NCAA hits Penn State hard, but ‘death penalty’ appropriate (UPDATED with video)
Mark Emmert moved fast and hit Penn State for their actions (and inactions). (AP photo)
(See video blog with CineSports’ Noah Coslov below)
(Updated at 6:40 p.m. with comment from Penn State president that school accepted penalties to avoid death penalty)
Let’s start with this: NCAA president Mark Emmert acted swiftly and justly. That’s a rarity for the NCAA.
Emmert didn’t need a 17-month investigation by an overworked and underpaid staff to unearth something that we didn’t already learn from prosecutors and witnesses in the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse trial, or from the exhaustive, 267-page Freeh Report, conducted by a former director of the FBI. Anybody who believes Emmert moved too quickly on Penn State without the NCAA doing its own leg work must not having been paying attention for the past several decades, when policing college athletics became far too big of a job for that relative mom-and-pop organization.
The NCAA appropriately slammed Penn State Monday for its perceived enabling and cover-up of Sandusky. Emmert referenced an athletic culture “that went horribly awry” and a misguided “hero worship” that led to it. He didn’t bury the lead.
The penalties will double-over every blinded school official, player, fan, alum and misguided individual who hugged and tried to protect the Joe Paterno statute. The school was hit with a $60 million fine, equivalent to one year’s gross revenue for the football program (the money will fund an endowment that will fight child sexual abuse).
There’s also a four-year bowl ban; the loss of 40 scholarships over four years; the freedom for existing Penn State players to transfer to another school without having to sit out a year; the vacating of all victories since 1998, a symbolic punch to the gut for the memory of Joe Paterno. (The quarterback for Paterno’s last official win in 1997: Mike McQueary, whose eyewitness account of seeing Sandusky in the shower with a young boy was ignored years later.)
The sanctions will cripple the football program. But Emmert still fell short.
The NCAA, as I’ve written previously, should have gone one step further and shut the program down for one to two years. It would’ve been more than just a symbolic hit.
There is a need for a cultural change at Penn State, as Emmert himself said frequently Monday, and the “death penalty” would have increased the likelihood of that happening. It would have prompted anybody who ever took part in a cover-up or ignored whispers about Sandusky to reflect during Saturdays in the fall when football wasn’t being played at Penn State. Beaver Stadium could have been used for weekly prayer vigils for the victims.
Penn State officials need time to process this. They need to consider where, when and why they jumped the rails on their mission. While there’s no question the NCAA’s punishment will make them feel the pain of their actions, nothing can equal the silence of an empty stadium, the absence of weekly pep rallies. No program in history deserves to be shuttered as much as the Penn State football team. We send criminals to jail. We don’t tell them, “OK, you can still go back to that bank that you robbed, but now you’ll have to take the bus, and just don’t do it again.” Penn State needed to lose its freedoms, its privileges.
For some reason, the NCAA apparently gave Penn State a choice. President Rodney Erickson told the Centre Daily Times the school accepted the sanctions to avoid the death penalty: “We had our backs to the wall on this. We did what we thought was necessary to save the program.”
Some believe the death penalty would have been a softer punishment than what Penn State received. I don’t get that. Has anybody seen SMU since the death penalty?
Emmert believes the death penalty would’ve caused “unintended harm” to those who were innocent in this mess. That’s true. Unfortunately, the innocent always get hurt in NCAA probation. New players and often new coaches are in place when sanctions hit for past misdeeds.
Those who believe Sandusky’s crimes didn’t warrant any sanctions because they did not give the school a competitive advantage are missing the big picture. Question: If Jerry Sandusky was a chemistry professor and not a former high profile football coach, do you believe he would’ve been protected? Of course not. Penn State’s actions and inactions were about preserving the competitiveness, image and profitability of the football program.
Even without the death penalty, however, it was encouraging to see Emmert take charge. The NCAA has needed somebody with logic and courage to run things. The hope is that this won’t be an isolated case, because the leaders of college athletics have long since lost perspective.
Emmert said the Penn State case “involves tragic and tragically unnecessary circumstances. One of the grave dangers coming from our love of sports is that the sports themselves can become too big to fail, too big to even challenge. The result can be an erosion of academic values that are replaced by hero worship and winning at all costs. In the Penn State case, the results were perverse and unconscionable.”
They were the perfect words to punctuate the punishment and begin the process of closure. Going one step further would have made it just a little better.
By Jeff Schultz
Here’s my chat with CineSports’ Noah Coslov on the NCAA’s sanctions against Penn State.
