Penn state report

The taxpayers of the state may want to consider closing the entire school before the lawyers arrive.

What NCAA rules were broken that would allow the NCAA to take such an action? They can't enforce criminal penalties, can they?

If they punish schools for inappropriate giving to recruits, how on earth could they NOT give PSU a death penalty for covering up a pedophile for all these years if it's found that the Big 4 knew all along??

Report: PSU officials discussed reporting Sandusky

If they do uncover that they knew which includes Joe Pa, Im gonna have to change my avatar signature! Doggone it.

Read the Freeh Report

YGD- Looks like you'll be having to change that signature...

the Freeh Report

Case for the death penality

I don't agree with the death penalty because you are going to punish a lot of people who had absolutely nothing to do with Sandusky and his garbage. The main people involved were at the main top of the school so there was really nobody above them to check and balance them. They are all gone through being fired, retired, resigned of dead - so who's left to be punished?

Bring in a whole new coaching staff (which they almost have done I believe) and work towards moving on.

Penn State University did not do anything wrong. Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz were the ones who did the horrible things that happened. Punish them and tarnish who they are because they deserve it.

You take away football and how many secretaries lose their jobs and had nothing to do with it? There will be a lot of people looking for work in a time when it's hard to get jobs because of 4 or 5 people. I can't see the logic in that.

Southern Methodist University, one of the nation’s top academic schools, saw its football program given the death penalty in 1987 because it put athletic success above what so obviously was considered morally acceptable. Isn’t it now clear that Penn State did the exact same thing?

This is a very weak connection, if a connection at all. SMU paid players. SMU gave players cars. PSU had criminal activty on campus that had nothing to do with competitive advantage. The university (and the state) will pay the price. Wait until the civil charges start.

coach- What about all the schools that are penalized by having their NCAA tournament eligibility stripped over a recruiting violation? What about SMU football, who had the death penalty in the '80s because of massive illegal benefits? Those influence innocent individuals as well.

From 2000-2007, 26 Georgetown baseball players received a total of $61,522 in unjustified work-study compensation due to purposeful time-keeping errors. From this, the entire athletic department was placed on a three year probation and the baseball program is still not fully-funded, 6 years later. ( http://georgetownvoice.com/200...jor-ncaa-violations/)

Enron had 20,000 employees who were mostly innocent as well (I realize there are extenuating financial circumstances, but I wanted to offer a parallel outside of sports)...

Right or wrong, the example is set on the institution. And the people who ran the PSU institution for many, many years are more guilty than any institution in any other scenario I've been made aware of.

If y'all recall I came down really hard on Sandusky and the others who looked the other way.

As long as they are punished I feel like justice is done. If Penn State (and possibly other schools) take measures to prevent any future abuse of this nature then the NCAA should not subject them to medieval consequences. (Not a big fan of the NCAA because I feel they over reach/react on somethings, while other situations they let slide on by.) The NCAA probably will feel they have to make some kind of statement with how they handle this. Free tattoos and selling jerseys pale in comparison ... and with the whole nation watching....

eta, posting with JH did - completely agree - the bar was set so high, the NCAA will feel it has no choice. Though the players are completely innocent in this case - in the past entire programs punished for the actions of a few.

Not only that but SMU got caught continuing to pay players after the were caught and punished. In one of the recent documentaries on SMU it was stated that the NCAA would not be likely to institute the death penalty because it was so devastating. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Can you imagine a Texas university (SMU) had a s0ccer match as the main event for homecoming. It's all SMU had after the death penalty.

JH you make some valid points (as always) but to get more at my ideas I'm not a big fan of holding the institutions at fault for individuals. No matter the situation or violation it can be traced back to a very small percentage of people who did the wrong versus a very large number of people who are completely innocent.

I was a little too young when the SMU thing went down but there was an ESPN 30 / 30 (whatever it's called) on the whole thing. It was wrong to give SMU the death penalty because it was a select few who were doing wrong. Without football money coming in what do you think it did to SMU's minor sports? Why should they be punished for what football coaches and administrators did?

In your Georgetown example players going there today in 2012 are being punished for something that happened 6 years ago....why?

I'm not feeling your Enron example either because those 20,000 lost their job because they money to pay them was gone (I'm simplifying a very complicated situation here).

