Penn State: the university's penalties

[broadhurst04]

I've never understood the vacated wins nonsense. It seems meaningless.

On its face, it does seem pointless and stupid. After all, they can't go back in time and physically erase those games.  Vacated wins are still wins; what's different now is that the wins are not officially counted on Paterno's record, meaning he is no longer recognized as the winningest coach in major college history. The purpose of vacating the wins was to punish Paterno for not caring enough about those kids.

[golden eagle]

I don't agree with the penalty.

*  It smacks of collective punishment:  the fans suffer for the crimes of a few, who are now dead, in jail, or facing massive civil lawsuits

*  Vacating past football victories amounts to rewriting history, which I disagree with in principle

*  Penn State as an institution will face massive civil judgments as a result of knowingly harboring a child sex abuser for over a decade--students at the school do not need to have the NCAA piling on as well (yes, football programs are supposed to be financially ringfenced, but in reality the school as a whole depends on the boat-floating effects of the football program)

*  The penalty was arrived at without anything resembling due process, in an apparent effort to bolster an unconvincing impression that the NCAA is serious about correcting sports-related abuses at its member institutions

I agree, too. All the major players who had something to do with this on the football side are all gone. So why are they punishing the players and the new coaching staff? Also, why haven't the former staff members been handed fines or other personal forms of punishment? I would've banned them all from Penn State facilities for life. Heck, maybe all NCAA facilities.
I'm not saying Penn State should've gotten away scot-free, but I don't think this is the appropriate punishment. I do think it was right to take down Paterno's statue and I would've liked for proceeds from football (after expenses) to go to a charity or some organization that handles child sex abuse.

I really hate to think what fans of other Big 10 schools will do to harass the visiting Penn State players this fall.

[hbelkins]

But the NCAA is a private organization, so they can do whatever they want in your small-government utopia.

I'm so ready for the major conferences to bolt the NCAA and form their own organization.

The players are dirt-poor and the schools are getting rich off them. It's time for the big schools to create an association where they can pay the players enough to put gas in their cars, go see a movie every now and then, go out to eat, buy a few CDs, etc. Leave the NCAA for the mid-majors like Morehead State (my alma mater) or Kent State, and let the big schools form a more reasonable organization. Let sanctions be levied as a breach of contract and enforced via lawsuit, with due process and other rules of court cases in play.

[on_wisconsin]

I really hate to think what fans of other Big 10 schools will do to harass the visiting Penn State players this fall.

They should be happy there not coming to Camp Randall this year : http://youtu.be/sHAo6kMzRmI (NSFW)

[broadhurst04]

What stands out to me following the release of the Freeh Report and the NCAA sanction announcement is the reaction of the Paterno family. Talk about swimming against the tide. I think his kids are defending their dad because they were counting on being able to cash in on his legacy after his death. Now they can't do that. I think they thought that Penn State football was so important that no one would dare punish it for any reason. I think they are actually stunned that the vast majority of the country is sympathetic to the plight of Sandusky's victims and that there was such an immediate and vigorous backlash against the university and the football program. I hope for their sake, that now they truly get it. Football is just a way to entertain people for three hours on a Saturday afternoon. It is a luxury we could survive without. The physical and mental well-being of our children is a crucial underpinning to the continuation of our society. That is why so many people got so angry when they found out that this abuse had been going on for over a decade and that nobody at Penn State thought it was bad enough to make it stop.

[Anthony_JK]

Sorry, but I have to go with the NCAA on this one..the penalties were just, and even a bit understated for the harshness of the crimes and the coverup.

Remember that SMU was already under probation for paying players under the table when the revelations of David Stanley blew them out of the water and instigated what ultimately became the "death penalty" sanctions of 1987 (which were extended through 1988 by SMU themselves). And, the sanctions that Southern Cal was hit with due to the alleged underpayments to Reggie Bush weren't nearly as severe as they could have been (loss of victories, one year of TV/bowl sanctions, Bush losing his Heisman Trophy).

