how the team itself operated, so vacating wins in this case would not really be justified.

@ Block & Questor

2 years seems appropriate to me because it would be enough to severely punish PSU for allowing such a horrid crime to take place but without penalizing an entire graduating class (which a 4+ year punishment does). Also given the money situation it would undoubtedly crush PSU and be a multimillion dollar loss perhaps per game. Crushing the other programs is not the goal but because the Athletic Department was in on it there needs to be a more overreaching punishment. 2 years shouldn't impact the other programs fatally but if it did id think other athletes would be allowed to transfer asap anyways.

Keep in mind that the people responsible are dead, fired, or in prison and anything more than two years only punishes those left behind.

[Terralthra]

Any chance you could give some of the details the Freeh report turned up?

[Havok]

Considering all of the people involved have been shit canned, died and/or are in jail and those that remain had literally no idea what was going on, I see no reason to further penalize the university, it's current, past and future students. Or the rest of the faculty.

That's who this hurts.

Penn State is already a cautionary tale. Destroying the school by shutting down the football program for 5 years (absolutely ridiculous) or even 1 year is completely unwarranted.

The Athletic Department in big name schools like Penn State might as well be called the Football Department and Other Sports. The guys that ran it and looked the other way are gone.
Honestly, if this had been one of their basketball coaches or volleyball coaches, they would have been out faster than you can say Sandusky back at the first hint of impropriety.

The old regime is literally dead and no coach will ever have that over reaching authority like Paterno did. Penn State is the butt of jokes now and it is going to suffer for this for a very long time without crazy notions of stopping its biggest source of income.

At the MOST in my estimation, the NCAA will do some scholarship penalties for the team, and even that isn't fair. Again, you are punishing a whole new group of coaches and student athletes for something that happened before they even thought about going to Penn State.

Really, this is outside the NCAA's purview and they should allow the punishment and utter humiliation of PSUs ex-employees and the complete devastation of Paterno's legacy and name suffice in this situation.

[Darth Fanboy]

Except Havok the AD and other members of school administration were involved. You are absolutely right that the monetary loss of the program would eliminate a lot of PSU's athletic budget but gien the size of their school I don't think it would be fatal in a 1-2 year case.

But considering that USC and Ohio State recieved postseason bans for alleged coverups and such, why should Penn State get off the hook for something decidedly more criminal? In the USC case the coaches and player (Reggie Bush) had already moved on and they got a brutal 2 year bowl ban. In the Ohio State case the ousting of Jim Tressel and the departure of Pryor were not enough to put them in the clear.

[Darth Fanboy]

Any chance you could give some of the details the Freeh report turned up?

It has been all over the news but here is an espn article with a video that recaps it well also.

Basically the report showed that Paterno knew even earlier about Sandusky's behavior and that Paterno actively discouraged prosecution. Also that Penn State university failed to adequately report to law enforcement.

"Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State," said Louis Freeh, the former director of the FBI who was hired by university trustees to look into what has become one of sports' biggest scandals. "The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized."

I predict that as this starts to sink in the statue and the name on the library are going to come down.

[CarsonPalmer]

Except Havok the AD and other members of school administration were involved. You are absolutely right that the monetary loss of the program would eliminate a lot of PSU's athletic budget but gien the size of their school I don't think it would be fatal in a 1-2 year case.

But considering that USC and Ohio State recieved postseason bans for alleged coverups and such, why should Penn State get off the hook for something decidedly more criminal? In the USC case the coaches and player (Reggie Bush) had already moved on and they got a brutal 2 year bowl ban. In the Ohio State case the ousting of Jim Tressel and the departure of Pryor were not enough to put them in the clear.

Yeah, but the AD and the president are likely going to jail. This is almost so big that you make a joke of it by applying football sanctions. Heck, anyone who was associated with the old regime, even those who were minor football assistants who wouldn't have known a damn thing, are now almost untouchables as far as their career goes.

And the idea that they need to be made an example of is almost ludicrous. What can you do to Penn State that hurts them more than virtually wiping out their football history? Teams get sanctioned to prove you can't get away with what they did; do you think anyone anywhere thinks they can get away with what happened at Penn State? Paterno is dead, his reputation is destroyed, Sandusky is in prison and Spanier and Curley will join him there.

[JLTucker]

And the idea that they need to be made an example of is almost ludicrous. What can you do to Penn State that hurts them more than virtually wiping out their football history? Teams get sanctioned to prove you can't get away with what they did; do you think anyone anywhere thinks they can get away with what happened at Penn State? Paterno is dead, his reputation is destroyed, Sandusky is in prison and Spanier and Curley will join him there.

Students rioted after Paterno was fired. Hit them where it hurts: gut every athletic department in the school for a few years.

[CarsonPalmer]

Students rioted after Paterno was fired. Hit them where it hurts: gut every athletic department in the school for a few years.

