Nittany Lions

[DolfanBob]

The NCAA handed down sanctions today that most likely will destroy the Football program at Penn State.
Do you think that it was to much or to little of a punishment for the School?

[AquaMan]

The NCAA handed down sanctions today that most likely will destroy the Football program at Penn State.
Do you think that it was to much or to little of a punishment for the School?

I don't think it will destroy the program. Its serious but not unsurvivable. If that is what it takes to wake up a program whose leaders were seriously into covering up to save their own skins and their program, then fair enough. If it wakes up some other programs then well worth the damage.

I read where Paterno once commented on Barry Switzer when he became head coach at OU. He said college football didn't need that sort of guy. Pretty ironic.

[Conan71]

I really don't get the point in vacating past victories, nor do I think it's appropriate to punish current athletes with sanctions who obviously had nothing to do with the scandal (i.e. no post-season play, cut 10 scholarships).  Simply clear out anyone who had anything to do with the cover-up...and beat the smile out of them. 

JMO

[AquaMan]

PSU should be forced to release players from their scholarship obligations, thereby freeing them up to go play for another program. As far as previous games changed from Won to Lost, that was to keep the coach from having the winningest record in college football, which apparently was won because he stayed so long. Doubtful he would have stayed the last decade had people known he was covering for a pedophile in the program. Pride goeth before a great fall.

[Conan71]

I can understand your POV on Paterno, many people share it.  However, does participation in a cover up on Sandusky negate all the positive influences he brought to other young men's lives as a coach and mentor during his career? 

I do agree there's no excuse for not simply going around his higher ups and to the police in the first place, but Paterno is being treated as if he was the perpetrator of those horrible crimes and that's what I take exception with.

[Breadburner]

Penn St will have to just bend over and take it....!!

[swake]

PSU should be forced to release players from their scholarship obligations, thereby freeing them up to go play for another program. As far as previous games changed from Won to Lost, that was to keep the coach from having the winningest record in college football, which apparently was won because he stayed so long. Doubtful he would have stayed the last decade had people known he was covering for a pedophile in the program. Pride goeth before a great fall.

The players have been released to transfer anywhere, at any time, without penalty.

[RecycleMichael]

20 scholarships gone for four years is pretty harsh.

When USC was found paying athletes a couple of years ago, they lost 10 scholarships for three years.

Normally, a football team will have 85 scholarship players total with another 10 to 30 walk-ons. Penn State plays in a good conference which helps recruiting, but no bowl games hurts recruiting.

Only a couple of dozen players are starters at any one time, so it is doable, just going to be hard.

[cynical]

I have mixed feelings about the sanctions. As was pointed out earlier in this thread and by Barry Switzer, ironically, the sanctions primarily hurt players who had nothing to do with the problem. But what the NCAA was dealing with was an entire institution that had gone off the rails.  Just as economic sanctions against North Korea only hurt the common people there who have no voice in either creating or fixing the despotic reign of the Kim dynasty, one has to start somewhere. It is a shame that the current players are treated as collateral damage, but it was the university that put them in that position.

[sgrizzle]

I can understand your POV on Paterno, many people share it.  However, does participation in a cover up on Sandusky negate all the positive influences he brought to other young men's lives as a coach and mentor during his career?  

Yes.

He achieved those successes by the fact he was willing to let atrocious things go on behind the scenes to protect the precious program.

By your reasoning, Hitler should be given credit for his great leadership abilities.

(Yes, I know, Godwin's law)

[AquaMan]

Yes.

He achieved those successes by the fact he was willing to let atrocious things go on behind the scenes to protect the precious program.

By your reasoning, Hitler should be given credit for his great leadership abilities.

(Yes, I know, Godwin's law)

They knowingly stood by and watched him set up a foundation aimed at being a "positive" influence on young children. They knew why he set up the foundation and how it served his purposes. I am sorry for the University, its fans and its players. This didn't have to happen. Joe was popular enough and strong enough that he could have stopped it in its tracks over a decade ago. Why he didn't is a mystery.

[DTowner]

Most NCAA sanctions punish the "innocent" while the guilty go on their merry way.  Only on rare occasions does the guilty party face any direct punishment.  One instance was Kelvin Sampson's five-year ban from college coaching.  Even then, it took a second flagrant violation of the rules to get that type of punishment and he simply moved on to pro coaching for similar money.  The players who accept improper benefits similarly move on to the pros without any negative consequences.  Since the real money is made by the schools, hurting the school's bottom line it is pretty much the only leverage the NCAA has to enforce the rules.

At first I thought these sanctions would be tantamount to the death penalty in that they would cripple Penn. St.'s football program for years.  The more I think about it, however, the less I think that is likely to happen.  USC received what were described as "severe" sanctions (although less severe than PSU's) and it is expected to be back in the top 10 in its first year back from its bowl ban.  I think PSU's sanctions will hurt it and, if a lot of current players transfer, could cause it to have 3-4 down years.  However, I suspect the boosters will keep pumping money into the program and the coaches will keep selling 18 year olds on the greatness of Penn State tradition, blah, blah, blah.  For the same reason coaches, administrators and the college president turned a blind eye towards the evil in front of them in the first place, the administrators, coaches, fans, and boosters will treat this as nothing more than an inconvenience to be overcome in the ongoing operation of the money factory that defines today's major college sports.