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525 comments Add your comment
Big Crimson 75
July 23rd, 2012
12:27 pm
GTbob — who do you want punishing Penn St(assuming you feel punishment is deserved)?
If not the NC2A, then who?
Your precious American Government — since all your friends are running the show now!!……and by friends, I mean communist & socialist zealots!!!!!!
George Stein
July 23rd, 2012
12:28 pm
Bingo, SameOld. Extremely well said.
rivercard
July 23rd, 2012
12:30 pm
Agree with Sameold.
Tear(ed) Down the Statue
July 23rd, 2012
12:31 pm
the NCAA did what it needed to do. reducing scholarships to 65, four year post season ban, allowing current athletes to transfer without penalty, and vacating the wins from ‘98-’11 is essentially a “death penalty”. this hiatus from “competitive” football allows PSU to remain in the Big 10 ($$$), but on life support. more importantly; it ends the “Paterno era” and all but ensures that the 2016 PSU football team will have no links to the past. and finally; Joe Paterno will not be “remembered” as the winningest coach in NCAA history. I am no fan of the NCAA, but I do agree that this case was unique; and to equate the crimes of PSU with SMU, USC, et al (strictly “competitive” in nature) would be “criminal”.
SMU1983
July 23rd, 2012
12:32 pm
As an SMU alum, I had hoped Penn State would join the Mustangs as the only two schools to get the “death penalty” in football. Instead, Penn State now gets the “slow-death penalty.” They get to continue playing football without any hope of either really competing or generating any revenue. They have to now find ways to fund all other sports (as the NCAA has stipulated Penn State cannot drop sports to fulfill the $60M levy imposed). They get to watch as other NCAA programs lure away their best players, as early as today. They get to try to recruit players for a tainted program that won’t be eligble for any post season play until the entering freshman class is beginning its final year of eligibility.
I am satisfied–not because Penn State got what my alma mater got 25 years ago. Rather, I am satisfied because death would have been quick and merciful. Having to continue living as a maimed cripple is worse than death…
Walker, Texas Ranger
July 23rd, 2012
12:34 pm
Jeff this is the death penalty. This program will never be heard from again. They will be Indiana, Northwestern and Minnesota’s whipping boys from now on. The only part I have a probelm with is that the other sports will end up paying the price for the football coverup since they are essentially financed by the football program and the students will have a bump in tuition because the large alumni base you are counting on just closed their wallets.
Chris
July 23rd, 2012
12:34 pm
The innocents go far beyond players and coaches. I was at first FOR the death penalty, but after i started thinking about the hotels and staffs, food venders and workers, and myriad of other folks that make their living off of Saturday Penn State Football. They do not deserve to suffer.
PreyDawg
July 23rd, 2012
12:35 pm
I agree with everything you said Jeff. Every word.
spider
July 23rd, 2012
12:37 pm
NCAA is a total joke in my opinion, vacating wins proves nothng. now a team that was 5-7 in one of those year is now 6-6 and bowl eligible, can that team go back and ask to go to a bowl game now, of course not so what does vacating wins do?
HighTech
July 23rd, 2012
12:39 pm
From StingTalk:
“Originally Posted by wesleyd21
PSU gets 5 years probation for child neglect
Georgia Tech got 4 years for $312 worth of clothing.
Seems about right.”
drew
July 23rd, 2012
12:39 pm
Let it go Shultz…sometimes you can’t see the BIG picture…What about all the small business that rely on game day income just to make ends meet. Do they need to be punished for the actions of the holier than thou?
It’s funny how you can defend the Braves, Falcons, etc. over and over but just love to crucify ‘other’ institutions.
Marco Pillow Thrower
July 23rd, 2012
12:40 pm
That McQueary fellow is pathetic. Any one of us woulda punched Sandusky in the eye and called police.
DawgFan
July 23rd, 2012
12:41 pm
What about Sandusky’s wife? She has covered for him through all this…she had to know something strange was going on. Unless she is blind she was aiding a criminal..
GT4EVER
July 23rd, 2012
12:42 pm
Hey Dawg88 the good book says that homosexuals and women who commit adultery should be stoned until death.Are we supposed to follow that too?
DawgFan
July 23rd, 2012
12:42 pm
HighTech, the bees got their time because the took an attitude with the NCAA and did not aide in the investigation….basically an attempt at coverup… which the NCAA comes down hard on.
