Mistermix already touched on this, but the breadth of the NCAA sanctions is pretty impressive:
The N.C.A.A. announced significant penalties against Penn State and its football program Monday, including a $60 million fine and a four-year postseason ban, in the wake of the child sexual abuse scandal involving the former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
The N.C.A.A. stopped short of shutting down Penn State’s program, but officials insisted that the breadth and significance of the penalties were nearly as debilitating. It is expected to be almost a decade before Penn State will be in a position to attempt to regain its place as one of the sport’s elite programs.
The punishment also included the loss of 10 scholarships per year for the next four years, with a limit of 65 total scholarship players on the roster, as opposed to the typical 85, by the 2014 season. The university must also vacate all of its victories from 1998 to 2011, meaning that Joe Paterno is no longer the major-college career leader in football wins.
In announcing the penalties, Mark Emmert, the N.C.A.A. president, called the case the most painful “chapter in the history of intercollegiate athletics,” and said it could be argued that the punishment was “greater than any other seen in N.C.A.A. history.”
There are a number of other more minor penalties, but this should be the end of the Paterno worship. He’s being wiped from the record books, his statue was removed yesterday, and the NCAA with the consent of the PSU administration is basically shunning Paterno and casting him out of the community. There will be a couple anonymous cranky trustees who will piss and moan, some misguided undergrads holding public vigils, and some more self-serving bullshit from the Paterno family, but the message is clear. Joe Paterno was no role model or hero.
Speaking of the trustees, tell me this jackass doesn’t sound like one of our Wall Street betters whining about regulation in the aftermath of another bankster led crash:
The NCAA is taking unprecedented measures with the decision to penalize Penn State without the due process of a Committee on Infractions hearing.
The NCAA has a system in place 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 appears to be using the Freeh report — commissioned by the school’s board of trustees — instead of its own investigation, before handing down sanctions.
“Unbelievable,” said a Penn State trustee informed of the NCAA statement, speaking to ESPN.com senior writer Don Van Natta Jr. “Unbelievable, unbelievable.”
The Penn State trustees’ hope that the statue’s removal might send a positive message was trumped by the NCAA, which had already decided.
“Emmert has been given full reign by the pansy presidents (at other universities) to make his own decision,” said the trustee, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He has been given the authority to impose these unprecedented sanctions. It’s horrible.”
What kind of twisted thought process would lead anyone to think that the removal of the statue was penance enough? This is the equivalent of thinking that removing the Wall Street bull would keep congress from writing Dodd/Frank.
At any rate, the trustees can hire all the lawyers they want and whine all they want, this punishment will stick. Penn State signed an agreement with the NCAA, they endorsed the Freeh report, the NCAA accepted the Freeh report, and they acted. Done. Finished. As it should be.
jayjaybear
My personal favorite theory…the anonymous trustee is PA Governor Tom Corbett. Sounds like him.
TenguPhule
Cue the Appeals.
patroclus
SMU had a payola scandal and got the Death Penalty and the Mustangs’ program was utterly ruined. Penn State covered up a pedophile scandal and gets minor sanctions.
Doesn’t seem very fair to me.
kansi
How could so many people lose all perspective? Depressing.
Cassidy
@kansi: Check out the previous thread on this. You’ll see exactly how.
David
“Pansy presidents”?? Who even talks like that?
WJS
What is really sickening is that this entire debate has dissolved into a discussion about money. Money from football, money for scholarships, money for students not affected by the football program–money, money, money.
I’m sorry but your UNIVERSITY should mean something more than money when it loses control of a head football coach. No university should ever lose institutional control of an athletic program. How many others are there out there? How many out of control programs are there where similar crimes are happening?
The death penalty was certainly warranted here, but even that wouldn’t clean up the rest of the sport. Now, those civil suits, which ought to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars–that’s a good start. That will teach people to worship money over ethics, at least until the next scandal.
befuggled
@patroclus: The consensus among the college football blogs and forums that I follow is that Penn State football is screwed for years to come. Assuming that the administrators who covered this up serve some time, I personally would be reasonably happy with the way this falls out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cassidy: To be fair, you weren’t much help. I mean, nice job of trolling and all.
The Moar You Know
“unprecedented measures” my ass. The death penalty was the only one that would have meant anything.
Pay some bucks, lose a few bowls, business as usual.
We treat college sports with the same insane misguided reverence that we reserve for Fortune 500 CEOs, save that an argument can be made that sometimes a CEO will accidentally do society some good.
Dave
@patroclus: The difference here is that the death penalty wouldn’t have been as harsh. The SMU thing was about unqualified student athletes, improper payments…a real institutional collapse. They also voluntarily sat out a second year, which really did the damage. The whole program had to be razed and rebuilt.
In this case the issue wasn’t the football program per se…the students were qualified, no payments (that we know of). A one-year ban would have allowed Penn State to keep recruiting and say the whole thing was in the past.
This punishment….losing scholarships, a four-year post-season ban and the NCAA allowing athletes to transfer immediately without the usual one-year sit-out (an under-reported but big deal)…much more devastating to the program. They are going to be lousy for many years to come. And the $60M fine is a whole year’s income for the program.
This was a huge punishment.
Punchy
College football is evil. They should ban it nation-wide. This is the only to prevent another scandal. Also, arrest all the fans, who are complicit in these crimes. Yes, even fans of U of Hawaii, living in Maui. Damn cretins.
JWL
@kansi: Paterno served as a comfortable symbol of a paragon in that PA community, and obviously a lot of people bought into it. For different reasons, it’s often difficult to cut comfortable ties. But wait until the $ starts drying up around the community, and the full implication of what he wreaked starts hitting their personal pocketbooks. That will cut a lot of today’s misplaced sentimental ties.
burnspbesq
The last part is at least arguably correct. The first two? Not a chance.
There is going to be a large “never forgive, never forget” crowd around this issue for the foreseeable future. For some, nothing short of demolishing the stadium and salting the earth so nothing would grow there would have been sufficient.
