Penn St sanctions

[Jackalope]

USA Today link

I like where the money is going, assuming this holds up. But to what extent is the source the State, and to what extent does this force cuts in educational programs?

The other stuff at least doesn't severely impact the innocent.

JS - I am not sure how well this "protects the innocent". From what I read they are allowing just the football players to immediately transfer w/o loss of eligibility. If Penn State's athletic department is structured similar to other universities, football money subsidizes other money loosing sports. A decimated Penn State football program means less alumni donations for primo football seats, less ticket sales, less money from post-season play, and ultimately less money to subsidize other sports. While football players are allowed to transfer without penalty, what about scholar-athletes in other major sports?

 

[meyers7]

Avoiding a competitive disadvantage (harm to recruiting, revenues etc.) isn't the same as gaining a competitive advantage,

Very well put. I agree.

 

[Jackalope]

Emmert stated very specifically that PSU was NOT to draw the money from other (non-revenue producing) sports programs or from either football scholarship funds or, most important, academic programs.

Bravo! Coquese is still in business!

Emmert refers to the $60 million fine. If football revenue goes down because of the post season bans, less alumni donations, less game attendence, etc, than I believe that other sports will be impacted if Penn State decides to maintain these revenue losses w/in the Atheltic department.

 

[Jackalope]

The $60 million has to come from somewhere. For perspective, they have an endowment of over $1.8 Billion:

http://live.psu.edu/story/54960

 

[UConnChapette]

Hopefully the NCAA will see fit to grant a waiver on the "sit out a year rule" to any non-football student athletes who would like to transfer due to the fall out, intended or unintended, or simply feel they no longer want to be associated with Penn State. This would be the most fair to all PSU student athletes. Certainly, this is unchartered waters here. We all know the NCAA can be a cruel beyotch. I would like to think that they would have compassion for ALL the impacted innocent student athletes at PSU, not just in the football program. We won't know that, unfortunately, until the situation actually arises.

 

[Wbbfan1]

IMHO the NCAA should require ALL schools to have an athletic integrity monitor to insure athletics equals academics. Look at the SEC, USC and other schools where football is king and you can bet there are criminal and/or civil activities that are overlooked or covered up in the interest of not embarrassing the football program or persons involved in the football program. The same could be said at schools where basketball in King.

I'll be interested to see what the NCAA says the next time there is criminal activity involved with an athlete or coach and the NCAA decides not to get involved.

Its also interesting to note that the NCAA decided not to comment on the individuals involved when one of their former board members were involved in the activity. IMHO that's why they decided to not comment on the individuals involved. They don't want to punish one of their own.

An SI reporter commented that if a school accepts a PSU football player, that player would not count against this years 85 player limitation. That could be a huge advantage for a school that picks up the more elite PSU players.

 

[Wbbfan1]

By levying the harsh sanctions on PSU, what the NCAA has guaranteed that no other institution will ever have a commission to find out what happened in criminal or civil activities. The NCAA has used the Freeh Report extensively as justification to levy the sanctions. If I'm a President of an Institution, I would never authorize a commission that would result in a public report be filed.

 

[alexrgct]

Disagree it's "completely false." Bit of semantics here, perhaps, but I see what the author is saying.

Avoiding a competitive disadvantage (harm to recruiting, revenues etc.) isn't the same as gaining a competitive advantage, unless you're talking about an advantage vis-a-vis all those other schools that have predatory pedophiles in their midst and turn them in.

All schools face ethical dilemmas when they're dealing with a group of athletes and coaches who have been patted on the back for their entire lives because they possess a rare and socially desired skill. Misbehavior of various sorts arises at every program. The program has a responsibility to bring criminal behavior to light rather than use the program to sweep it under the rug.