UGA withholding comment until later today on Penn State ruling | UGA sports blog
July 23rd, 2012
12:42 pm
[...] else I suppose, I was fascinated and a bit overwhelmed by the news out of Penn State this morning. Jeff Schultz offered his opinion on the ruling and people have been commenting on it on AJC.com all [...]
Tear(ed) Down the Statue
July 23rd, 2012
12:42 pm
spider, how does a team forced to vacate 5 wins (5-7) become “bowl eligible). the team becomes 0-7. the NCAA most certainly is a joke, but as previously noted, vacating the wins also strips Paterno of his title of “winningest coach” which evidence suggests was in part why he behaved the way he did. it doesn’t “kill” the PSU program so much as it kills Paterno’s legacy.
Marco Pillow Thrower
July 23rd, 2012
12:43 pm
Clothes are much more valuable than children to the NCAA….
collegeballfan
July 23rd, 2012
12:45 pm
“One of the grave dangers coming from our love of sports is that the sports themselves can become too big to fail, too big to even challenge. The result can be an erosion of academic values that are replaced by hero worship and winning at all costs.” Emmert.
I am afraid this comment applies to every major college football and basketball program. At to many institutions education is a distant second to sports in many alumni minds.
Maybe a new academic standing rule: a 3.0 average required to be a member of any NCAA sport team.
SEC Fact Finder
July 23rd, 2012
12:45 pm
This is something that happens at schools where the “Coaches” run the school. I still vividly remember that bungling new conference at Ohio State where the School President-E. Gordon Gee stated that he hoped then Head Football Coach “would not fire’ him. With the money being generated at the schools under practical “free labor”, we can expect to see dumb decisions being made at every level. But not to report a MAJOR crime to the state investigative authorites as the powers at PSU did is reprehensible.
I have something I want to address. That 60 MILLION Dollar fine that is going to be collected, How much of that money will be sent to Attorneys, Administration, and wasted instead of going to the programs that actually use them to better people lives? The NCAA should have gone a step further and REQUIRED Penn State to provide free legal services to insure the money is spent on children and the needs of the children. I just have a hard time seeing any fine, money collected ever really going to the children and programs who need it without a ton of waste involved.
The players, coaches and current staff are the ones who are going to suffer, and they did not do one thing wrong. They put their belief into a staff, and university that things were being doing correctly, that kids were graduating and the program was a good program. Now they are going to feel the brunt of having to get out and find a school( for those who may want to get to the next level of football) and spend their own resources to play for a program that may not have room for them this year.
The NCAA should have stated that any school that accepts a player from Penn State does not count against your current scholarship limits for entire time the student athlete is on on campus. This late in the year with only 38 days to kickoff does not leave these kids with much hope or recourse.
GTBob
July 23rd, 2012
12:46 pm
GTbob — who do you want punishing Penn St(assuming you feel punishment is deserved)?
The following would have made a lot more sense then the NCAA:
1. Penn State themselves
2. Lawmakers in Pennsylvania
3. The Governor of Pennsylvania.
4. The University system in Pennsylvania
5. The Department of Education
6. The U.S. Congress
7. The DOJ
You know, organizations that might actually have some jurisdiction over university and legal matters.
Marco Pillow Thrower
July 23rd, 2012
12:47 pm
A player steals a Marino jersey and school gets 2 years probation. 15 boys are sodomized,raped,ruined for life and Penn St. gets 4 years? Infruckincredible…
Tear(ed) Down the Statue
July 23rd, 2012
12:47 pm
hey, I have an idea. since the Paterno family is so dedicated to spinning this (and the Freeh report), why doesn’t PSU give them the statue and they can re-erect it in their front lawn. this way; all the delusional sycophants can burn candles and venerate JoePa(thetic), and the more militant anti-Pa types can leave PSU alone and do what they need to do.
Gary
July 23rd, 2012
12:48 pm
I must say I love the folks here using the opportunity to bash CMR. Coach desparately trying to clean up a program and do the right things. “He has to go, we lost all these recruits”. The entire article is about the fact that if you put football above all else, bad things happen. Some of these UGA fans are morons. We have a great coach. He does whats right and he wins a lot of football games. You don’t like it, go root for bama. You are not needed in Athens on Saturday. I guessing it would be more like a change the channel fan on Saturday. Great school, great coach, good football. Go Dawgs.
Wilson Pickett
July 23rd, 2012
12:48 pm
Way too much from the NCAA as far as the current group of players and coaches. So in order to get back the damage for the children we then punish 105 current players and coaches. Only in America.