I don’t know, maybe that’s fine. But I wonder if people would have reacted with the same intensity if it had been Dom Starsia and John Casteen covering up George Huguely’s involvement in the death of Yeardley Love.
Cassidy
@Omnes Omnibus: I couldn’t help it. I get tired of hearing the excuses, be it PSU or the RCC or the NRA or….ad nauseam. Look, I like sports. I like boxing and MMA and fully admit to paying money to see men and women beat the juices out of each other. And I get the fandom and the shallow since of belonging it provides. But when my team or my guy does something wrong, I’m not gonna make excuses about it.
But yeah, I was trolling big time.
mb
I think PSU should have gotten the “death penalty.” In fact, I think the NCAA should have instituted a “suicide penalty” and ended all college football (and organized competitive college sports, for that matter.) The worshipful attitude about college football is as much at fault as anyone at PSU. IMO, the PSU scandal could have happened at any NCAA football program, because the general attitude is that those programs are sacrosanct and have some kind of special dispensation.
Sentient Puddle
The previous comment thread gave me heartburn. This one should end up a joy as well.
SatanicPanic
@Sentient Puddle: It’s already off to a good start
patroclus
Sorry, but I disagree. This is a minor punishment compared to SMU. They used to have a whole community (just like Happy Valley) that was intricately tied to the football program – SMU got kicked out of their conference and now they draw virtually no fans and make very little money (compared to Penn State). All the local businesses built around SMU football are gone, devastated, never to return. By contrast, still in the Big10, with apparently no sanctions coming from there, Penn State will be able to rebuild quickly and will be making more money than SMU could ever dream of when these minor sanctions roll off. SMU had virtually all walk-ons; Penn State is keeping 65 scholarships per year. SMU didn’t go to a bowl game for 20+ years; Penn State, in the Big10, will immediately go to a bowl when these piddly sanctions roll off.
There is no comparison. SMU got utterly destroyed; its conference was sent reeling and ultimately collapsed; Penn State is being coddled and will rely on going back to the money-making Big10 like little to nothing ever happened. And Penn State covered up a pedophile scandal while SMU a payola scandal. The idea that this is harsh – when compared to SMU – is ludicrous.
Schlemizel
This actually is pretty close to what I proposed. They get their damn game but lose the money. Thats a big part of the appeal.
But this is like the mass shootings – we will never be allowed to get to the actual root cause. We will forever play around the edges of how to put an end to this garbage, ignoring the real causes. And then, we will be just as stunned and surprised when the next event becomes public.
Rick Massimo
@David: The kind of manly man who speaks on condition of anonymity.
The Moar You Know
@patroclus: This is the core that pisses me off; they have a death penalty and have used it, for good reason. Penn State’s actions weren’t worse than SMU’s? Really?
julie
what’s a four-year postseason ban?
Face
Poetic justice would have been to see an alive Paterno have to witness the removal of his statue. I’m guessing that may have initiated a heart attack in the rat bastard.
reflectionephemeral
Am I the only one with reservations about a $60m penalty? That’s a lot of money to ask for from the state of Pennsylvania. I guess it depends which pot it’s coming from, but that’s the one aspect of this that I don’t quite get.
dms
@kansi: Remember the Iraq War?
Yutsano
I’m trying to imagine what sort of impact losing football would have on my school, where the University is literally two-thirds of the town. It would still exist as it’s the land grant school for the state and the academic programs are really amazing. But it would definitely be smaller, and the town would have virtually nothing to it. I do love my small cow college school though.
@julie: No bowl games.
butler
@patroclus: OJ Simpson is still a Heisman Winner. Reggie Bush is not.
One committed horrible acts which had nothing to do with the NCAA’s sacred standard of “amateurism”. The other committed relatively petty infractions which did violate that standard.
Nothing moral or fair about it, but there is a kind of logic to it.
gex
Late to the thread, but I want to plug my buddy’s blog post on this: Bill Young on Paterno’s Legacy
Gin & Tonic
Wow. Check out this wording from the lead graf of what looks like an AP story, which I read on Boston.com
butler
@julie: No bowl games for 4 years.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
You have suggested this before; it’s still not true. The sanctions will have a significant impact on PSU, and as far as I can tell does not preclude civil suits and other actions.
@Punchy:
Now we really get down to it. There appear to be posters who don’t give a crap about Sandusky or child rape. They just have a bug up their ass about college football and have climbed out from under a rock to use the slime of Sandusky’s crimes to as a pretext to work out their puerile dissatisfactions.
Dork
The rumors I heard said that the B10 said that PSU cannot recieve any share of any shared bowl money for the 4 years it’s on sanctions. I’m not sure how the new bowl playoff system will work, but under the old system, assuming at least one B10 team made a major bowl, that’s many, many millions of dollars they’re missing out on. A pretty big deal, if my facts are correct.
Robin G.
@The Moar You Know:
I disagree. I think it’s a great thing that the football program didn’t get the death penalty. They need to make money for the civil suits.
butler
@reflectionephemeral: I believe there are conditions attached to it that it can’t come from academic or other athletic programs. Whether or not that will really happen is questionable.
Dave
@patroclus: And I would point out that the differences here was that the football recruitment program at SMU itself was rotten. The players didn’t belong there and were getting paid off. The death penalty bludgeoned that program precisely because they had to redo everything about their program.
Penn State’s football program isn’t like that. A “death penalty” like the one SMU got wouldn’t have the same effect, because the PSU program isn’t rotten (in a strictly football manner) they way SMU’s was. They’d still get to recruit players and basically blow this all off. So while the optics of the “death penalty” would be satisfying, the actual negative effect upon the program wouldn’t be as bad.
The Big 10 has also levied sanctions, saying PSU can’t participate in the revenue generated for the Big 10 from bowl revenue during their bowl-ban.