Enabling an assistant coach to use his powers and their buildings to rape underaged children, to say the least, is far, far worse than some payments under the table. Covering it up for so long simply to save JoPa's face only made it that much worse. Given all that, something had to give, and someone had to get whacked hard...and since Paterno is now dead and Sandusky is now convicted, Penn State's administration and their football program absolutely has to face the full brunt of accountablilty for their actions.

The fact that they didn't choose to nuke PSU's program directly, but rather go with the long-term punishment of savaging their football program with scholarship/TV losses and bowl bans, and a hefty fine, shows that they were focused on putting the blame where it belongs, on both the Penn State program and the people who simply turned the other cheek while Sandusky was given nearly free reign. Rather than grip and moan, maybe those folk at PSU should take all of that energy screaming at the NCAA and use it to upgrade their reporting of abuse.

Now...the vacating of the past wins does sound a bit like overkill, since it punishes not only JoePa, but also all of the players whom actually contributed to the wins, simply due to things they had nothing at all to do with. Nevertheless, I guess the NCAA figured that that was the only option they had to punish Paterno for his role in covering up Sandusky's actions.

Nevertheless, I do think that it would be a good idea for Penn State to just shut down their football team for the next year or two, if only to avoid the humiliation and shame of competing with such a heavy load on their shoulders. I wouldn't be surprised if there is an effort to boot them from the Big Ten Conference and replace them with, perhaps, Notre Dame.


Anthony

[Anthony_JK]

Also....I have some local experience with how heavy handed the NCAA can be; because my local university, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (when it was the University of Southwestern Louisiana) had its men's basketball program hit with the literal equivalent of the "death penalty" -- total suspension -- during the early- to mid-1970s, due to what was called back then "serious recruiting violations" under the regime of Beryl Shipley. Some still say that the charges were basically rigged against then USL because Shipley was one of the first coaches willing to recruit black players and use them to their full talents. The program did suffer a bit, but ultimately did recover to middle-major status.

Maybe not a perfect comparison to Penn State, but somewhat related.


Anthony

[BigRedDog]

Here's my question: If PSU is vacating their wins from 1998-2011, does this mean the teams that PSU won against are now the winners? How does this affect the bowl games PSU won?

Additionally, how does that affect the players stats from those games? For example, in 2002 Larry Johnson was the NCAA leading rusher. Does the move by the NCAA erase his stats from the games he played in?

[Scott5114]

I agree that the win vacation is pretty stupid. He actually won the most. Until someone wins more games than he did, he has won the most games. I haven't been checking NCAA's books but I doubt if we were to do so we would find a TARDIS on the expense report. Unless NCAA agents physically go back in time and tackle the players themselves before they get to the end zone, he won the damn games. Big Football executives lack the jurisdiction to alter reality, no matter how heinous anything that happened was.

Sort of like how I can't vacate "winningest"'s existence as a word because it sounds stupid and has two suffixes. Alas.

Furthermore punishing Paterno is a pretty dumb move because the man is dead. I doubt he's in much of a position to really care one way or the other at this point what his earthly legacy was. Sandusky is already being punished by a legitimate court of law–what do we need the NCAA to do here, exactly?

[hbelkins]

Sorry, but I have to go with the NCAA on this one..the penalties were just, and even a bit understated for the harshness of the crimes and the coverup.

But they were crimes, not NCAA rules violations. Where does the NCAA get jurisdiction to levy penalties in this matter?

They should have shut down the football team for 10 years.

Why? Where was the NCAA rules violation?

The NCAA sucks.  First, they let Cam Newton play when it was obvious that he was ineligible, and now this.  Teams are getting the message that they can cheat and get away with it.  It's setting a bad precedent.

I agree, especially after Enes Kanter was required to sit out at UK last year. If not, we might be talking about back-to-back NCAA championships for the Big Blue.

But again, where was the cheating?

[rawmustard]

Here's my question: If PSU is vacating their wins from 1998-2011, does this mean the teams that PSU won against are now the winners? How does this affect the bowl games PSU won?

A vacated win doesn't result in the other team being credited with a win. As it's been mentioned, vacating simply removes those wins from Penn State's overall record.

