Why no talk of death penalty for Penn State?

[whaler11]

When college athletic programs are sanctioned, aren't innocent kids always punished? Reggie Bush accepted a house, but the team/program had to pay the price.

Easy solution. I'm now down with the death penalty for them. Everyone who transfers doesn't count towards the 85 for the new school. Can play immediately. Disruptive for sure, but the kids can pick out their best situation and the schools taking them have no risk past the tuition dollars.

 

[ZooCougar]

Agree 100%. It's time for Penn State to regain its academic and values based focus while taking a football sabbatical.

 

[zls44]

Agree 100%. It's time for Penn State to regain its academic and values based focus while taking a football sabbatical.

It should be a permanent sabbatical.

Permanent.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

It's clear, after seeing the emails, that the FOOTBALL PROGRAM was more important the welfare of innocent kids. How in the world do not not SERVERELY punish the FOOTBALL PROGRAM?

I don't understand the argument that you shouldn't punish today's players for something that occurred in the past. Look at our APR ban for God's sake.

Need a break from football for a couple of years in Happy Valley.

 

[zls44]

I get the idea of not punishing the players there now, or the players at all, really. Not their fault. Totally agree.

But this is about the idea that this program, and the people running it, do not deserve the publicity of having a football team. They do not deserve the joys. They do not deserve the attention. They failed a basic human trust. They have forfeited their right to compete in college football ever again.

They need to get back to being an educational institution. The first step in that is learning a lesson themselves.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

It's clear, after seeing the emails, that the FOOTBALL PROGRAM was more important the welfare of innocent kids. How in the world do not not SERVERELY punish the FOOTBALL PROGRAM?

I don't understand the argument that you shouldn't punish today's players for something that occurred in the past. Look at our APR ban for God's sake.

Need a break from football for a couple of years in Happy Valley.

I hope this doesn't come across as trivializing the events by reducing heinous crimes to football related NCAA punishments. The fact is that I can't find vitriol or invective to describe the outrage. The crimes committed by Sandusky and Penn State are the worst I've ever heard of within the context of college sports. In my opinion, what has happened at Penn State is worse than murder.

Anyway, Just finished an article in the "NY Post," headlined as:
"Penn State officials decided against reporting Sandusky after talking with Paterno: report"

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/paterno_state_officials_decided_kVnfE2jadPcimAxScrJccM#ixzz1zIRNSvkc​

If true (it is the "Post"), it means that the defenders of Paterno can no longer argue that the coach reported the incident to his superiors; on its face, a worthless argument, anyway. Sure he reported "it" to his superiors (were they really?). It seems that Joe forgot to mention that he successfully lobbied to keep the whole sordid mess under wraps during his "report."​

While reading this thread I have always had one question: What, if anything, in it's by-laws allows the NCAA to get involved. Now that that there is evidence that the cover-up was led by Paterno, it has become a football matter related to the programs image especially as that image relates to Penn State maintaining it's ability to recruit. The NCAA is judge, jury, appeal hearer and executioner on all things related to recruiting. Further more, no NCAA violation I know of, including the SMU violations comes close to Sandusky's actions or the subsequent cover-up. Nothing!​

 

[businesslawyer]

This is a perfectly rational position, and I understand it. But I strongly disagree. The NCAA can't implement rules that don't have at times serious collateral damage on the then players and fanbase of institutions. But if you don't allow for the collateral damage, there will not be tools for making anyone care about the rules.

This is why, as to the hoops APR, you never heard me say this was unfair to the current team. It is, but tough cookies. My problem with the APR punishment is that it's implementation counted years before the penalty for noncompliance was announced, and that having done so the NCAA is not doing everything in its power to lessen the impact of that by counting more recent academic years where the results are available.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

You are the one defending the cover up of a serial, child rapist, not me. I don't know where you get "not concerned with the victims for the families" bs. Are you more concerned for the victims because you think the school that enabled their rape should not be punished? How exactly does that work?

By your logic, no one from a program you deem "inferior" to Penn State can opine on the appropriate punishment of a school that concealed a serial child rapist. I can not begin to explain how you reach THAT conclusion.

I am not sure whether to give you credit for these mind-bending logical gymnastics, or accuse you of being a sociopath. I actually don't think you are smart enough to understand your own position, so I will just give you a pass on a post that is so warped that it is offensive.