The NCAA has the power to ban people from working at member institutions. That is how they should work towards punishing violations. Today if a school / team commits a violation in something like recruiting what happens - they get on probation, pay a fee / pay back money, get stripped of whatever trophy and lose scholarships. How many times have we've seen a coach find a better school and leave - Pete Carroll and John Calipari are the best examples of this. But imagine this - would coaches / administrators be willing to commit violations if they knew the outcome would be a 5 year banishment or if severe enough banishment for life?

Like RJM said once the civil lawsuits start coming in Penn State is screwed.

I'm just not a fan of blanket punishments but I realize the reality of the situation and the NCAA is probably going to drop a very big hammer on Penn State.

I'd also like to add something in here before any potential conclusions are come to. I don't know if they will be, but I'll say it nonetheless.

A few weeks ago in my Applied Ethics class, we had a presentation on employees as a stakeholder in a case study. Being that the curriculum is geared towards sports, the employees in focus were athletes.

One of the athletes that joined us as a guest speaker was Evan Royster, the current Redskin who is Penn State's all-time leading rusher. We asked about Sandusky (previous to this report coming out, obviously), and he was quite brief and visibly emotional. The one resounding statement that he repeated twice was: "The thing that upset my teammates and me the most was that Sandusky was still around and using all our facilities. The Second Mile kids were always there. And none of us knew."

I can't speak for any of the players in previous years, but for the four years that Royster was in State College, he made it pretty clear there was no knowledge from the players.

coach- All valid points. I agree that the innocent should not be punished. As always.

Georgetown baseball, or any other program that has been under scrutiny for violations, has been penalized accordingly because that is the simplest outlet for the NCAA to target. As an organization, the NCAA does not view student-athletes as individuals, but rather an athletic department as one singular entity. If there are violations within said department, all are punished. I'm as opposed to the NCAA's ridiculousness as everyone else, but until there is an alternative that they can find that is as influential and dismembering of that said athletic department as an institution in order to (hopefully) diminish any chance of a future repeat offense, I don't really know of an alternative.

From a P.R. standpoint, the NCAA may not have a choice in this thing. The country is extremely emotional and angered by all of the news. The NCAA most likely feels like they need to do something. They punished SMU football for what turned out to be two decades worth of struggle due to money being passed around behind closed doors. This is a whole different animal.

quote:

Originally posted by RJM:
Southern Methodist University, one of the nation’s top academic schools, saw its football program given the death penalty in 1987 because it put athletic success above what so obviously was considered morally acceptable. Isn’t it now clear that Penn State did the exact same thing?

This is a very weak connection, if a connection at all. SMU paid players. SMU gave players cars. PSU had criminal activty on campus that had nothing to do with competitive advantage. The university (and the state) will pay the price. Wait until the civil charges start.

I think that's the correct read on this. There is no connection to SMU at all.

JH I got nothing on your first paragraph because I agree that's how it is. And it seems like we are in the same boat in that the NCAA is wrong.

In your PR example that is what's going to happen because it's the easiest thing to do but it's not the right thing to do. To me, and I know others will disagree, is for the NCAA to have a press conference on ESPN and say something to the effects that PSU did nothing wrong and they will not be punished. But the 4 or 5 people who stood by, covered up or whatever they are guilty of will never coach at an NCAA institution again. But that won't happen because there are too many in the nation who won't or cannot seperate the school from the individuals.

On a seperate note I think it would be perfectly acceptable if all those involved have to register as *** offenders for the rest of their life.

Hmmmm,
lack of Institutional Control.
The most powerful officials,(men) at Penn State failed to take action for 14 years.
Those men included the President, AD and head football coach, each of whom acted to protect the football program, and perhaps Sandusky.
How can there be any more social, moral and institutional lack of control in a college program?
This isn't SMU, Ohio State or any other situation.
It is, so sadly, unique in the totality of harm resulting from actions and inactions of those at the highest levels.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” English philosopher Edmund Burke

Tx-Husker- I'd go further by saying that they cannot be classified as "good men". They didn't turn a blind eye to Sandusky's actions. They deliberately enabled the continuation of them by administering a sweeping under the rug. They didn't do nothing. They did something, and it was the wrong thing to do. They were accessories to the ruining of many lives that could have easily been avoided if they had done the right thing in the first place.

They aren't as condemnable as Sandusky. But they're a close second.

I wasn't referring to those 4 men specifically so much as that statement is very true. And, any of us could find ourselves in a situation where we could choose to do something or do nothing. Doing nothing is the wrong call. Doing what they did to cover things up is clearly worst. Not enough people today are prepared to do something...far too many are comfortable doing nothing.

quote:

Not enough people today are prepared to do something...far too many are comfortable doing nothing.