PSU won’t be able to rebuild quickly. A four-year post-season ban and a loss of 20-30 scholarships for four years will make that hard. Losing their best players this year thanks to the NCAA lifting the one-year sit-out transfer rule, will make it impossible. That team will be horrid for years to come.
I guarantee you PSU won’t go to a bowl game for at least a decade.
And all of this still feels inadequate compared to their actions. But what the NCAA did today is more of a punishment than the death penalty.
patroclus
@butler: Indeed, that’s not fair either. But the title of this thread is “Fair Punishment” – that is, John is saying that the Penn State sanctions are “fair.” Not when compared to what they did to SMU. Not even close.
Robin G.
@reflectionephemeral: I think they said it had to come directly from the football program, and that it couldn’t come from cutting other sports or from academics. But I’m not sure.
Anyway, having read more reports over the last hour or so, the $60 mil represents about one season’s worth of football profits for PSU. I’m sure they’ll find the money somewhere. It’ll be good training for when they have to start coughing up for the civil suits, which are going to make $60 mil look small.
CarolDuhart2
@Dave: And there’s more to come. No quality football players are going to come to Penn State football for years. Folk’s opportunities to go to the NFL depend upon getting the attention from post-season opportunities. It’s harder when a player can’t play in a bowl, and rarely gets TV time to show his stuff.
Television contracts will be worthless because even after the four years, there will no doubt be ongoing bad publicity due to the lawsuits from survivors. Who’s going to watch or advertise on Penn State football besides locals because of the taint?
Last, but not least, the survivors. I can only guess how many there are, but I bet they are into the hundreds. Sandusky was with Penn State since the late 1970’s, and his charity was just as old as that. It wasn’t until the late 90’s that restrictions were even discussed, so for at least twenty years he got away with who knows how many counts. Right now there is probably a lawyer looking for as many as he could find for a class action lawsuit against the school.
Bad publicity, massive payouts that will dwarf whatever the NCAA has imposed as the school deliberately covered up crimes.
gex
@The Moar You Know: I hear people say that the NCAA didn’t actually have any rules that were violated. Which makes sense, we don’t expect every institution to have to replicate the entire legal system in this country.
But if anyone thinks Penn State would have had the balls to sue over the ‘death penalty’ just because they didn’t violate NCAA rules is an idiot.
The NCAA could have issued the biggest punishment despite the fact that Penn State didn’t violate NCAA rules. And they should have. Now we have a weird mishmash where they say they should take action because of the scandal, but they shouldn’t take big action because it wasn’t against the rules.
butler
@patroclus: Again, you have to consider what the NCAA is actually about: making money off of “amateurism”. What SMU did was a far bigger crime against that standard (and ONLY WHEN MEASURED AGAINST THAT STANDARD, let me stress, before I get get accused of saying what SMU did was in any way morally worse than what happened at PSU).
Also, standards change over time. Jim Thorpe lost his gold medals for taking food money to play semi-pro baseball. Next week the US will be represented by a throng of highly paid professionals. The difference is all dollars and cents. If the SMU scandal happened today and SMU was as big a cash cow as PSU, I doubt the death penalty would have been handed down.
burnspbesq
@Dave:
I’m not so sure about that. The two-year bowl ban and loss of a similar number of scholarships hasn’t crippled USC.
patroclus
Just a few years ago, USC got “devastating” sanctions (two-year probation; bowl ban; scholarship limits) that all the talking heads said was going to hurt their program for years. They are already back. Penn State’s are for four years – they’ll be back and their ongoing membership in the Big10 will ensure that. SMU is gone; devastated, destroyed; no longer AQ; small crowds, little TV. They will likely never be back.
To compare these sanctions to what was done to SMU is laughable. And the scandals themselves aren’t comparable either. Penn State’s was way worse. Nope, not fair.
Dave
@burnspbesq: Yeah, but there is a difference b/t two and four years. The cumulative effect is much greater. And the immediate transfer rule…most news stories report that like it’s a small thing but that is going to rip the heart out of the PSU program.
Never mind the fact a lot of people will never want to play for a program that covered up for a pedophile.
Robin G.
I mentioned this in the other thread, but I’ve just got to say it again: I don’t understand what PSU is complaining about. They didn’t *lose* their football program; they’re just going to play *bad* football for a long time to come. There’s a lot more arguments in favor of forgoing the death penalty — namely, damage to the local economy — than this. The arguments I’m hearing are that this will be just as damaging to the economy because of the upcoming suck of the program (no one will come to games, etc); are the PSU fans really so shallow that they’re going to bail because of a decade of losing seasons? I mean, their university being connected to a conspiracy to cover up child rape, *that* wouldn’t keep them away, but sitting out bowl games is too much for them? Dude, I’m an *Orioles* fan. Y’all don’t know bad team pain.
fuzz
@burnspbesq:
USC for the last 15 or so years has been at a different level than PSU, save for 05 PSU hasn’t been a legitimate national title contender since they had Kerry Collins and Ki Jana Carter. USC’s recruiting has been in an entirely different league than PSU’s for years.
honus
@burnspbesq: Maybe, if as you like to say, there had actually been a shred of evidence that anything remotely like that happened. Or are you just throwing around wild accusations because they fit your world view?
For the record, I advocated canceling the lacrosse season after the the Love murder. It was the right thing to do, and it also would have saved the best lacrosse program in the country from another embarrassing loss to Duke.
burnspbesq
In case anyone doesn’t think God has a sick sense of humor … the starting quarterback in Penn State’s last official football victory was Mike McQueary.
burnspbesq
@honus:
I’m sorry, is the concept of “hypothetical question” outside your frame of reference?
MattF
Tsk. Arguing again. Can’t we all agree just to make fun of University trustees who complain (anonymously!) about ‘pansy presidents’?
CarolDuhart2
@patroclus: What’s different is the reason why. Recruiting sanctions, player misbehavior: the behavior can be cleaned up, the bad players dismissed. There are crimes that have no long-term effects on people. A player taking payouts is a victimless crime that just involves the NCAA. Misbehaving players can be dismissed, and in any event will leave shortly, either for prison or the NFL.