An Atlanta Dad is no real happy with auburn players….
http://reddingnewsreview.com/newspages/2012newspages/father_Auburn_12_10000071.htm
matt
July 23rd, 2012
12:48 pm
I don t agree with the ncaa alot but i think for once they did get right taking football away from kids that didn teven have anything to do with this mess doesn t fix this problem. I like the fine thought it should be more because of what their going to do with it. I think the ncaa sent a message today that their not going to tolerate this type of behavior and that it will protect the people. I just pray those who jerry affected can find peace in all this and something like this never happens again.
Belcher
July 23rd, 2012
12:49 pm
This calls for a gut check at UGA!! The culture stinks!!!
Marco Pillow Thrower
July 23rd, 2012
12:50 pm
I hope Sandusky gets a ginormous arsewhipping by inmates in prison…
George Stein
July 23rd, 2012
12:52 pm
The NCAA has jurisdiction, GTBob, because Penn State is a member of the institution. I don’t think this punishment makes sense because the people punished here did nothing wrong (as opposed to just doing nothing).
This whole punishment is akin to a CEO falsifying reports to puff up a stock price and the SEC returning a punishment including a large fine and termination of 20% of the workforce.
Rudy Before Rudy was Cool
July 23rd, 2012
12:54 pm
Ballfan; better yet, why not eliminate pre-enrollement athletic scholarships and end “recruiting”? Student athletes would have to apply and gain be accepted for enrollment BEFORE considering participation in a varsity sport. once accepted; ANY student can “try out”. as a former D-1 walk-on who earned a scholarship (after 2 years), this makes sense to me. And think of all the $$ schools would save; and all the “jocks” can declare for the NFL after H.S. and we would have true “student-athletes” in the BCS, etc.
ole dawg
July 23rd, 2012
12:54 pm
Where in the world were the parents of these kids and what were they thinking? They apparently idolized Penn State so much that they were willing to allow their kids to be turned over to a monster (Sandusky) with no supervision! What type of punishment has the parents received for truly being terrible parents and helping to facilitate all this? All parties receiving punishment are justifiably receiving such. These parents willingly cast a blind eye on this.
I truly hope that the victims of these crimes can recover and have as normal a life as possible.
SEC Fact Finder
July 23rd, 2012
12:55 pm
Marco Pillow Thrower
July 23rd, 2012
12:40 pm
That McQueary fellow is pathetic. Any one of us woulda punched Sandusky in the eye and called police.
I guess you do not know the pecking order of how it works at MOST Div 1 schools. As a graduate assistant( which he was at the time) you are the lowest form of body on the staff. You run coffee, you make copies, you draw up plays on poster boards for the scout team to run at the next practice, you get full time coaches meals, wash their cars, and tons of other tasks any full time staff member ask you to do. All you are doing is trying to make a name for yourself, show you have a good football I.Q. and you do not make dumb mistakes. I know that because for two years I did that at a major program and you are just looking to get someone to give you a chance. The guy he saw in that shower was the ’so-called’ heir apparent to Paterno until LATER in time Paterno told him he was not( apparently after Mc at gone to Paterno) and Sandusky was told to retire by some accounts.
Yeah he could have done more, but he did what he was suppose to do and went to the guys he was told to go to. You can throw blame at Mc but to lay it all on him is just not fair to a guy who BY all accounts did the right thing at the time.
South Ga Gold
July 23rd, 2012
12:55 pm
@Jefferson Davis Hogg
“lack of institutional control” doesnt apply here. The lack of institutional control is applable in regards to violation of NCAA rules. Such as the Athletic department, coaching staff, Compliance Officer or AD, doing nothing to prevent wide spread and repeated NCAA rule violations. That is a lack of institutional control. Penn State’s situations is a totally different matter.
Brandon
July 23rd, 2012
12:56 pm
I think that the menu of penalties handed down was right on, and people have to realize that PSU football won’t recover for at least 8-10 yrs., so the penalties are 1 step short of the “death penalty”. Any current players and key recruits are gone, with Michigan and Ohio State the chief benefactors, so the immediate transfer eligibility piece was great, and a 4 yr. bowl/playoff ban is solid, plus Paterno now won’t have the honor/distinction of most wins in I-A. As a Michigan man, I have to say that PSU’s entrance into the Big Ten ultimately grades a solid “F”, and was probably a “C” at best pre-Sandusky. When PSU was coming in, the Big 10 thought it had its #3 blue chip in the bag, but they never became that #3 (the Kerry Collins team and the RB and LB lineage didn’t continue), with Wisconsin, Nebraska and MSU (in flashes) all surpassing PSU’s football contributions, and now with the Sandusky scandal and its attendant shame, PSU’s inclusion REALLY didn’t pan out. Academically, PSU is no NWestern, Michigan or Wisconsin, so there is no real help on that side of the ledger, and now they represent the shame and spectacle of football outweighing morality/ethics.