I think the NCAA should stick to violations which, in their crazy eyes, affect competitive advantage. SMU was the epitome of that. Almost literally having a payroll for athletes. As bad as this is this was not an issue of competitive advantage. Let the school and the law deal with those involved. The NCAA should stay out of this one.

quote:

Originally posted by coach2709:
JH you make some valid points (as always) but to get more at my ideas I'm not a big fan of holding the institutions at fault for individuals. No matter the situation or violation it can be traced back to a very small percentage of people who did the wrong versus a very large number of people who are completely innocent.

Here is what I would say--

If it wasn't for the institution, this could not have happened. The existence of the institution was an enabling factor for the crimes of this magnitude to occur. The institution provided a victim pool, a venue, and the means by which these acts were perpetrated.

Furthermore, every rabid Penn State fan enabled this, unintentionally. The more that a program is put on a pedestal, the greater the incentive for covering up scandal and allowing it to continue behind the scenes. The popularity of PSU football and Joe Paterno is, at the root, the cause of the lack of action.

Lastly, regarding the NCAA, this is a situation in which I am torn. While it was not an issue of athletic rules or competitive advantage, it is precisely the fact that it was an athletic program that enabled this to occur.

For those saying this case is not about competitive advantage - that's entirely what it is about!

Joe Paterno was worried how the public would react if they outed Sandusky and worried about how that would impact RECRUITING (i.e., competitive advantage). Joe Paterno was the most powerful man at Penn State. He even hand-picked people on the board of directors. Nobody challenged his authority.

Talk about a lack of institutional control? At Ohio State, a few kids traded tatoos for autographs and the coach tried to cover that up. He got fired and the school is on probation this year from post-season competition. At Penn State, they covered up pedophilia and rape for over a decade. Worse yet, they allowed this predator full access to continue his nefarious deeds. Even worse than Jerry Sandusky in this whole mess is Joe Paterno - creepy Joe Paterno. So worried about his image and how that may impact recruiting he ignored and ultimately facilitated a monster on campus. This is the epitome of a "lack of institutional control" as the NCAA likes to deem death penalty cases. Anything other than the death penalty would be grossly ineffective and offensive to my sense of the crimes here.

As to the secrataries and other support personel who might lose their jobs - I feel your pain but that is life. When GM lays off workers, they have to pick themselves up and find other employment. No job should be guaranteed because you are innocent of organizational mismanagment or in the case of Penn State felonious activities (including criminal neglect) to save embarrassment to their hallowed football team. Joe Paterno has more to answer for in the next life than Jerry Sandusky imho.

Great post CD

I agree infielddad. Those 4 men concealed egregious crimes to protect themselves and their football program. Penn State should get the NCAA death penalty IMHO.

The athletic collateral damage is nothing compared to the human collateral damage. Those athletes can transfer, and I wish them well where ever they land. But, what do you tell the young men that were raped a bunch of years ago by a man associated with Penn State football. There isn't much to say. I hope they can get the councelling & care they need so they can try to put together their lives.

For me, it is a no brainer.

Cleveland Dad is right on the money here. It IS all about competitive edge. This is what Paterno was protecting by allowing Sandusky to do his thing. Paterno abused his power in the most corrupt way and the death penalty for PSU is the only way. On top of that, all the administrators need to be ousted and an entirely new administration with no toes to Paterno or anyone else linked to this. If secretaries and other collateral damage results from this, then so what. When a CEO runs a company aground, the workers are the ones who pay while the CEO receives a multi-million dollar obscene golden parachute for their efforts. It's always been that way

It has to be the death penalty... There is no other way.

The "institutional control" rule only applies as it relates specifically to violation of NCAA rules. I have yet to hear the specific NCAA rules that people think PSU violated.

This situation sounds a lot more like the Baylor basketball situation in the early 2000s. There was a murder coverup there. The NCAA started investigating when the murder/coverup/conviction broke. But I think the NCAA didn't penalize the school for that, they penalized them for other infractions (improper payments, etc) found in their investigation. I believe the NCAA did force Coach Bliss to resign in the process.