How many students were at the riot? How many go to Penn State?

Besides, they've already been hit where it hurts! I was crushed when things came out about Paterno and I didn't go to Penn State and they aren't even my favorite team. He had seemed to be an admirable guy. Also, at that point there was still room to deceive yourself into thinking he just didn't know.

[Sephirius]

Students rioted after Paterno was fired. Hit them where it hurts: gut every athletic department in the school for a few years.

How many students were at the riot? How many go to Penn State?

Besides, they've already been hit where it hurts! I was crushed when things came out about Paterno and I didn't go to Penn State and they aren't even my favorite team. He had seemed to be an admirable guy. Also, at that point there was still room to deceive yourself into thinking he just didn't know.

I still have a feeling the people who were interviewed by the report threw him under the bus. Dead men tell no tales, right?

[CarsonPalmer]

I'd love for that to be true since I had long admired (and some assistants like Fran Ganter or Tom Bradley) and obviously don't give a damn about Curley or Spanier, but I just can't see it.

The only thing I hope know is that those guys (Bradley and Ganter) didn't know. I can't see them knowing (too many people at that point; if they knew so did other assistants, even some who coached elsewhere and now it's bound to get out sooner), but there's no way the. An who knew everything in Happy Valley didn't know this.

Especially when you consider that it's very unusual for someone to go from grad assistant to offensive coordinator as quickly as Mike Mcqueary.

[Guardsman Bass]

And the idea that they need to be made an example of is almost ludicrous. What can you do to Penn State that hurts them more than virtually wiping out their football history? Teams get sanctioned to prove you can't get away with what they did; do you think anyone anywhere thinks they can get away with what happened at Penn State? Paterno is dead, his reputation is destroyed, Sandusky is in prison and Spanier and Curley will join him there.

I doubt a multi-year suspension would be necessary to prevent a repeat of what happened specifically at Penn State, but it might be a good punishment to deter other programs that could be tempted to cover up crimes by their staff in the name of preserving the program's reputation at all costs. Show them that not only will you be arrested and convicted, but your program will suffer as well if you try and cover up crimes to shield it from damage - even if you're a storied program like Penn State football.

[FSTargetDrone]

I predict that as this starts to sink in the statue and the name on the library are going to come down.

The statue must come down. Nothing good comes from leaving it up, especially with the latest information that has come from the Freeh report. Same with the name on the library.

[Darth Fanboy]

To the people who say that enough punishment has already been meted out, I respectfully disagree in this case but understand since I have held that point of view in similar NCAA situations.

In this case I would argue that a death penalty punishment is warranted because if Penn State goes without sanction, the Paterno and the others who covered this up effectively achieve half of their goal. The bad publicity they couldn't prevent but they managed to make millions in revenue and donations during the cover up, and operated a program that was covering for one of the most horrible rapists in modern American history while doing so. Without a sanction, the program has no backlash other than a terrible stigma which doesn't amount to anything just yet. Make PSU pay now so when they return they are truly beginning a new era.

[Darth Fanboy]

You know, I am going to go out on a limb and predict that after all the trials are done and all the people involved in this come to light, an accusation will come up that at some point late in Paterno's career when his job was on the line (2003 and 2004 seasons) that knowledge of this incident may have prolonged Paterno's career in some manner. I don't have any way of proving if that is even remotely true, but doesn't it seem suspicious now that after two of the worst seasons in recent memory he emerged relatively unchallenged and unscathed?

[Lord Relvenous]

You know, I am going to go out on a limb and predict that after all the trials are done and all the people involved in this come to light, an accusation will come up that at some point late in Paterno's career when his job was on the line (2003 and 2004 seasons) that knowledge of this incident may have prolonged Paterno's career in some manner. I don't have any way of proving if that is even remotely true, but doesn't it seem suspicious now that after two of the worst seasons in recent memory he emerged relatively unchallenged and unscathed?

No. He was Joe Fucking Paterno a.k.a one of the most loved coaches of sports ever. Paterno was never going to get forced out for poor performance on the field before he left at his age and with his history at the school. Oh yeah, and the power he wielded.

[Darth Fanboy]

There was also a load of controversy at the time and he had lost a lot of support, and many suspected his actual coaching acumen and recruiting ability had faded at the time. They were pretty bad back to back seasons.

[RogueIce]

So here's something else to consider:

Joe Paterno Got Richer Contract Amid Jerry Sandusky Inquiry - NYTimes.com

Paterno Won Sweeter Deal Even as Scandal Played Out
By JO BECKER
Published: July 14, 2012

In January 2011, Joe Paterno learned prosecutors were investigating his longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for sexually assaulting young boys. Soon, Mr. Paterno had testified before a grand jury, and the rough outlines of what would become a giant scandal had been published in a local newspaper.