Well
July 23rd, 2012
12:56 pm
“Well–you feel Sorry for psu fans for this “tragedy”? Pay no mind to the kids who were raped. That’s where your feelings of sorrow should go.”
Look jerk, you completely took my words out of context. I’ve already stated that this is a horrendous tragedy.
gbal
July 23rd, 2012
12:58 pm
I personally feel like the punishment they got is more severe than a one year death penalty.
$60M — One years FB revenue — In a good year, not a year like the one they are facing next year. ..or the next 4 to 5.
4 years no bowls
4 years cut scholorshiips – which will effect them for 6-8 years.
QUality of recruits will be off serverly for next 4 years. No shot at NC??? No way kids go to Penn St.
My guess they loose 25-35% of current players……
If I could choose my punishment, this or 1 year death penalty… I take the year and move on.
Well
July 23rd, 2012
12:58 pm
Dawg’88
You’re putting something out that there that has NOTHING to do with this tragedy. If PSU had aborted kids on campus that’d be a totally different story.
rivercard
July 23rd, 2012
12:59 pm
SEC Fact Finder – You can justify it all you want, but the bottom line is McQueary left a child with an adult he witnessed raping him.
Shows zero concern for the child and makes him a despicable person from my point of view.
gbal
July 23rd, 2012
12:59 pm
Not saying they should have gone lighter now!
5150 UOAD
July 23rd, 2012
12:59 pm
Penn St……is not DEAD.
The NCAA is still a JOKE.
Institutional Control at UGa..with all the arrest….MURDER Cover up at Baylor….and the LIST goes on and on…..The NCAA is a JOKE. Why didn’t OHIO ST get MORE?
Resident Georgia Fan
July 23rd, 2012
1:00 pm
Now Penn State knows how it is to feel like Notre Dame: irrelevant.
Well
July 23rd, 2012
1:00 pm
“the good book says that homosexuals and women who commit adultery should be stoned until death.Are we supposed to follow that too?”
Oh goody, another person taking the Bible out of context. What you’re referring to is Old Testament Jewish law. We don’t live under Old Testament Jewish Law.
GTBob
July 23rd, 2012
1:01 pm
The NCAA has jurisdiction, GTBob, because Penn State is a member of the institution.
I disagree. The NCAA shouldn’t have free reign to just do whatever they want to any of their members just because they feel like it. There are some things that are above the NCAA and this is one of them.
5150 UOAD
July 23rd, 2012
1:01 pm
Can I change may neam to P.O.A.D the NCAA?
Well
July 23rd, 2012
1:01 pm
“Why didn’t OHIO ST get MORE?”
Raping little boys > tattoos
Paul in NH
July 23rd, 2012
1:02 pm
GTBob,
Tom Corbett, current Governor of PA is the last guy you want involved in punishing PSU. As Attorney General of PA he began the investigation into Sandusky in 2009 but didn’t prosecute. Doubtless, it wouldn’t have helped his governatorial campaign in 2010.
crackbaby
July 23rd, 2012
1:02 pm
Jeff,
I haven’t ever heard you take a stand on shutting down the Catholic dioceses that harbored hard core child molesters – who happened to be priests and arch bishops.
Shutting down the football program is exactly the wrong thing to do. Clean house and run it with new leadership, greater transparency and bring that community back together.
5150 UOAD
July 23rd, 2012
1:02 pm
Taking bets……..in the NEXT 5 years how many Penn St v Michigan will not be televised?
I say 1 maybe 2 max.
rivercard
July 23rd, 2012
1:03 pm
Sec Fact Finder- There is no justification for McQueary leaving a child with an adult he witnessed raping him.
Shows no concern for child – despicable.
gdawginkalamazoo
July 23rd, 2012
1:03 pm
I was hoping for the death penalty but the fact that the wins were vacated seems very appropriate. For the next decade PSU will be an FCS program struggling to gain ground. I think the death penalty would have been more useful in dampening the abuse that the current players will face on the road. No telling how long, if ever, it will take for that to go away.