 

[freescooter]

There is virtually no way to apply as penalty to a program caught violating the rules without penalizing "innocent" players. In the USC situation, Reggie Bush was long gone, for the NFL, as was Pete Carroll, before penalties were applied to USC. The NCAA has no mechanism, nor can one really be devised to penalize players and coaches and administrators who leave before the penalty is applied...further the penalty applies to the institution and the team which commits the violation, and it is applied on a going forward basis for the most part. So if a team loses scholarships, obivously it means that they have fewer to offer future players, likewise a bowl ban applies ot future bowls. You can disallow certain past results, but you can't "unplay" the games. The only meaningful way you can penalize a team is to deprive them of future benefits and by definition that impacts future, and thus likely innocent, players.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I get the idea of not punishing the players there now, or the players at all, really. Not their fault. Totally agree.

But this is about the idea that this program, and the people running it, do not deserve the publicity of having a football team. They do not deserve the joys. They do not deserve the attention. They failed a basic human trust. They have forfeited their right to compete in college football ever again.

They need to get back to being an educational institution. The first step in that is learning a lesson themselves.

WingU thinks you should shut up because you are a UConn fan.

 

[businesslawyer]

WingU thinks you should shut up because you are a UConn fan.

Well, that was a helpful addition to the discussion.

 

[Husky68]

Want this to go to court and have these 3 have to explain what "humane" means related to dealing with Sandusky. Not sure why, but am not buying the "implications" of what happened in the meeting with Paterno that it had to be that paterno suggested not turning Sandusky in to authorities. I've been wrong about public sports figures before, but this would be really, really disappointing.

 

[Santini35]

There is virtually no way to apply as penalty to a program caught violating the rules without penalizing "innocent" players. In the USC situation, Reggie Bush was long gone, for the NFL, as was Pete Carroll, before penalties were applied to USC. The NCAA has no mechanism, nor can one really be devised to penalize players and coaches and administrators who leave before the penalty is applied...further the penalty applies to the institution and the team which commits the violation, and it is applied on a going forward basis for the most part. So if a team loses scholarships, obivously it means that they have fewer to offer future players, likewise a bowl ban applies ot future bowls. You can disallow certain past results, but you can't "unplay" the games. The only meaningful way you can penalize a team is to deprive them of future benefits and by definition that impacts future, and thus likely innocent, players.

One major difference people seem to forget when they use the USC example against others that say UConn's punishment is unfair to innocent players, is that USC's "innocent" players are getting punished for something that WAS against the rules when someone broke them. While in UConn's case, the rules DIDN'T exist when the people who "broke" the rules were here, and our players STILL have to be punished for them.

 

[freescooter]

Two points...#1 and most important, I was talking about Penn State and defending penalizing that program in the future. I can't imagine them getting off scott free for putting protection of the football program ahead of protecting kids. #2. to a degree you miscatagorize the UConn APR situation. UConn was in violation of the rules. It was the punishment that increased. I agree that it unfortunate, but I don't agree that it is unfair to punish "future" athletes for past infractions, whether its APR or recruiting or any other rules violation. There really is no other option unless you figure out how to unplay games.

 

[Johnbuoy]

Well I can seel it's been a slooooow week in the college football world. Had an emergency out of town and didn't get to check the board last week. Finally got to it, and didn't see the addition of too many new and interesting topics. So guess I'll just comment on an old one.

Whether PSU gets the death penalty or some form of it is certainly open for debate. However, I think it's important to remember that the $$$$$$$$ brought in by their fb program allows other sports programs to exist. (I hadn't seen this brought up before, so apologize in advance if it has been.) So the question is whether those other programs can avoid being the victim of a dealth penalty punishment to the fb program? I think most people would say they shouldn't be, but they need the fb $$$$$$$$ to continue. So how this all plays out will be interesting.

On another note, I agree with those persons who think that the NCAA will have to step in and do something and take some form of action against PSU when most of the legal wrangling is over.

Here's a couple of stories that discuss the death penalty. The first indicates if PSU officials did know about it, yet still covered it up doing nothing, then the death penalty is an option.
Legal experts: New evidence of cover-up reflects grim future for Penn State football

http://blog.pennlive.com/patriotnewssports/2012/06/new_evidence_of_cover-up_shows.html

Could Penn State face the death penalty because it protected Jerry Sandusky?

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/06/could_penn_state_face_the_deat.html

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Until the email leak, you did not think the institution should be punished at all, just a few individuals. Of course, the two most culpable individuals in the whole mess are either in jail for the rest of their life or dead, so I am not sure what additional punishment can be meted out by the NCAA.

Read the post I copied before you tell me what you did and didn't say. If you want to change your position, just say you are changing your position, but don't accuse me of mischaracterizing your words. Your post from last Tuesday was crystal clear.

 

[businesslawyer]

Now you've been caught fibbing. No one believes that when you called him a moron you were being sarcastic!

 

[ZooCougar]

It's nice to see Nelson going full Nelson Muntz with the fallacies.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The money line is that I want to punish Penn State because UConn can't compete with Penn State. This is the kind of argument WingU uses to defend Penn State.