That same month, Mr. Paterno, the football coach at Penn State, began negotiating with his superiors to amend his contract, with the timing something of a surprise because the contract was not set to expire until the end of 2012, according to university documents and people with knowledge of the discussions. By August, Mr. Paterno and the university’s president, both of whom were by then embroiled in the Sandusky investigation, had reached an agreement.

Mr. Paterno was to be paid $3 million at the end of the 2011 season if he agreed it would be his last. Interest-free loans totaling $350,000 that the university had made to Mr. Paterno over the years would be forgiven as part of the retirement package. He would also have the use of the university’s private plane and a luxury box at Beaver Stadium for him and his family to use over the next 25 years.

The university’s full board of trustees was kept in the dark about the arrangement until November, when Mr. Sandusky was arrested and the contract arrangements, along with so much else at Penn State, were upended. Mr. Paterno was fired, two of the university’s top officials were indicted in connection with the scandal, and the trustees, who held Mr. Paterno’s financial fate in their hands, came under verbal assault from the coach’s angry supporters.

Board members who raised questions about whether the university ought to go forward with the payments were quickly shut down, according to two people with direct knowledge of the negotiations.

In the end, the board of trustees — bombarded with hate mail and threatened with a defamation lawsuit by Mr. Paterno’s family — gave the family virtually everything it wanted, with a package worth roughly $5.5 million. Documents show that the board even tossed in some extras that the family demanded, like the use of specialized hydrotherapy massage equipment for Mr. Paterno’s wife at the university’s Lasch Building, where Mr. Sandusky had molested a number of his victims.

The details of Mr. Paterno and his family’s fight for money seem to deepen one of the lasting truths of the Sandusky scandal: the significant power that Mr. Paterno exerted on the state institution, its officials, its alumni and its purse strings.

Since Mr. Paterno’s death in January, Mr. Paterno’s family, lawyers and publicists have mounted an aggressive campaign to protect his legacy. The family and its lawyers have hammered the university’s board of trustees, accusing members of attempting to deflect blame onto a dying Mr. Paterno. This week, they angrily disputed the conclusions of an independent investigation that asserted Mr. Paterno and other top university officials protected a serial predator in order to “avoid the consequences of bad publicity” for the university, its football program and its coach’s reputation.

On Friday, Wick Sollers, a lawyer for Mr. Paterno and his family, said that it was Penn State that last summer proposed the lucrative retirement package, and that many of the aspects of the proposal — use of the plane, the luxury box — had existed in prior contracts.

Information about the salary paid to Mr. Paterno, one of the longest serving and most successful college football coaches in history, had for many years been hard to come by. In recent years, though, it became fairly common knowledge that he earned about $1 million annually, not counting his television deals and his contracts with shoe and apparel companies.

But speculation about just how long he was going to remain the well-compensated coach of Penn State had been going on for a decade or more. Mr. Paterno survived an attempt to force him into retirement in 2004, and before the Sandusky revelations, his most recent deal ran through the end of 2012.

According to university records, Mr. Paterno first expressed a desire to revisit his contract in January 2011. It was very early in that month that he learned he had been subpoenaed to testify before the Sandusky grand jury.

But it was not until summer — after Mr. Paterno, the university president and two other senior officials at the university had all testified before the Sandusky grand jury — that the idea that Mr. Paterno might retire in exchange for a multimillion-dollar payout gained traction.

By August, a deal had effectively been reached, though it and the idea that Mr. Paterno might make 2011 his last season had not been announced at the time. Details of the agreement were known to a handful of board members but not shared with the full board, according to people with knowledge of the events.

On Nov. 5, 2011, Mr. Sandusky was arrested, and two Penn State administrators — men who were Mr. Paterno’s superiors — were indicted on charges of failing to report to the authorities a 2001 allegation that Mr. Sandusky had attacked a young boy in the football building’s showers.

Quickly, it became clear that Mr. Paterno, too, had failed to go to the authorities or even to confront Mr. Sandusky after he had been told in person of the episode. The prospect that Mr. Paterno, a revered figure, might be fired by the board of trustees was suddenly real.

Mr. Paterno quickly issued a statement saying, in effect, that the board need not act, that he would resign at the end of the season. Neither he nor the university revealed that he had effectively agreed to do so already, in return for an expensive financial package.

The board fired him anyway, a decision that caused rioting and led to an angry and often very personal backlash against the trustees, but it agreed to honor his contract. It was then that the full board came to find out what the university was obligated to pay Mr. Paterno.

Over the ensuing months, as revelations about the role Mr. Paterno and other university officials played in the scandal mounted, a schism developed among the board members, according to several people with knowledge of the events.

There were some who argued that it was unseemly to pay the remainder of the money and other perks owed to Mr. Paterno, according to several people with knowledge of the discussions. They wondered whether, given Mr. Paterno’s failings, it might be possible to nullify the contract, or at least renegotiate it and reduce the payout, the people said.