If the NCAA had done nothing, the cold, disgusting reality would have been that JoePa and others at Penn State made the right decision in 1998 and 2001 vis a vis Sandusky. Not morally right, mind you, but economically and competitively. Since 1998, Penn State has brought in more than a billion dollars (directly and indirectly) from CFB. They'd gotten to replace Paterno (done), continue to field a competitive football team (indeed, their 2013 recruiting had been rather good, especially considering the circumstances), and continue to rake in donations (sky high this year). AND THEY GOT CAUGHT. In 1998 and 2001, there was a relevant branch on the decision tree that had the story never coming out.

Money and reputation lead to competitive advantages on the field of play. By sparing the program fallout, they put themselves at an advantage over others who have self-reported all sorts of transgressions by those affiliated with their programs. Your statement implies that there probably aren't a ton of other programs don't have a child predator in their midsts specifically, and that's correct. That's also kind of the point; the next time an athletic program had information that could damage them in some way if it came out, though it was morally and legally the right thing to do, well, without NCAA sanctions against PSU, the correct decision tree response would be, "Hell, Penn State harbored a sexual predator and got through it relatively unscathed- why shouldn't we sweep this sexual assault by our star defensive tackle on a drunk coed under the rug?"

 

[Husky68]

By levying the harsh sanctions on PSU, what the NCAA has guaranteed that no other institution will ever have a commission to find out what happened in criminal or civil activities. The NCAA has used the Freeh Report extensively as justification to levy the sanctions. If I'm a President of an Institution, I would never authorize a commission that would result in a public report be filed.

Hopefully if you were President of an Institution, you would run it in a manner where it would not result in the need for a commission like this to investigate. The determination of doing this commission was made at levels far above the pay grade of University President.

 

[alexrgct]

By levying the harsh sanctions on PSU, what the NCAA has guaranteed that no other institution will ever have a commission to find out what happened in criminal or civil activities. The NCAA has used the Freeh Report extensively as justification to levy the sanctions. If I'm a President of an Institution, I would never authorize a commission that would result in a public report be filed.

If another institution is suspected of something this egregious and appears to be obstructing the truth, public opinion will crucify them anyway. Penn State had nothing to gain by trying to delay the inevitable.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

The $60 million has to come from somewhere. For perspective, they have an endowment of over $1.8 Billion:

http://live.psu.edu/story/54960

dont think they can touch those monies for that purpose.

 

[speedoo]

Where is the 60MM coming from? hiking tuition and fees?

Probably directly from the endowment, which will then lead to hikes in tuition and fees, most likely.

 

[speedoo]

dont think they can touch those monies for that purpose.

Yes, the endowment is probably a legal entity, with restrictions that would have to be either changed or worked around..But a fungibility argument leads one to conclude that all of the University's assets, including the endowment, are available to pay the fine.

 

[speedoo]

By levying the harsh sanctions on PSU, what the NCAA has guaranteed that no other institution will ever have a commission to find out what happened in criminal or civil activities. The NCAA has used the Freeh Report extensively as justification to levy the sanctions. If I'm a President of an Institution, I would never authorize a commission that would result in a public report be filed.

Rubbish. Other institutions will take from this that they had better not ever allow anything like the PSU situation to come about. In other words, they better have excellent institutional control over their athletic programs, unlike PSU.. And they had best self-report when any such situations arise.

 

[arnie3]

Fox Sports said that the $60 million is the yearly amount that the school grosses in football. All of it has to go to charity.

 

[OneTrickPony]

• $60M to child protection charities
• 4 yr FB postseason ban
• FB schollies cut from 25 to 15 for 4 yrs
• FB players can transfer w/o sitting out
• vacated wins 1998-2011

The postseason ban & scholly cuts are pretty significant and will hurt for a while.

All are punished...

 

[VAUConnFan]

I agree that this is beyond the NCAA's authority.
I do not understand the logic with vacating victories.
Where is the money coming from? Who pays in the end?

 

[Kibitzer]

I agree that this is beyond the NCAA's authority.
I do not understand the logic with vacating victories.
Where is the money coming from? Who pays in the end?