A new head coach and a new set of players can do wonders for those other transgressions. But what Penn State is involved with doesn’t involve transitory misdeeds or simple, but understandable greed. This involves decades of coverups, and maybe even a payoff or two by the University officials themselves. And decades of suffering by silenced victims.
There will be ongoing civil suits with their revelations that will keep the subject in front of the nation for years. Not to mention the lifetimes worth of payouts, revelations, accusations. There will also be the books from everyone: the prosecution, the survivors, stories of survivors who didn’t quite survive. It will be ugly, too ugly for advertisers, too ugly for fans who aren’t local.
Jeff Fecke
The unremarked penalty that I am happiest about is the forfeiture of wins since 1998. JoePa clearly cared more about the wins record than child rape; that he’s had that stripped (albeit posthumously) is a rough justice.
Dee Loralei
I’m really glad they vacated those wins from 98-11. Getting JoPa the title was the reason he didn’t retire years ago. It seems like it was the only thing he cared about, his damned winningest legacy. Hopefully, his son will now realize the serious disgust that most people feel about covering up child rape. And maybe he’ll quit whining and shut up and find some shame and humility.
And I’m a fanatical addict of college football.
burnspbesq
@honus:
The embarrassing loss had already happened. The 14-13 loss in the semifinals was just one of those things. That was one of the best games I’ve ever seen.
fuzz
@Dee Loralei:
It was such a joke he got that title, he wasn’t ‘coaching’ the last 5-6 years anyway. Glad to see it’s gone.
patroclus
@CarolDuhart2: I’d go even further – NCAA violations are not crimes; they are violations of internal rules. If a 4-year bowl ban and scholarship limitations are so devastating, then why didn’t SMU get that (rather than the Death Penalty) for what can and should be clean-up-able and doesn’t constitute criminal behavior?
Penn State’s cover-up involved real crimes; about which society should care more about. And yet, PSU’s punishment is FAR less than what SMU got and its long-term impact will be nowhere near as utterly devastating. Ten years from now, PSU will making oodles of bucks from football; SMU never will again. Ever.
Penn State is being coddled because, as others have said, they have a cash cow and are members of a power conference. This century, PSU will continue to make billions from football; SMU won’t. The difference between the way they have been treated is stark.
burnspbesq
@honus:
Also, I believe that there is only one program that’s been to six straight Championship Weekends, and it’s not the Hoos.
catpal
@Robin G.: where the $60 Million fine gets paid out of is a big question.
PSU gets about $300 Million in State funding. PSU Football Revenue is not paid back to the state of PA – except in local sales taxes.
Over $100 Million was recently donated to PSU to pay for the anticipated Civil Lawsuits that PSU wants to settle very quickly.
State College, PA businesses could lose about $50 Million in business loss — but many of those local businesses owners became Multi-Millionaires during the Paterno-PSU years with exclusive contracts – and many of those Business owners were on the board of the Sandusky Second Mile Charity — and probably knew about and helped with the Sandusky-Paterno cover-up — For the MONEY.
The $60 Million fine is too little too late.
geg6
Although I really don’t think the NCAA should have anything to do with sanctioning PSU for violating their rules (as far as I can tell, they don’t have any pertaining to this), I don’t have a problem with any of the post-season bans, loss of scholarships, or erasing previous wins. I think the financial sanction is quite a price to pay, since I know it will be something that will bite current and future students (regardless of how such monies are supposedly fenced off from the rest of university revenue) and definitely will bite staff. The university has been negotiating with and talking to victims and their lawyers, so they will be compensated and those who don’t want to settle will also be compensated by a court. And, although there have been several internal moves toward supporting victim groups and sexual abuse/assault charities, I support the university being forced to give some of the football revenue to such groups. That is definitely a right step in the right direction. What I’m most concerned about is the demonization of everyone at Penn State and anyone who likes sports that is happening in the other thread.
As for the Board of Trustees, the concensus around here seems to be that they should have all resigned months ago. Every. single. one. of. them. They are ultimately responsible for this whole thing. The crimes, the coverup, and for allowing the football coach and his program to overshadow the mission of the university and the health and safety of helpless children.
CarolDuhart2
@patroclus: Really, these sanctions hit at the heart of the problem. This program won’t be profitable for at least a decade or more. What college football player who has options is going to go to “Pedophile U”, and take the taunting and bad publicity? And no postseason opportunity at all?
And as I said, there’s more to come. We haven’t even scratched the surface of what Sandusky’s crimes are. Just a few have come forward so far, and guys like Sandusky had access to hundreds over about four decades, not only through Penn State, but through his charities and other activities. This will definitely scare off advertisers, boosters, and others.
Cassidy
Arghh…and this is what is wrong with collegiate sports and fandom. That shouldn’t even be a part of the equation.
Not a personal attack, just frustrated with the notion that the score means anything.
Joel
Can anyone tell me why Tom Osborne was elected to the US House?
Joel
Can anyone tell me why Tom Osborne was elected to the US House?
Joel
Can anyone tell me why Tom Osborne was elected to the US House?
patroclus
There, of course, is no TV ban, so the Big 10 Network keeps its programming, as does ABC/ESPN, and they’ll still be selling ads and making oodles of bucks, from which PSU will continue to share revenues. And, because they’ll still be on TV, players will still want to go there and the program will continue and rebound, just like countless other examples. But not at SMU. They STILL don’t get much TV. PSU will continue on TV just like they always have and nothing in the sanctions limits the money they’ll continue to make.
JWL
@Dee Loralei: I just now heard the Paterno family has released a statement condemning the penalties.
CarolDuhart2
@geg6: People know that not everyone at Penn State was involved, and as the legal phase continues, it will be clear.
But the reputation is going to take a hit nonetheless. To an outsider, the clear “JoePa” worship was a big factor in enabling Sandusky’s crimes, by making the whole program beyond even mild criticism.