There's a old saying that adding a dog turd to a bowl of ice cream makes the ice cream taste a lot more like the dog turd than vice-a-versa.  In the same way, grafting a billion dollar quasi-professional sports businesses onto colleges makes colleges act a lot more like billion dollar sports businesses than institutions of higher learning.

[swake]

In 1998 even when the criminal charges didn't stick they could have at least fired Sandusky and banned him from the football facilities that he was using as bait. Any normal business when an employee is accused of molesting a child on company property is not waiting for criminal charges to fire and ban someone. They can't do anything else with the potential liability. It's even worse when he admits that the act happened but his defense was that he didn't mean for the naked touching with a non related 10 year old boy in the shower to seem sexually motivated.  I had something similar happen once but with much lesser charges. An employee of mine was arrested and made the evening news for internet child porn. My HR department rep called me that night and had him formally fired and banned from ever stepping foot in company property again before he could walk in the next day. In contrast Penn State did nothing and then a year later gave him a parachute retirement package that not only didn't ban him, it guaranteed he would have continued access to team facilities and specifically allowed him to continue to bring kids with him.

In 2001 any one of these men that knew about what happened in the shower could have ended it all by dialing 911 at any time. The actual witness to the rape waited a day before telling his father?  I had a cell phone in '99, I would not have made it out of the shower without calling the cops, almost anyone would do the same. The witness was not some shocked kid, he was a 27 year old graduate assistant coach. His father doesn't tell him to call the cops, he tells him to go to the football coach. Really? The football coach calls the Athletic Director but waits a day so he doesn't upset the ADs weekend. Seriously, that what Paterno said he did.  Paterno, the witness, the AD and the AD's boss meet and then they talk it over for three weeks. Then they decide to do nothing. They teach grade school kids to dial 911, but that idea was lost on these a$$hats because it would tarnish the football team. Then for ten more years they continued to allow and to watch Sandusky bring more kids to the team's facilities knowing what he was up to.

[erfalf]

Most NCAA sanctions punish the "innocent" while the guilty go on their merry way.  Only on rare occasions does the guilty party face any direct punishment.  One instance was Kelvin Sampson's five-year ban from college coaching.  Even then, it took a second flagrant violation of the rules to get that type of punishment and he simply moved on to pro coaching for similar money.  The players who accept improper benefits similarly move on to the pros without any negative consequences.  Since the real money is made by the schools, hurting the school's bottom line it is pretty much the only leverage the NCAA has to enforce the rules.

At first I thought these sanctions would be tantamount to the death penalty in that they would cripple Penn. St.'s football program for years.  The more I think about it, however, the less I think that is likely to happen.  USC received what were described as "severe" sanctions (although less severe than PSU's) and it is expected to be back in the top 10 in its first year back from its bowl ban.  I think PSU's sanctions will hurt it and, if a lot of current players transfer, could cause it to have 3-4 down years.  However, I suspect the boosters will keep pumping money into the program and the coaches will keep selling 18 year olds on the greatness of Penn State tradition, blah, blah, blah.  For the same reason coaches, administrators and the college president turned a blind eye towards the evil in front of them in the first place, the administrators, coaches, fans, and boosters will treat this as nothing more than an inconvenience to be overcome in the ongoing operation of the money factory that defines today's major college sports.

There's a old saying that adding a dog turd to a bowl of ice cream makes the ice cream taste a lot more like the dog turd than vice-a-versa.  In the same way, grafting a billion dollar quasi-professional sports businesses onto colleges makes colleges act a lot more like billion dollar sports businesses than institutions of higher learning.

Maybe they should partner with the professional sports leagues in order to allow for stronger enforcement of rules? Good idea?

In this case, no punishment that ends up hurting the players would have been appropriate. No player at any point had anything to do with this as far as I know. It is unfortunate, but that's life. It is extremely unfortunate that the NCAA waited until football season was about to start before laying down the hammer. They could have either pushed it up or waited. I mean, we have known about this since last football season. Now the players (who are free to transfer) are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place because of the timing of the decision. That's what really sucks about this whole thing.

[DTowner]

Maybe they should partner with the professional sports leagues in order to allow for stronger enforcement of rules? Good idea?

In this case, no punishment that ends up hurting the players would have been appropriate. No player at any point had anything to do with this as far as I know. It is unfortunate, but that's life. It is extremely unfortunate that the NCAA waited until football season was about to start before laying down the hammer. They could have either pushed it up or waited. I mean, we have known about this since last football season. Now the players (who are free to transfer) are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place because of the timing of the decision. That's what really sucks about this whole thing.

I think the timing reflected the NCAA waiting for the conclusion of the Sandusky trial and the release of the Freeh report.  All things considered, the NCAA moved with lightning speed on this matter.

I don't know how colleges can harmonize their multi-billion dollar football and basketball businesses with their supposed missions of higher learning.  I think formally affiliating with professional sports would cause colleges to lose even the pretense of amateurism that will not be sustainable over time (in the same way I think paying college players, while understandable, would ultimately lead to a collapse of college sports as we know them).  I believe we are in the early stages of a popping of the higher education bubble that is similar to the housing bubble.  Most colleges will be forced to significantly change the way they function and the rethink the product and how they delivere it to their customers (students).  Sadly, I doubt we will get a rethinking or resizing of colleges sports as part of that process.

While current PSU students may "suffer" and the timing not the best, the NCAA has given PSU players an option most students don't get at other schools - the chance to transfer wtihout penalty.  If you were good enough to play for Penn St., you have lots of options.