Breaking: NCAA Announces PSU’s Punishment
They announced these sanctions live this morning, from USA Today:
NCAA President Mark Emmert made the announcement Monday morning that the program would be hit a four-year postseason ban and a $60 million fine.
In addition, the school will be forced to cut 10 scholarships for this season and 20 scholarships for the following four years.
The school will be forced to vacate all wins from 1998-2011, a total of 112 victories.
Not entirely sure what this all means, but what do you think?
I guess the vacated wins is a slap at the ghost of Joe Paterno. It knocks him down on the all time wins list or something.
He was third, now he is 11th, just behind Harold R. “Tubby” Raymond. That seems to matter to some people.
I guess he lost all those games retroactively. That’ll teach Joe Paterno a lesson.
I’d like to know what it means to “vacate” a win. Does it count as a loss for Penn State and a win for the other team? Or is it like the game was never played? How does that cascade through the record books and affect other teams?
It’s severe, but I think they hit the wrong targets. But at least it might help their football world focus on making sure it never happens again.
Now there needs to be a panel to develop new controls for all NCAA programs, not just Penn State. And not just focusing on perverts, but on better financial controls and on reducing the undue influence of big football on the schools, which is probably the root problem.
The punishment of child abuser Joe Paterno is complete!
er…
ESPN reports that the fine is to be paid into an endowment for
On second thought, never mind.
@puck: Given the breadth and severity of the issues, I’d say it would have been near impossible to hit only the right targets.
Vacating all those wins over 13 seasons is sort of a hollow punishment. Yes, it diminishes Paterno’s record, and I believe that is appropriate, but it doesn’t change the fact that the athletes on the field will forever remember “the day we whipped (Ohio State/Notre Dame/Michigan, etc.).” And I’m confident those players don’t see any point to the victories being vacated.
I think the fine is appropriate, as well as the bowl ban. The scholarship restrictions will have an impact on the Penn State program for much more than four years–and well it should. I think this will be the real test of the “We Are Penn State” crowd. Will they stick behind a team of largely non-scholarship players as they get chewed up by Big Ten competition for five years or more?
If Penn State football falls to second-class status for a decade or more, that would offer some sort of equivalency, at least time-wise, to the duration that Paterno and others tolerated such heinous activities.
No penalty, however, can match the suffering the victims and their families endured.
The NCAA penalty is an imperfect attempt to balance the scales. I would like to see how Penn State responds. Hopefully not with an appeal, not with lame acceptance, but rather with some positive action of their own — voluntarily shutting down the FB program for a year or two, or perhaps matching the fine with a contribution of their own.
The NCAA is fully aware that no punishment it can mete out will diminish the pain felt by victims of Jerry Sandusky. What the NCAA is doing is punishing Penn State for the cover up of the entire matter and instituting some corrective measures. Overall, I think the NCAA got it right.
The fine will take the revenue of one football season and appropriate it to child abuse prevention. Penn State can easily afford this. None of the non-revenue sports can be affected by this fine. That is a good move because it would have been easy for Penn State to eliminate a few minor sports and use the fine to justify their move.
The impact of the bowl ban is obvious. The major bowls are extremely lucrative. By not being eligible for bowls, Penn State is also not eligible for the Big Ten championship, nor for any revenue-sharing among conference members. So when Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio State are making money for Northwestern, Indiana and the rest of the Big 10, Penn State won’t make a cent.
The reduction of scholarships will hurt for the next 8-10 years. Penn State will not be able to give free rides to as many blue-chippers who see college football as their ticket to an education and a possible pro career. Less talent equals fewer wins, which means fewer recruits are likely to want to go there.
NCAA penalties rarely punish the people responsible for the crime, as is the case here. But they do send a message. I hope Penn State is listening.
Big-time college football is an embarrassment to higher education and all of us.
“I hope Penn State is listening.”
The message isn’t for Penn State. It’s for everybody else, and the penalties were stiff to avoid public outcry over not applying the so-called “death penalty.”
Mike, you’re right that it will be at least 10 years before the program can hope to return to its former level, and I think in practice it will take many more beyond. This means that the boomer portion of its fan base may never see PSU in a game of national import again. For that reason alone, I’m expecting a loud outcry against what diehards will call “overkill.”
I hope the PSU alumni do not take the opportunity to turn Paterno into a martyr. The squawking from the Paterno family is actually counterproductive in that regard, IMHO.
What JM said too, also.
Oh please, someone tell the Paterno family to stop talking.
Not just the Paternos … The former PSU president has to shut up too.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8192066/graham-spanier-wants-set-record-straight-penn-state-nittany-lions-board-trustees
And I was hoping that the NCAA would suspend all college football for a year.
and alum need to shut up. I cant tell you how many self-centered ignorant jerks have decided to make this about them and their PSU experience. if MY alma-matter was involved in crap like this, id burn my degree and post a video of it. Just goes to show how truly deranged that whole place is…. they STILL dont understand that some things are more important than football.
The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.
I was looking up “nittany” and found this…
Sue Patterno vandalized a statue and framed Syracusians for it. That was 20 years prior to Spicoli wrecking Charles Jefferson’s car and pinning it on Lincoln High.
Joe and men like him advanced Child rape and where does the current governor of Pa fit into this picture????
It would have been better if some Cardinals and Bishops got big fines and did a little jail time. Some of them need to become some bad man’s girl friend for a while.