The silver lining could well be that Penn State will have to be known for something other than football for the foreseeable future, and instead of a JoePa cult, the other sports can get their day in the sun and make Penn State proud. Maybe when the gymnastics team, the basketball team, the drama department can get their share of love as well, the school can really begin to put all this behind them and generate some goodwill.
Joel
P.S. Does anyone have a fix for this wordpress double-triple posting issue? Using Chrome for Mac.
300baud
Here is the Paterno family statement:
washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/statement-from-family-of-joe-paterno-in-response-to-sanctions-ann…
John, you called it: self-serving bullshit.
CWD
$60 million fine to the NCAA!
How many kids will $60 million pay to educate in our modern colligiate system? How many kids in foster care because of abuse issues could be helped. These priorities are whacked.
catpal
@geg6: it is sad for the excellent educational aspects of PSU. I remember when my cousin got accepted to PSU and rejected it – and said “thats a football school – I want to go into science.”
i am sad for the innocent workers that drive an hour to work there for the Saturday games because they can make the most money there. They didn’t do anything wrong either.
But what do you do about the alumna, current students, and locals who are still in denial about Paterno, and the PSU Board.
I wish I were seeing More Outrage in PA to get the Board of Trustees to resign, and get a serious investigation of Corbett.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@CWD: The money is not going to the NCAA.
geg6
@300baud:
Fuck the Paternos. Just fuck them.
@CWD:
It’s not going to the NCAA. It’s going to prevention and treatment programs for victims of sexual abuse.
And John, I prefer this statement to anything any Trustee or Paterno family member puts out:
geg6
@CarolDuhart2:
I wish this was true, but my experience here today makes it clear that it is not.
Dee Loralei
@JWL: I am kinda flabbergasted by that. And a wee bit discombobulated and rather speechless.
Original Lee
@Robin G.: I’m a Cubs fan. The Orioles fans have NO CLUE about bad team pain.
Cassidy
@geg6: I made some jokes at your expense that I shouldn’t have and I apologize for that. I was making fun of a small town stereotype.
That being said, I don’t think anyone was against you for being a PSU employee. Insisting that community can only come together through sports is what set that thing off. And while I do feel for the many students and employees that will be tainted by this, dismissing the idea that a rabid fan culture and hero worship of Paterno did not in some part contribute to a culture of ethical corruption is refusing to look at the toxic role that big money, collegiate sports can have on an institution. As I said earlier in this thread, it’s always about the score. It’s never just good enough to say, someone was raped or someone died, but it’s always followed by our/my season is going to suck. It’s always about the score.
Robin G.
@Original Lee: At least you’ve had winning seasons since 1997.
Nom de Plume
Personally, I think that everything in which I am not personally interested should be banned.
catpal
@geg6: that is a good statement – now let us see Real Actions from that.
catpal
@geg6: we support you and your coworkers and those connected to PSU who are not in denial and apologizing for the criminal behavior of some leaders.
maybe now we can talk about some of the really great things about Penn State – like Dr. Michael Mann and his great book “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”
Cassidy
@catpal: geg6 doesn’t need to apologize for anything.
geg6
@catpal:
There already have been, but they aren’t interesting to Armen Ketayan or sexy enough to publish by Sports Illustrated or ESPN.
I, personally, have seen the changes Dr. Erickson has made since being appointed. And I know that many more are coming. I have not had much to be proud of when it comes to our leadership, but I have found Dr. Erickson to be someone I can be proud of. Of course, I had met him several times back when he was Provost and found him to be an admirable guy back then. When it all came tumbling down in November, I hoped he’d be offered the presidency and that he would take it rather than retiring, as had been his plan until then. I think he is a true leader.
Now, if we can just clean up the Board of Trustees, I have every confidence we’ll come out of this a better university.
Bobby Thomson
Hey, if someone doesn’t like the penalty, they can just look the other way and pretend it isn’t happening.
MCA1
@patroclus: Frankly, I think looking at what happened to SMU a full quarter of a century ago as a basis for what the NCAA should have imposed on Penn State is laughable. They’re totally different programs in different times. As someone noted upthread, SMU’s program and football success were a house of cards. They stunk in the ’70’s, so they cheated to build the program back up. Rooting out that cheating by shutting down the team and letting the rats drift away was appropriate for the circumstances – allowing them to continue playing with a bowl ban in 1987, with a bunch of ill-gotten players, may not have had the desired effect. The reason they haven’t been back is that they had, other than that flowering in the ’80’s, been average since shortly after Doak Walker left, have an enrollment dwarfed by almost every other successful D-I program, at what was until recently primarily a commuter school without much alumni base, which naturally should be 4th at best in the Texas collegiate football pecking order. Without the cheating, the natural order prevails and SMU is a relatively small-time football program. The Southwest Conference was never going to exist circa 2012, anyway, regardless of SMU’s tailspin.
Penn State, on the other hand, whatever we can say about the ethical and moral rot of the Sandusky/Paterno regime as regards child molestation, did appear to build its football program in general compliance with NCAA rules. And because of its continuous 50 year history of excellent football teams, the size and prominence of the school in Pennsylvania, and on and on, just sitting them out for a season wouldn’t likely have much longterm effect. Different situations, different goals, different types of transgressions, ergo different rationales for different penalties.
SBJules
I saw the press conference & I thought they were very reasonable. they figured one penalty from the first time it was known and not reported that Sandusky molested.
sneezy
@geg6:
That’s far too broad and pure hyperbole. Nobody is demonizing anyone who likes sports. Professional sports are fine. I’m a fan of a few, though not an especially fanatical one.
Big-time college sports (i.e., men’s basketball and football) are a different story. They are a racket run for the benefit of the NCAA, coaches, and athletic directors. There is absolutely nothing admirable about it.
There could be. Pay the players, treat them like the university employees that they effectively are, remove all the restrictions on their freedom to contract (“letters of intent,” penalties for transferring from one school to another, etc.), and it could be OK. But as it is, it’s rotten to the core.
