Posted on 07/27/2012 12:47:44 PM PDT by FlJoePa
Gotham City (wrongly) believed in Harvey Dent.
Likewise, there are people who (wrongly) believed in NCAA president Mark Emmert.
The heavy sanctions levied by Emmert against Penn State in the aftermath of the Freeh report was a result of public pressure, the justification to satisfy our culture’s bloodlust and demand for instant gratification. Someone needed to get clobbered at Penn State; it didn’t matter who.
The report, a multi-million dollar project spanning eight months investigating Penn State’s (in)action into the Jerry Sandusky allegations, was designed to unearth exactly when and where university officials went wrong, as well as act as a recommendation for new university policy to prevent further malfeasance.
Instead, it became the basis for Emmert’s unprecedented ultimatum to interim PSU president Rodney Erickson: accept a $60 million fine, four-year postseason ban, scholarship reduction and five-year probation — not to mention vacated 111 vacated wins — or get the Death penalty. The whole process bypassed traditional NCAA investigative protocol so fast, it had SEC speed.
In this case, that was too fast. And that’s not just, like, my opinion, man. A member of the Freeh Group told The Chronicle of Higher Education that Emmert misused the Freeh report as a substitute for normal NCAA investigative steps. Below are just some of the quotes to the Chronicle:
“That document was not meant to be used as the sole piece, or the large piece, of the NCAA’s decision-making… It was meant to be a mechanism to help Penn State move forward. To be used otherwise creates an obstacle to the institution changing.” “The Freeh team reviewed how Penn State operated, not how they worked within the NCAA’s system… The NCAA’s job is to investigate whether Penn State broke its rules and whether it gained a competitive advantage in doing so.” “The NCAA took this report and ran with it without further exploration.”
Evidence of the NCAA’s rush to judgement is already tangible. While some coaches are claiming to take the high road of not actively recruiting Penn State players now free to transfer wherever they choose, others are much more open about it. Tennessee, USC, Illinois, Arizona and Kansas are among them.
That’s not a slight against any program pursuing a transfer — they’re doing exactly what they’re allowed to do — but in punishing Penn State officials’ criminal acts with athletic sanctions, the NCAA didn’t reprimanded the “football-first” culture in Happy Valley.
It pushed it elsewhere.
Would that have been avoided if the NCAA had gone through its traditional routine with a Notice of Inquiry, Notice of Allegations and Committee on Infractions hearing? Maybe not. The NCAA can only punish a program in so many ways because it lacks subpoena power. But at least there would have been another review, one the NCAA can directly point to as its own work rather than rely on another’s.
I’ve never been a fan of NCAA involvement with Penn State in this context, but I also realize it’s the governing body of over 300 Division 1 athletic departments. Something was inevitably going to be done.
Besides, the Sandusky story is one filled with missed opportunities and baffling dead ends to investigations that should have gone further. In an ironic twist, though, the NCAA dealt with a program that improperly shifted power to one individual by inflicting punishment in a similar fashion.
Now, anything’s possible with the NCAA outside its normal authority.
Believe it.
He oversaw the academic progress of the LSU athletes (while at LSU) where the football team failed in the classroom much more than they succeeded on the field.
And he's going to lecture me about my "culture"? GFY emmert and freeh
Actually $12 million a year for five years, for a school with an endowment of $1.7 billion.
four-year postseason ban
So they don't go to the Poulan Weedeater Bowl, which is probably the only kind of bowl they would have gone to, anyway.
The NCAA went waaaaaay overboard on this one.
Punishment much too severe.
If Paterno and others had reported Sandusky as soon as they heard the allegations the program wouldn't have been hurt, Paterno would be a hero, and Sandusky's victims throughout the years would have been spared.
PSU will still have a filled football stadium over the next four years. People will spend plenty of money there and everyone will still have a job. They got off easy, IMHO. Paterno got off easy, too, by dying.
Wonder if you’d feel the same way if your son was raped in the shower, the administration knew about it, and the rapist was allowed to keep an office on campus and make tons of money.
Nuke it (PSU) from orbit - that’s the only way to be sure.
What they really did was eliminate any chance that Penn State could tout JoePa’s legacy in the future.
Imagine Alabama not being to tout The Bear’s legacy, I guarantee they would not have won those three Post-Bear titles, had that happened.
There are appropriate criminal and civil penalties. The NCAA violated due process, excess punishment, standing, and relevance principles all over the place. This is an abomination bigtime.
So you don’t think Penn State gained an advantage on the field by covering up Sandusky, over what would have happened if they did the right thing? If the truth about Sandusky got out, how many recruits would they have lost?
They should have gotten worse.
I don’t think the punishment itself was too severe. But now I am starting to wonder if the NCAA had any legal standing to serve up this punishment. I don’t know the legal ins-and-outs of this.
You have now sunk to the ‘everyone is doing it’ defense.
Thus we see the quality of the men who stand up to defend Pedterno and Sandusky. The men from the Penn State athletic department who testified in Sandusky’s defense that there was nothing unusual about a grown man showering with young boys. The students who rioted when Paterno was fired, Paterno who wanted to be “humane” to Sandusky by making sure that real authorities were never notified.
You named yourself online after a child rape enabling scumbag who allowed it to go on FOURTEEN years, with nothing to his credit than that he could coach football!
Pitiful. Your hero was scum. Now he is dead scum.
Due process? We’re not talking about a court of law. This was unprecedented punishment due to the unprecedented nature of PSU’s actions. Would the death penalty have been preferable? They gave that to a school who simply paid it’s players.
Do you wonder why they do not?
Because they got off easy.
And a decision to ignore the NCAA would make them a pariah that nobody who was NCAA sanctioned would play.
“PSU” did not cover up rape anymore that corpoartions pay taxes
PSU is not a person
PSU is tens of thousands of students and thousands of faculty at multiple campuses- mutiplied over a 11 year period is hundreds of thousands of students
a number of MEN on and off the coaching staff and adminstration and the local POLICE covered up rape-
So punish THEM
PSU should have received the four year “death sentence” that would have been levied had the university not signed this agreement. This is by far the most shameful thing that has ever happened in an American university, all for the sake of a football program.
Don’t kid yourselves. That whole damned community was aware of what was going on! The NCAA is sending a message that ought to be heard loudly and clearly by all. I don’t have any sympathy for people who are so immoral that they would sacrifice a child for a footbal program. Screw ‘em!
I’m becoming more convinced that it had less to do with football and more to do with covering up a HUGE pedophile ring. That Sandusky was associasted with the football team, was tangential to the activities of The Second Mile. I wonder whose names were on the “donor” lists from 2000 to 2003 that seem to have gone missing fron TSM files.
To start with football wasn't really an interesting contest at IU ~ they usually lost. Basketball was big time, and that cut them out of all post season play and with that their recruiting for the next 8 years turned to garbage.
Eventually NCAA relented when it came to the IU Swim team going to the Olympics or America losing every swimming event.
So, Penn State had one of its coaches diddling little kids and the other coaches covering it up, and even board members and other administrators seeming to cover up for this and they what?
Oh, this wasn't about a handful of really bad football players getting payoffs ~
I don't think the penalty against Penn was at all consistent with the earlier penalty against Indiana. They got off too easy.
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