To answer all three as best as I can:

• JS (who is a lawyer) and I disagreed on this. Our positions became moot when NCAA President Emmert made it clear that these sanctions were issued under the heading of a consent decree, meaning PSU accepted what the NCAA was doing.
• Vacating the victories denies Paterno one of his cherished legacies, most total wins. Since he is dead, they can't haul him into court with Shultz and Curley, so this made sense. Be reminded that I was an advocate of this particular ppunishment.
• The money comes from the football program. Money has continued to flow in after the Sandusky arrest, and PSU surely figures that they can pony up or they would have resisted the consent decree.

I am confident my answers are verifiable but please correct me if I am mistaken.

 

[Icebear]

Fact is, Kib, it denies him no legacy at all. Those games were won and everyone knows they were won. It is only mental and clerical gymnastics to deny it. That memory is something that cannot be undone and will be remembered for at least a generation and never forgotten in PA. The entire concept of rewriting the records of athletic competitions is simply ridiculous, especially, when it is not done because someone had gained an unfair competitive edge. BTW, has Mark McQuire's 70 or Barry Bonds record 73 been banned from the record book? It just doesn't work.

 

[pap49cba]

One lesson that needs to be taken from all of this is that when a university allows a coach to become the most powerful individual on campus it loses any semblance of "institutional control".

 

[Vowelguy]

The money comes from the football program. Money has continued to flow in after the Sandusky arrest, and PSU surely figures that they can pony up or they would have resisted the consent decree.
I am confident my answers are verifiable but please correct me if I am mistaken.

The source of the money was unspecified I believe. And as he pointed out, money is fungible so it's hard to say it's come from source X. He seemed to basically leave that up to Penn St. The only rule was that it could not come by cutting other athletic programs.

 

[EricLA]

FWIW I'm glad it's over. I'm also glad the punishment is severe. Punishments are not only supposed to "punish", but also to deter. I can't imagine another school would risk its' entire sports program by sweeping a child molester's actions under the rug. So to me, it seems like the punishment did (and will do) what it's supposed to.

I found it interesting that not only was it severe, but the NCAA got an agreement from PSU on it as well. I believe it was correctly pointed out that technically, the NCAA does NOT have jurisdiction over sanctioning a school for harboring a child molester since it's not in their bylaws.

I will be curious to see what the Paterno family does now. They've been vehement and vocal in defending Joe and his legacy. Hopefully they shut it down now. As for the legacy issue, Ice is probably right that people will "remember", but if the wins are literally stricken from the record books, eventually when the people die who "remembered it", his legacy will be exactly what the record books say they are.

Granted that may not be for 75 or 100 years, but eventually it will happen. It would be different if Paterno's wins had an "asterisk" next to it saying the NCAA vacated some number, but he's still actually #1, but I don't think that's what it will say - it would sort of defeat the purpose of vacating the wins...

 

[LesMis89]

Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors Statement on Penn State

 

[Ozzie Nelson]

You called it from the beginning, Kibitzer.

My hat's off to you.

Wonder what Meyers would take off.

 

[meyers7]

To answer all three as best as I can:

• JS (who is a lawyer) and I disagreed on this. Our positions became moot when NCAA President Emmert made it clear that these sanctions were issued under the heading of a consent decree, meaning PSU accepted what the NCAA was doing.
• Vacating the victories denies Paterno one of his cherished legacies, most total wins. Since he is dead, they can't haul him into court with Shultz and Curley, so this made sense. Be reminded that I was an advocate of this particular ppunishment.
• The money comes from the football program. Money has continued to flow in after the Sandusky arrest, and PSU surely figures that they can pony up or they would have resisted the consent decree.

I am confident my answers are verifiable but please correct me if I am mistaken.

The first one wasn't a question. The NCAA overstepped their authority. Penn St. allowed them to do so. This could have some unwanted ramifications down the road for other institutions.