Penn St sanctions | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Penn St sanctions

Status
Not open for further replies.
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.
 
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.
 
JS said:
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.
Expand ...
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?"
 
Wbbfan1 said:
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.
Expand ...

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.
 
Wbbfan1 said:
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.
Expand ...
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 said:
Where is the 60MM coming from? hiking tuition and fees?
Expand ...
Probably directly from the endowment, which will then lead to hikes in tuition and fees, most likely.
 
Duncan Idaho said:
dont think they can touch those monies for that purpose.
Expand ...
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.
 
Wbbfan1 said:
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.
Expand ...
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.
 
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.
 
vowelguy said:
  • $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.
Expand ...


All are punished...
 
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?
 
.-.
VAUConnFan said:
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?
Expand ...

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.
 
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.
 
Kibitzer said:
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.
Expand ...


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.
 
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...
 
.-.
Kibitzer said:
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.
Expand ...

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.
 
Icebear said:
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.
Expand ...


It all depends on who is doing the remembering Ice. There's lots of people that think Roger Maris and Hank Aaron still hold the legitimate records regardless of what's in the record book. There are also going to be a lot of people that think Eddie Robinson's record is still intact and it will actually be reinforced by the record book.
 
A suggestion to obtain detailed information about the PSU sanctions.

Go to "Real Clear Sports," then access the "Penn State Sanctions."

What you will read is the complete and precise language of the NCAA.

To cite one example, the payment of the $60 million fine (and its admirable purpose) is to be made over five years @ $12 million each year.

The last year PSU filed a report (something connected with Title IX, I believe), they listed gross income from football at something like $73 million. Surely they can peel $12 million from that.

The mystery of how the reduction in scholarships will work is explained.

And, as the old saying goes, there is much, much, more........
 
It's pretty clear the bulk of America has not read the actual reports or followed the facts of this case. The NCAA has no business doing this and it spells problems in the future for what they feel they can or cannot control.

As an example the 1998 incident was reported to the police and the District Attorney and it was the DA, not Penn State decided not to procesute for lack of evidence. BTW this victim has never been identified or come forward.

The 2001 or whenever it was since the testimony never got an exact date - again the victim has never been identified or come forward and these charges were the ones the jury did not convict Sandusky of during the trial because of lack of evidence. The rest of the crimes did not occure on the Penn State campus. He was not an employee of the university during that time so what happens if an English proffessor comits a crime in the future - does the NCAA have juristiction over that too?

This is a crimminal matter and the courts will decide whos' guilty or not. In fact the trials of purgery against the AD and VP haven't even taken place. With Paterno dead - what happens if they are found not guilty. The NCAA ends up creating sanctions where no crimes were committed by University employees and therefore there are no NCAA rules broken.

This is not meant to dimish the crimes commited by Sandusky or the harm done to the victims - but he is in jail for life and the victims have yet to have their day in court for civil liabilities where this should be settled or recieve a settlement similar to what the Catholic church has had to do for many similar crimes. But the NCAA getting involved is a very dangerous precident.
 
.-.
Icebear said:
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.
Expand ...

We will simply have to respectfully disagree about this.

The NCAA record book now shows that Eddie Robinson and Bobby Bowden won the most games.

Go to a site called Sports Delve and access "Vacated NCAA National Championships" and you will see a list of 21 schools that won an NCAA championship but subsequently had it vacated.

USC got nailed in two different sports. USC and Arkansas each vacated two NC's. USC and Mississippi College vacated football NC's.

Then there is Chris Webber of the Michigan Fab Five and Howard Porter of Villaova.

I am sure there are others.
 
JS said:
The fact they did it, apparently by mutual consent with Penn State in order to avoid legal bloodshed, doesn't mean they had the authority.

I've long said as you state, and continue to hold that view.

Here's an article from yesterday that I rather agree with.

Thanks for pointing out my past position.
Expand ...