You guys make a good argument about the death penalty due to lack of institutional control. But I don't agree that this was about competitive edge. If Paterno would have done the right thing here from day one his "pristine" reputation would have become more solid. "Joe Pa does the right thing". Recruits and there parents might have felt more secure knowing that Paterno was who they heard he was, and that could have helped recruiting.

quote:

Originally posted by Tx-Husker:I have yet to hear the specific NCAA rules that people think PSU violated.

This situation sounds a lot more like the Baylor basketball situation in the early 2000s.

In 2003-5 the Baylor University men's basketball program was investigated and punished for numerous NCAA violations. The scandal broke out after the 2003 murder of men's basketball player Patrick Dennehy. His teammate, Carlton Dotson was convicted of the murder and sentenced to a 35-year prison term.

Shortly after Dennehy's disappearance, the school and the NCAA began investigations into multiple allegations, ranging from drug use among players to improper payments to players by the coaching staff. Baylor self-imposed punishments, which the NCAA augmented to include extended probation for the school through 2010, the elimination of one year of non-conference play, and a 10-year show-cause penalty on resigned head coach Dave Bliss. The sanctions so crippled the Bears that they didn't have another winning season until 2008. It is one of the harshest penalties ever imposed on a Division I program that didn't include a death penalty.

The Baylor situation pales in comparison to what has gone on at PSU... The absurd culture at PSU allowed an employee to rape young boys over the course of decades...

They broke so many 'life-rules'... NCAA violations, again, simply pale in comparison.

Well, the 1st thing that should be understood is, the “death penalty” doesn’t mean death at all. It means a GAME won’t be engaged in for a year. Big deal! It’s a college, and its purpose it to provide an education to those who come there seeking it. If football is what some consider to be an invaluable part of that education, that’s fine, they can certainly attend any one of several hundred other institutions that offer football.

It should really be called the “zombie” or “Frankenstein” penalty, because once its over, the entire program can be resurrected and walk again. In PSU’s case, would that be difficult? You bet it would, and rightfully so because the crime was so heinous. But, good people working hard and honestly would easily be able to put the program back on its feet, and then only time will determine its final status among elite programs.

As for the people who would supposedly lose their jobs over the program being shut down for a year, there’s no reason even one person has to lose employment. I’m guessing the school has made enough off the FB program over the last 50 years or so to keep everyone who wasn’t needed for the FB program employed for a year, without batting an eyelash. In fact, it would be a sound 1st step in rehabilitation of the image to move all those people it could, to other positions in the school, and if nothing else, provide FREE education and training while receiving pay, so they could enter the job force in some other capacity. And let’s not forget all those PSU alumni. Are you saying there aren’t enough of them in the world in positions of authority where they could provide a job or two to people who lost theirs because of this? Heck, that’s the stuff that makes the world go ‘round!

In the end, is it a bad thing? Of course it is, all the way around, and for everyone involved. But, it can’t go unpunished, otherwise the NCAA loses whatever respect it has left. Here’s what the NCAA calls its “Core Values”. What good would having those core values be if they don’t act very quickly and harshly?

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/co...+values+landing+page

I would assume everyone gets that the death penalty is basically a year suspension. Even still, this is the only solution along with cleaning house of all administration and start fresh in a couple of years. There is no other way

quote:

Well, the 1st thing that should be understood is, the “death penalty” doesn’t mean death at all. It means a GAME won’t be engaged in for a year. Big deal! It’s a college, and its purpose it to provide an education to those who come there seeking it.

Is anyone else this naive? Major college football is a huge money maker for colleges. Why do you think schools left the NCAA for the BCS?

I don't believe Penn State gained a competitive advantage. The advantage they were looking for was protecting the holier than thou, pristine reputation of the coach and the program. Had they turned in Sandusky years ago the beat would have marched on. Plenty of major college sports programs had major issues and didn't miss a beat. The worst they got was a year or two ban from bowl or tournament play and lost a handful of scholarships. Syracuse basketball had a molestation problem with an assistant. The story came out. It isn't hampering their recruiting. I don't believe you'll see the death penalty again because of what it did to SMU football. First and foremost it's a business. Anyone who doesn't believe it is fooling themselves.

quote:

Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:

But, it can’t go unpunished, otherwise the NCAA loses whatever respect it has left.

Perhaps we'll find out if the NCAA cares more about losing respect it doesn't have or money it does have.

quote:

Originally posted by zombywoof:
I would assume everyone gets that the death penalty is basically a year suspension. Even still, this is the only solution along with cleaning house of all administration and start fresh in a couple of years. There is no other way

It took SMU almost 20 years to recover from their death sentence.