Penn State Report

[Weird Harold]

--for 4 years can only have 20 football scholarships--and those at less-than-normal limits.

ESPNRadio is reporting a loss of 20 scholarships/year; down to 65 scholarships from the normal 85.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

ESPNRadio is reporting a loss of 20 scholarships/year; down to 65 scholarships from the normal 85.

Actually, it is a limit of 15 scholarships per year (down from the normal 25), and a total of 65 scholarships (down from 85)

 

[sr71plt]

ESPNRadio is reporting a loss of 20 scholarships/year; down to 65 scholarships from the normal 85.

Thanks. I easily could have misinterpreted the mumbo jumbo I was reading in the press release on that.

 

[Hubs_in_hose]

The best idea I heard for punishing PSU (that wasn't implemented) was for them to continue as normal but for all earnings from the football team to be sent to child abuse prevention/recovery programs. Maybe have four years of earnings forfeited (TV, bowl, attendance, merchandise, etc) would have been a better punishment.

 

[sr71plt]

The best idea I heard for punishing PSU (that wasn't implemented) was for them to continue as normal but for all earnings from the football team to be sent to child abuse prevention/recovery programs. Maybe have four years of earnings forfeited (TV, bowl, attendance, merchandise, etc) would have been a better punishment.

It is an interesting queston of what the NCAA will do with the penalty money.

 

[PennLady]

It is an interesting queston of what the NCAA will do with the penalty money.

According to an article at Philly.com:

Emmert said today the NCAA's executive committee based its unprecedented $60 million fine on the football program's annual revenue. The money will go to an endowment for nonuniversity programs preventing child sexual abuse, he said.

For scholarships, an ESPN article said:

Penn State also must reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Never in my life have I ever thought to hear these words in any organised sport;

"For the next several years PSU can focus on rebuilding its athletic culture, not worrying about whether it's going to a bowl game,"

Thank you, Emmert.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for this.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Never in my life have I ever thought to hear these words in any organised sport;

Thank you, Emmert.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for this.

So Penn State can rebuild it's culture--whoopdy-do.

I think Deadspin had a good take on how, in the grand scheme of things, this really changes nothing:

. . . there's nothing more ridiculous than watching the NCAA parade around its values and make frowny faces on national television . . . . Blowing up Penn State gives perfect cover for every other big football school that is now, to use NCAA president Mark Emmert's phrase, "too big to fail," which describes all of them, and which describes the NCAA, too, while we're at it. It creates the illusion that everything is on the up-and-up again, and that other schools will see Penn State and totally get it now (they won't). . . .

The next great college sports scandal isn't gonna be at Penn State. It'll be at some other asshole school where the head coach still has too much power and the football program still makes too much money. There's no "stark wake-up call." The system is still fucked, and nothing the NCAA did today will do anything to change that. It only serves to extend the fucked-upness a touch longer. Among the many sick ironies of the Penn State saga is the fact that it was horrible enough to be considered by everyone a terrific anomaly. It wasn't. Sandusky's crime was, but the scandal that ensued was about concentrated power and institutional capture and all the shitty things enabled by the durable belief that the goals of big-time sports and higher education are at all reconcilable. The next great college sports scandal won't be about child rape. It'll be a different kind of awful. A school will get caught in a Bulgarian sex slave ring. A coach will turn out to be embezzling funds from AIDS babies. An AD will turn out to have ties to the Hezbollah. And whenever that new scandal happens, you can bet the NCAA will be there again, ready to put a band-aid on an amputated head.

(My bold)

Yes, we can all agree that Sandusky was the criminal, and that the coaches and ADs etc that covered up for him were criminal too. But the root cause that allowed this criminality to take place and flourish is the culture of college athletics, which is as much an NCAA problem as it is a Penn State problem.

That isn't solved by punishing a specific team at a specific school (though hey, I'm glad to see the NCAA putting that $60 million to good use). It's solved by completely overhauling the way the NCAA handles DI sports, specifically football and basketball.

And that is something the NCAA is not willing to do.

And it's frankly why I agreed with Ta-Nahisi Coates's op-ed in the NY Times about why the statue should be left up.