That’s what people don’t like, not “anyone who likes sports.”
Bob
Something not quite right about all the hue and cry and sanctimony, as if demolishing the stadium and salting the earth and digging up Paterno and going at the body with axes and shovels – clearly the prevailing sentiment in the land – is supposed to expiate our fury or guilt or desire for revenge. Horrible as it is, compare the one deviant Sandusky, and the guys that chose to look the other way because it would be too inconvenient to do the right thing, with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church worldwide. They paid some money, a handful of perps (how many, in fact?) got convicted, one guy got convicted for looking the other way, some horrifying reports were published, but yet they go on, righteous, with their heads held high, moral authorities, demanding that we all bow to their “religious freedom”. Where is their death penalty? Of course – they’re too powerful. We can jump on Paterno’s body, demolish his statue, take away all of his victories, kill Penn State football, and so we do it, because we can, and only because we can. And we do it double, because of all those cases where we can’t, just over our shoulder, beyond our reach.
This post is not so much about justice, and what is right, but about the strangeness of human behavior.
geg6
@catpal:
Or what PSU students have done for the Four Diamonds Fund:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Diamonds_Fund
geg6
@sneezy:
Did you read that whole thread? Sports, in general, were being demonized. Professional, college, high school…all of them. It was and is disgusting.
As for how to clean up college sports, treat all of them exactly the same, whether la cross or football or tennis. Tell the NBA and NFL to get themselves minor leagues like baseball has and to quit using college students to save a buck by not having to have their own farm systems.
Paying players would just create more problems. Do you really think it’s a good thing to have a football or basketball player get paid more than I, with post-grad degrees, do? Because, if they paid them, that’s what would happen. That idea is just as bad as what is happening today. I say tell the NBA and NFL to pay for their own minor leagues.
catpal
@Cassidy: I did not think geg6 needed to apologize. I completely support geg6 and many more associated PSU people who are saying and doing the right things.
Cassidy
@geg6: You say demonized, I say pointing out the truth of how local and college sports impact people and small communities. Hell, their impact on big communities is evident. Where I’m at, we literally have the worst school in the state. But they have a football team and a stadium. How many of those kids who go to that school know that come the day after graduation that there life is most likely nothing but toil and double shifts if they didn’t play football? Your fondness for togetherness is the gloss on top of some really ugly situations. You seem like a very nice caring lady. How you can’t see that blows my mind.
catpal
@geg6: good to remind people about them.
The Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon or THON, it is the largest student-run philanthropy in the world,
with $10,686,924.83 having been raised at the 2012 event. The money that is raised is donated to The Four Diamonds Fund, a charity devoted to defeating pediatric cancer through research and caring for patients at the Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital.
burnspbesq
@Cassidy:
I think he was being facetious. The only thing embarrassing about Virginia losing to Duke in lacrosse is that it’s happened 14 out of the last 15 times they’ve played. Since 2005, Virginia has two national championships and one win over Duke.
Amanda in the South Bay
@geg6:
It had nothing to do with sports per se. Now, how sports distorts the priorities of colleges, and that sports (especially football) shouldn’t be the sole way for small towns to get together…that’s another story.
sneezy
@geg6:
Since the big-time sports are televised, they can’t be treated the same. The money will inevitably corrupt them.
I agree completely.
I think this is a complete red herring. Lots of people, including professional athletes, entertainers, lobbyists, some salespeople, etc., etc., who don’t have post-graduate degrees get paid more than you do. This is an entirely separate issue and for what it’s worth, I don’t think your degrees entitle you to any particular income level.
geg6
@sneezy:
You seriously think a high school grad football player should make more at the same university as someone who has put in decades of service and attained a higher level of education? Seriously?
There should be no athletic scholarships, period. And the tv revenues should go to academic scholarships, fellowships, etc., etc., etc., not to the players. And if we quit allowing the NFL and NBA to use us as their minor leagues, then no one would watch college football on tv the way they do now. Because all the best players would be going into those minor leagues and the only football or basketball players we would have would be true scholar/athletes.
Punchy
How in hell did the truthful, sensible argument that “small communities relish their Saturday football games” become the twisted and hyperbolic “the sole way for small towns to get together”?
Pretty sure that NO ONE said that football is the ONLY way rural folk communicate and interact. It is, however, an important source of community pride and interaction (god knows politics aint joining many of these liberal college towns together with the non-college ones). You’d be correct to say that it’s disturbing if college football is the only way these folks collide….but no one has ever said that in either thread.
FlipYrWhig
@geg6: It’ll never happen, but I think it would be MUCH healthier to effectuate a divorce between “Pennsylvania State University” and “Nittany Lions Football Club.” By playing for the latter, young athletes can be paid a decent wage while working to ascend the ranks towards the lucrative NFL. Penn State could have a football team, but comprised of the best football-playing students admitted as students with the objective of receiving a generalist or pre-professional education. I don’t think we can get there from where we are now, culture-wise, but it would be a great improvement.
Real American
Christ, didn’t you people hear? College football is the latest barometer of True Americanism. If you like college football, you are a real, salt-of-the-earth American; if you dislike it, you must be a liberal elitist from the least coast.
Sure, some kids got raped, but is that really more important than college football? I mean, our rural communities apparently have nothing else to bond over–how is anyone supposed to talk to their Jewish and Hispanic neighbors without college football?
TL;DR: Anyone who criticizes PSU or college football hates America.
Amir Khalid
From my vantage point on the far side of the planet, in a country where (like most of Earth) inter-university sports is a hobby for students and not a source of riches and prestige for universities, the penalty seems more or less right to me. Although I would have banned Penn State from regular-season football as well, rather than just bowl games.
