Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The NCAA announced sanctions on Monday morning in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal and the cover-up by Penn State officials.
NCAA president Mark Emmert revealed that a multi-year "death penalty" (suspension of play) was seriously considered by the NCAA, but the NCAA decided upon sanctions that were not just punitive but corrective of the sports culture at Penn State. Some argue that the penalties imposed are a fate worse than the death penalty because the sanctions affect the past legacy of Joe Paterno, the current football program, and the future ability of Penn State to put a competitive football program on the field for years to come.
The NCAA revealed the sanctions as NCAA president Mark Emmert and Ed Ray, the chairman of the NCAA's executive committee and Oregon State's president, spoke at a news conference in Indianapolis at the organization's headquarters. Penn State Nittany Lions hit with $60 million fine, 4-year bowl ban, wins dating to 1998 - ESPN:
"In the Penn State case, the results were perverse and unconscionable," Emmert said.
"No price the NCAA can levy with repair the damage inflicted by Jerry Sandusky on his victims," he said, referring to the former Penn State defensive coordinator convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse last month.
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The NCAA has hit Penn State with a $60 million sanction, a four-year football postseason ban and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998, the organization said Monday morning.
The career record of Joe Paterno will reflect these vacated records, the NCAA said.
Penn State must also reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period.
The NCAA said the $60 million was equivalent to the average annual revenue of the football program. [$12 million per year for 5 years.] The NCAA ordered Penn State to pay the penalty funds into an endowment for "external programs preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims and may not be used to fund such programs at the university."
[The fine also may not come out of other sports programs or reduce scholarships to athletes.]
With the wins from 1998-2011 vacated, Paterno drops from 409 wins to 298, dropping him from first to 12th on the winningest NCAA football coach list. Penn State will also have six bowl wins and two conference championships erased.
The Penn State athletic program will also be put on five-year probation and must work with an athletic-integrity monitor of NCAA's choosing.
[Under NCAA rules covering postseason bans, players are allowed to transfer without sitting out a season as long as their remaining eligibility is shorter than or equal to the length of the ban.]
"There is incredible interest in what will happen to Penn State football," Ray said at the news conference. "But the fundamental chapter of this horrific story should focus on the innocent children and and the powerful people who let them down."
The Big Ten will also sanction Penn State. The conference has called an 11 a.m. ET news conference to announce to league-related penalties.
The NCAA used the Freeh report -- commissioned by the school's board of trustees, and its findings and conclusions accepted by the trustees -- as well as evidence from the criminal trial of Jerry Sandusky, rather than conducting its own NCAA investigation. NCAA president Mark Emmert said these investigations are far more thorough than any investigation the NCAA could have conducted.
"We cannot look to NCAA history to determine how to handle circumstances so disturbing, shocking and disappointing," Emmert said in the statement. "As the individuals charged with governing college sports, we have a responsibility to act. These events should serve as a call to every single school and athletics department to take an honest look at its campus environment and eradicate the 'sports are king' mindset that can so dramatically cloud the judgement of educators."
NCAA Division I Board of Directors and/or the NCAA Executive Committee granted Emmert the authority to punish through the nontraditional methods.
"It was a unanimous act," Ray said. "We needed to act."
This is an unprecedented action. The NCAA is dealing with a case that is outside its traditional rules or infraction process. This case does not fall within the fundamental purposes of NCAA regulations. The NCAA has never gotten involved in punishing schools for criminal behavior.
There already is push back to the sanctions from Nittany Lion nation.
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