 

[sr71plt]

And it's frankly why I agreed with Ta-Nahisi Coates's op-ed in the NY Times about why the statue should be left up.

So, you didn't like my idea of propping it up next to the kitchen door in a cheap Italian restaurant?

 

[lovecraft68]

So, you didn't like my idea of propping it up next to the kitchen door in a cheap Italian restaurant?

I think they should use it to scare kids at Spooky world.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

So, you didn't like my idea of propping it up next to the kitchen door in a cheap Italian restaurant?

It would make a nice coat rack somewhere.

 

[lovecraft68]

Actually there is one totally perfect place for the Paterno statue.

Right in front of the Vatican. You know the other powerful institution that covers up and condones the abuse of children?

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

So, you didn't like my idea of propping it up next to the kitchen door in a cheap Italian restaurant?

I suppose that would be my second choice.

Though after having dined in "Italian" restaurants near Happy Valley, I know just how much of a punishment that would be.

 

[DeeZire]

They should move the Paterno statue under a tree, so that in time it will be completely covered in bird shit.

 

[jomar]

The statue is down and the NCAA has slapped Penn State with the following:

--$60 million fine (that will keep the well-heeled alumni Paterno fanatics busy raising penalty money).

--Out of the football post season for 4 years (assuming it could make it there with all else that was levied).

--for 4 years can only have 20 football scholarships--and those at less-than-normal limits.

--school on sports probation for 5 years.

--Any current or incoming football players are free to transfer immediately.

NCAA president Mark Emmert: "Football will never again be placed ahead of educationg, nurturing, and protecting young people."

They also forfeited something like 112 games so Paterno is no longer the winningest D1 coach.

 

[DeeZire]

One way to look at it - it was the entity (the football program) that drove Paterno and the others to cover up the crimes. This cover up enabled Sandusky to harm even more victims. Wouldn't that make the entity guilty of aiding and abetting a crime? Shouldn't that entity have to face the same penalty as the perp? I think this is the point some of us are overlooking. In this light, the NCAA penalties are a joke. The entity should face the same penalty as an individual who aids and abets a criminal act: Incarceration. Obviously, you can't incarcerate a football program, but you can take away its freedom to operate.

The economic argument - that the local economy will suffer if the football program is shut down - is totally immoral. It's like saying we can't incarcerate a drug dealer because the economy he creates on his local street corner will suffer while he's locked up. The economy is not the point, the penalty is the point. If certain important people (or entities) get to avoid penalties for criminal behavior while every one else has to suffer the penalties, why even have penalties in the first place? Why not just allow anarchy, with all important decisions based on monetary concerns without any regard for morality? Oh wait, I just described free market capitalism.

Nevermind.

 

[sr71plt]

A $60 million penalty on top of all the money the victims are probably going to successfully sue Penn State for could pretty much put the school--not just the football program--out of business.

 

[PennLady]

A $60 million penalty on top of all the money the victims are probably going to successfully sue Penn State for could pretty much put the school--not just the football program--out of business.

When all this broke, I read a couple of columns that said the same thing. I believe one was by Allen Barra; I should see if I could find the link.

 

[scouries]

They also forfeited something like 112 games so Paterno is no longer the winningest D1 coach.

http://www.foxsportsflorida.com/common/medialib/264/578300.jpg
bobby b and joe pa …

…as a result, former Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden‘s 377 are the new standard for FBS head football coaches. Ironically, Bowden was forced to vacate 12 wins from his total by the NCAA as part of the organization’s sanctions against FSU in 2009.

http://bloguin.com/crystalballrun/images/stories/bobby_bowden.jpg

Those guys in Tallahassee would do anything to win a game!​

 

[PennLady]

So I found this column this morning, and it makes some possibly interesting points. I can't argue against it too well as I haven't read the entire Freeh report. Be warned, it defends Joe Paterno. Not in a "JoePa is number one way!" It refutes the report. I can't say I agree, but I think it's almost always worth looking at the opposite view.

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20120724_In_defense_of_Joe_Paterno.html