I pontificate that the larger issue here, still to be addressed, is the relationship between universities and the aforesaid riches and prestige from sports, which was allowed to compromise Penn State as a social institution. The NCAA’s very mission is to exploit that relationship to get more riches and prestige for the sports champions among its member universities. It seems to me that the penalties against Penn State were designed to minimize the damage, i.e. to disturb that relationship as little as possible for other universities.
But what’s needed now, surely, is to bring that relationship under control. Paterno and the university’s administration came to see a place in the record books, annual revenues of tens of million dollars, as more important than protecting children from a rapist. This perversion of their values is a consequence of the inter-university sports system as it is in America.
Joe Nocera at NYT has written some illuminating columns about university sports under the NCAA. Taking what I understand from Nocera’s columns together with this affair, it seems to me that the relationship between American universities (not Penn State alone) and sports needs a deeper examination than it’s had thus far, and a more thoroughgoing overhaul.
Were I the tactless sort, I might say that certain American universities need to quit whoring themselves out to sports, and NCAA should quit being their pimp. But I’m on the other side of the planet, like I said, so I could be wrong (as well as very rude) about this.
Darkrose
@geg6: That was a good statement from the President, and really shows up how awful the Paterno family is being.
patroclus
@MCA1: Well, I don’t agree. Penn State, before Paterno, was terrible. When he first started there, they played such a weak schedule (they were an eastern independent) that undefeated teams weren’t selected as national champions. Paterno led Penn State into the Big10, which ensured their financial power and dominance. Paterno changed the prior academically-oriented culture by cultivating a climate whereby football power was so pervasive that a pedophile scandal got covered up. A situation that is far far worse than a payola scandal. By fostering a situation in which Presidents and trustees could not even suggest that he retire, and becoming the highest paid state employee, he effectively built the very epitome of “lack of institutional control.” By the NCAA’s definition, this is “cheating.”
Yet, by contrast, Penn State will continue to make oodles of money, be on TV throughout the “probation,” and have 65 scholarships per year, and have 7 big paying home games, make money by being in the Big10, while SMU’s program was utterly ruined, their conference destroyed, their AQ status lost, their chance to make money gone.
There is no comparison between the treatment. Penn State got off, while not scot free, sitting rather pretty.
Keith G
@Cassidy:
Now, come on.
A bit earlier, you were having great fun typing some really personal attacks. What you were doing was considerably.closer to demonization.
Keith G
@sneezy: College athletes can never be paid (officially) until/unless such a transaction is given legislative immunities from certain federal wage and labor laws.
I don’t know when that would happen.
patroclus
@Amir Khalid: To be more precise, American universities currently whore themselves out to the advertisers who pay the networks who pay the conferences who pay the schools. The NCAA was rendered toothless regarding the whoring by the USSC in the Oklahoma/Georgia cases in the 80’s. So the whoring will continue regardless of what the NCAA thinks.
But the NCAA still has some teeth when they sanction programs for “lack of institutional control.” Not as to the whoring per se, but whether the whoring is being properly managed. If the NCAA wanted to send a tough signal regarding pedophile scandal cover-ups, they had a chance here. Instead, they selected a penalty that is, by far, nowhere near as bad as given to SMU for a mere payola scandal. Thereby setting numerous bad precedents.
To non-U.S. observers, this is what is known as a wrist slap. However, the media is now chattering about how “harsh” this really is, when it really isn’t.
JordanRules
@patroclus: I pretty much figured that the NCAA wouldn’t bring down the death penalty like they should and kept reminding people about SMU. I hear and understand all the arguments against the comparison, but like you, I’m not buying it.
Serial child rape and institutional cover-up? This situation cried out for the institutional death penalty with a line of young victims pain and tears to lead the way.
sneezy
@geg6:
My preference, in an ideal world, would be for big-time college sports not to exist. However, in the US, that’s not gonna happen.
So if they do exist and generate the large TV revenues that they do, I would prefer for the players to be paid what the market will bear.
Let’s ask a slightly different question. Do I think that a major-league baseball player with a high school education should get paid more than you do? What I think has no bearing on anything in that context. They do get paid much more than you do and that is not going to change.
What they do generates a lot more revenue than what you do and I don’t see why they shouldn’t be paid accordingly.
How about a pop music star with little education? Justin Bieber gets paid a lot more than you do and his level of educational achievement has nothing to do with it. It’s just the way the world works.
As I said, I don’t think your degrees entitle you to any particular income level. And yes, I seriously think that.
If the 80 or 90 players on a college football team can generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue, why shouldn’t they be paid accordingly? And what does their level of education have to do with it?
JenJen
@Brachiator: Amen to that last graf.
Robin G.
@JordanRules: I think what they did is more embarassing to the institution. They didn’t pull the player from the Boston Marathon; they kneecapped him and told him to keep his ass running.
suzanne
@geg6:
Good Lord. That’s not what anyone said.
However, it’s clear that everyone with any power at all DID know about Sandusky’s repulsion, and therefore is responsible for being a failure as a human being.
Also, I didn’t see anybody attacking sports. I saw much criticism of sports culture. Those two things don’t have to be one and the same.
sneezy
@Keith G:
OK. I will admit that I don’t know what those immunities would be and would welcome elaboration on that point.
FWIW, my view is that big-time college sports (football and men’s basketball) are an intractable mess. I think the current system is rotten to the core and exploitative of the players.
However, these sports are embedded in American culture and I don’t see how that can be changed in less than several generations. There is a huge audience for them and that audience is going to be served.
So in the meantime, I would like to see the players paid. If that requires legislation, then I would wholeheartedly support that.
But realistically, I know it won’t happen. Nothing will change.
Donut
@Jeff Fecke:
It’s just too bad the fucking asshole inhuman child-rape-enabler went to his grave still thinking he owned the all-time wins record.
I don’t believe I heaven nor hell, but if they do exist, I’d like to think that Satan enjoyed tormenting Paterno with today’s news. Fucking piece of shit-stain on humanity.
JordanRules
@Robin G.: I do like that way of framing it Robin.