Here's another thoughtful piece by Dave Zirin whose views I support.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/169002/why-ncaas-sanctions-penn-state-are-just-dead-wrong#

Today marked a stomach-turning, precedent-setting and lawless turning point in the history of the NCAA. The punishment levied by Emmert was nothing less than an extra-legal, extrajudicial imposition into the affairs of a publicly funded campus. If allowed to stand, the repercussions will be felt far beyond Happy Valley.

Take a step back from the hysteria and just think about what took place: Penn State committed no violations of any NCAA bylaws. There were no secret payments to “student-athletes,” no cheating on tests, no improper phone calls, no using cream cheese instead of butter on a recruit’s bagel, or any of the Byzantine minutiae that fills the time-sheets that justify Mark Emmert’s $1.6 million salary.

What Penn State did was commit horrific violations of criminal and civil laws, and it should pay every possible price for shielding Sandusky, the child rapist. This is why we have a society with civil and criminal courts. Instead, we have Mark Emmert inserting himself in a criminal matter and acting as judge, jury and executioner, in the style of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. As much as I can’t stand Goodell’s authoritarian, undemocratic methods, the NFL is a private corporation and his method of punishment was collectively bargained with the NFL Players Association. Emmert, heading up the so-called nonprofit NCAA, is intervening with his own personal judgment and cutting the budget of a public university. He has no right, and every school under the auspices of the NCAA should be terrified that he believes he does.

 
UConnCat said:
He has no right, and every school under the auspices of the NCAA should be terrified that he believes he does.
Expand ...

Blah blah blah.

Penn St was welcome to appeal this decision, or to withdraw from the NCAA and become an NAIA school. They choose neither.
 
vowelguy said:
Blah blah blah.

Penn St was welcome to appeal this decision, or to withdraw from the NCAA and become an NAIA school. They choose neither.
Expand ...

Penn State entered into a consent decree so nothing to appeal. In any event, it's not the point. Penn State clearly didn't think it had the moral standing to reject the NCAA's sanctions. That doesn't make what the NCAA did lawful or right.

No worries. Mark Emmert had his Al Haig ("I'm in control here") moment.
 
It has already been said that keeping Sandusky on the payroll influenced football behavior.
There are those who argue that the Nuremburg trials were illegal too, but we're real glad they happened. You who are quibbling about the NCAA decision wrongly equate law with ethics. To me this is (finally) the NCAA doing a far, far better thing than it has ever done before.
 
I'm a little late to the party, today.

But having anticipated that the NCAA would feel compelled to jump into this morass, I am not surprised by today's news.
They had to do something major to justify their existence and a way had to be found for the other College Prez' to
pile-on

Ice's 10:13 post, rightly questions some of the consequences. Among them: Why the rush?

Joseph Ellis describes the slow-motion revolution (contradiction in terms) that produced the Declaration of Independence. John Adams waited, so could have the NCAA. The only possible reason I can conjure up for haste is since football is to be played; let's deplete the squad with mass transfers, so that the team becomes a laughing stock and that, that humiliation would somehow be beneficial to the healing.

There is also a feeling of semi-finality that Ice has eloquently articulated; the University, Industrial Complex, has spoken. No need to go much further; certainly not Governor (s), boards, Police, DA's office etc.

For a strident view, making other arguments for judicial injustice, check out the Guardian (Manchester)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/23/ncaa-penn-state-sanctions.

Our new member, Big Fan also makes a convincing point. that has been largely overlooked: How can the University be faulted when the 1998 incident was reported to the Police, was investigated and dropped by the DA's office.
Hard to fault the University there unless they "got" to higher authority. Anything's possible, but Freeh disclosed no evidence of that.

Indeed, Freeh seems to conclude points, not completely collaborated by the evidence he presented.
I suspect that that his conclusions may be sound but that collaborating documentation included areas that he decided to exclude to the public at this point for reasons perhaps related to the upcoming criminal proceedings (please excuse the semi-illegal, hypothesizing).

The whole white-wash of today, leaves a very bad taste.
 
.-.
Status
Not open for further replies.

Forum statistics

Threads
168,341
Messages
4,565,879
Members
10,467
Latest member
Eil Rule


Top Bottom