Others worried about the hostility they would face if they tried to strip Mr. Paterno, still beloved in many quarters of the campus, of money that he was contractually owed — a prospect that grew even more worrisome after he died on Jan. 22 this year. During a conference call, one board member worried aloud that failure to make good on what was owed to the Paterno estate could lead to another “reign of terror” by Mr. Paterno’s supporters, according to a person who was on the call.

With rumblings that the Paterno family was thinking of suing the board of trustees for defamation, the board dispatched its lawyer to negotiate the final payments. All the board wanted in return was a release protecting the university from such a lawsuit.

The Paternos refused. Mr. Sollers said in his statement that “the retention of their legal rights in a case of this magnitude and complexity is customary and appropriate.”

The board of trustees ultimately agreed to make good on the full package anyhow, and in April paid what was owed to the Paternos. Additional demands, like the desire by Mr. Paterno’s wife to make use of the athletic department’s hydrotherapy facilities, were met. The board did draw the line at the family’s request to use the university’s corporate jet, arguing that the contract limited that use to the coach himself. And it refused the family’s demand to retain use of the stadium box next to the university president’s, the one reserved for the head coach, offering the family the choice of two other suites on a different floor.

Still, Frank T. Guadagnino, a lawyer hired by the board in November to handle a variety of aspects of the scandal, suggested that the board felt it did not have much maneuvering room when it came to the discussions with the Paterno family.

“We were providing for payments due under the contract,” he said in an interview Friday. “So we weren’t really negotiating.”

He added that, given revelations in the independent report released this week that suggest that Mr. Paterno knew about allegations of child abuse involving Mr. Sandusky as far back as 1998, the question over whether the university could rightfully renege on paying the Paterno family what was owed under the August amendments was “complicated,” and one that “we haven’t looked at.”

At a board of trustees news conference Friday, Karen B. Peetz, the board’s chairwoman, made clear that the issue would not be revisited. “Contracts are contracts,” she said.

Tim Rohan contributed reporting.

I'm all for taking down the statue and renaming the library simply due to the rioting that happened after they fired Paterno. I think Penn State needs to send a message on that.

But now I'm seriously considering the death penalty, because I think the NCAA also needs to send a message here as well. Coaches should not have that much sway, seriously. Just read this two-page column from the LA Times. I'll give a couple highlights below.

Fittingly, the most chilling part of Louis J. Freeh's lengthy condemnation of Penn State University and its legendary football coach Joe Paterno involves two men more fearful of a football program than a child molester.

According to the 267-page internal report released Thursday, in the fall of 2000, two janitors spotted former longtime Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky behaving inappropriately with a young boy in the campus showers.

The men said they didn't to go to police because they were afraid that Paterno would order them fired.

"Would have been like going against the president of the United States in my eyes," one janitor told investigators. "I know Paterno has so much power, if he wanted to get rid of someone, I would have been gone … football runs this university."

...

This is also where, at the start of the nationally televised release of the report, all of the televisions in the Penn State student center went dark before returning to power on a different channel.

I think there are some fucked up priorities here. Especially from that last bit.

[RogueIce]

EDIT: Whoops, double post.

[CarsonPalmer]

There was also a load of controversy at the time and he had lost a lot of support, and many suspected his actual coaching acumen and recruiting ability had faded at the time. They were pretty bad back to back seasons.

But they were ultimately followed by a sudden revival in his fortunes. "Legend survives down cycle on strength of previous accomplishments" is a convincing enough explanation for me. Heck, PSU struggled to bring themselves to fire him for this; if covering up child abuse was difficult to fire him for, then two bad seasons wasn't nearly enough.

And he did retain a base of support. I remember some vigorous arguments with people that the game had not passed him by. Ultimately I was right about that, but that's irrelevant now.

[CarsonPalmer]

The other thing you have to consider is that Paterno did not hve an unusual degree of power. He was beloved more than most, and was loved for better reasons (the library wasn't named after him in honor of football but because he put up the money for it).

Bobby Bowden at Florida State in his heyday, Tom Osborne in his at Nebraska, Nick Saban, Les Miles and Urban Meyer now, Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim and John Calipari in basketball...they all have similar levels of power. They shouldn't, but you can't make that go away with the death penalty for Penn State. Especially since its not really Penn State's fault that people hero worship winning coaches.

[Tsyroc]

Aren't the amounts that Penn State is likely to be paying out in settlements going to be pretty brutal? If that is the case I don't see a need for the NCAA to tack on something as serious as the death penalty.

A co-worker who is a Penn State fan, thinks that the school is really going to be shelling out. Besides the victims who've already come forward he figures that anyone who was the right age and can at least reasonably show that they might have been around Sandusky at that time will be paid off by Penn State just to settle things and get everything out of the news.