MCA1
@patroclus: Fair enough, but I don’t think we need your justification of how much worse this is, morally, ethically and otherwise, than what was happening at SMU. No one’s in disagreement there. If we want to push for a TRUE death penalty for Penn State (as opposed to the penalty box treatment SMU got), i.e. shut it down for a decade, as a result of the more massive failing involved in their misconduct, that’s fine and we should make that argument. I’m not sure I’d disagree. But, I take exception to two things in your postings above: first, the adamant position that what Penn State got is light compared to what SMU got, and second, that looking at what happened to SMU retrospectively gives us a fair analogy to use when analyzing that question. SMU was in a far different situation than Penn State, without the inherent advantages to get back up off its feet in short order. This was evidenced by the general attrition of its program over a two or three decade period – a school like that was destined not to remain a powerhouse in the modern era without cutting corners in recruiting, etc. The 1-year suspension it got effectively returned it to its more natural place in the hierarchy, and as times have changed, its inability to return to the highest echelons is, I think, more due to those structural disadvantages (small school, small alumni base, too many better options in Texas, inability to ever jump up to a big conference circa 2012) than the NCAA penalties it received 25 years ago. Penn State, on the other hand, could have turned out the lights for a season and come back in 2013 like nothing happened and been back toward the top of the Big Ten in no time. Instead, it will have its best current players bled away (no redshirt or freshman with any NFL aspirations will stay), all of its top recruits for next year will be gone within a few months, and it will have zero ability to pull in highly ranked recruits thereafter. They will be losing to Nebraska and Ohio State by 20+ points within a few seasons, at which point it will take a Herculean effort for any coach to convince enough good players to go there to ever reach the upper tier of the Big Ten again. Who wants to go to the most reviled program in the nation after three consecutive 4-win seasons? The historic position of the program in the highest echelons will be meaningless then. Once you fall from royalty in today’s college football landscape, it’s exceedingly tough to get back.
Keith G
@sneezy: Upon receiving a pay check for their efforts, athletes become employees of the schools in question – complete with all labor and and workplace rights enjoyed by all other citizen-workers. Eg. health/safety regs, workers comp, right to collectively bargain and on it goes.
Some of that might actually be good, but it would change the nature of sport at that level and that is why the powers that be will fight it tooth and claw.
slightly_peeved
The people blaming professional sport worship for the lack of other opportunities in America are missing that all the countries with equality of opportunity have sports fans just as tribal as American football fans. Schools in the US are shitty because of government and corporate priorities, which are different, rather than the worship of sport, which isn’t.
Laertes
When I first heard the argument that the PSU sanctions were worse than the SMU sanctions, it seemed persuasive.
But then it hit me that this isn’t an either-or situation. They could have hit PSU with all the sanctions they did, and in addition handed down an N-year ban. They didn’t. They probably should have.
(Where do they get off calling a one-year ban a “death penalty?” A forever ban is a “death penalty.” SMU got a timeout.)
sneezy
@Keith G:
OK, I am aware of all that and it is what I meant to suggest when I said “treat them like the university employees that they effectively are.” I don’t see that this requires any new legislation.
What would require legislation, I suppose, would be to pay them but still somehow exempt them from all that. But I don’t want them exempt from all that: I very specifically want them to have all the same rights that other employees do.
In my view, it would change it distinctly for the better.
Sure, it would cost money, and those who currently benefit from avoiding these costs would oppose it strenuously. But I think their arguments in favor of their position would be almost pure bullshit: the purity of amateurism and all that nonsense. I don’t buy that crap. I think the players are effectively employees of the schools and should be treated that way in every regard.
I don’t think for a minute that it will happen, however.
stormhit
@patroclus:
It would have been pretty tough for SMU to lose AQ status in 1987 given that there was no such thing. And the conference managed to last until 1996.
Cassidy
@Keith G: Don’t know if you’ll read this, but while I did make some unecessary remarks regarding small town life and sports culture, I didn’t actually say anything negative about sports at all. I think sports are a great thing and great for kids. I actively encourage my children to participate in some form of recreational exercise. I don’t care what it is as long as it’s active.
My biggest problem is with small town sports culture. I think it has a negative impact on children socially and emotionally. I think it uses children and encourages them to damage their bodies and all the people who are enjoying their tailgating and socializing don’t want to be made aware of the 16 y/o who just blew out his knee. They don’t want to be aware of the impact their “community” is having on kids because it would detract from their pasttime. As I also mentioned, minorities are historically mistreated in small towns in the South. One of the few ways to get respect is to play whatever the local sport is. So basically, a young black male is taught that he better be able to run fast, hit hard, catch, shoot, whatever, and entertain his white townfolk to be respected. Does that sound right to you? As I mentioned in the other thread. what about the fat kids. They’re taught from day one that they better be able to play lineman or they’re useless. What kind of bullshit is that? Amanda also pointed out what about those who don’t really care for sports? If you’re not on board with supporting th elocal team, if you look different, act different, do anything different, you’re ostracized.
So, no, my problem is not with sports. My problem is with the sports culture.
geg6
@Cassidy:
Perhaps you’re talking about this in the context of the South, in which case you may be right. I wouldn’t know about that since I don’t and never did live in the South. But you reaely see any o f this sort of stuff around here. Yeah, the QB and head cheerleader are the BM/GOC, but there’s plenty of athletes other than football players who get their glory, too. We love our athletes, whether they are swimmers, gymnasts, volleyball players, basketball players, football players or track team members. We also love our scholars and give them tons of love. We’re proud of our marching and jazz and steel drum bands. The two biggest local sports heroes this year are Lauryn Williams and Christa Harmotto, both going to the Olympics this year, Lauryn for the third time.
Lauryn: youtu.be/FMX_lBkjTD8
Christa: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_Harmotto
Cassidy
@geg6: I’m glad that’s the case for your town. Unfortunately, I think you’re the exception, not the rule. What I’ve seen is the South and Midwest and, while not 100% of the time, seems to be the norm in most places.