[texaskdog]

I guess the "message" is that if this ever happens again, the school should come clean and maybe just maybe more kids won't get raped and the college won't be penalized.  Sweeping all this BS under the table in the name of protecting their own is what got the book thrown at them.

[agentsteel53]

the "vacated wins" thing is pretty stupid.  it is an act of self-preservation by the NCAA.  how would they look if their Division I all time wins leader was an infamous shelterer of a rapist?

then again, given how thoroughly corrupt I feel college football as a whole is, it would probably be a lot more appropriate if Paterno's record stood.  a terrifying statistic to lead a terrifying pastime.

perhaps they can even use that in their promotions.  "our winnigest coach of all time harbored a rapist!  also, you'll die when you're 50!  football!  what a game!"

[kkt]

The punishment is against Penn State as an institution.  The idea is that Penn State's reputation does not benefit at all from the time their administration knew about the rapes and were covering them up.  People will know that they won the games, but they won't appear in future record books as wins because they were covering up a rapist during that time.

The individuals in Penn State administration who knew about the rapes who survive still might face civil trials.  But this part is NCAA's punishment against Penn State as an institution.

[Scott5114]

The punishment is against Penn State as an institution.  The idea is that Penn State's reputation does not benefit at all from the time their administration knew about the rapes and were covering them up.  People will know that they won the games, but they won't appear in future record books as wins because they were covering up a rapist during that time.

The individuals in Penn State administration who knew about the rapes who survive still might face civil trials.  But this part is NCAA's punishment against Penn State as an institution.

Penn State as an institution still won the most games. Punish the college if you have to, but do a monetary fine or something other than asking us to suspend belief in the space-time continuum.

[texaskdog]

the "vacated wins" thing is pretty stupid.  it is an act of self-preservation by the NCAA.  how would they look if their Division I all time wins leader was an infamous shelterer of a rapist?

then again, given how thoroughly corrupt I feel college football as a whole is, it would probably be a lot more appropriate if Paterno's record stood.  a terrifying statistic to lead a terrifying pastime.

perhaps they can even use that in their promotions.  "our winnigest coach of all time harbored a rapist!  also, you'll die when you're 50!  football!  what a game!"

Vacated wins are always stupid.  It's like annulled marriages.

[broadhurst04]

Furthermore punishing Paterno is a pretty dumb move because the man is dead. I doubt he's in much of a position to really care one way or the other at this point what his earthly legacy was. Sandusky is already being punished by a legitimate court of law—what do we need the NCAA to do here, exactly?

The NCAA handed down the punishment (and Penn State accepted it so quickly) because both parties are incredibly eager to avoid having activist protests at the front gate of every college football game this season. Both sides were scared to death that if they didn't come down on the right side of this issue - that grown men raping boys is unacceptable behavior and that knowing about it and not doing anything meaningful to stop it is also unacceptable -  attendance, TV viewership, and the related income would have dropped dramatically. And the only reason the wins were vacated was to satisfy the activists' demands that Paterno be punished severely for not caring enough about the kids. They would have preferred to see him indicted, arrested, and led away from his comfortable home in handcuffs. They probably feel he got off too easy because he died before they got a chance to look him in the eye and tell him how much they despised his selfish and arrogant attitude in this matter.

[route56]

I haven't been checking NCAA's books but I doubt if we were to do so we would find a TARDIS on the expense report.

What about DeLorean DMC-12 equipped with a flux capacitor?

I think that the best way to describe a vacated game - the final score is still in the record books, but it is, for all intents an purposes, an exhibition game for the "offending" team, but still a regular game for the "offended" team.

If the games were to be forfeited, the game would be recorded as a 1-0 win for the offended team; and (obviously) a 1-0 loss for the offending team.

Now, the Paterno family intends to appeal the NCAA decision. They'd probably better have better luck suing the NCAA and Louis Freeh for libel

[mgk920]

From what I have been hearing through the grapevines and airwaves, Penn State had the choice of the current sanctions or having Beaver Stadium sit idle for one or two seasons.

In any other part of the World, they likely would have been relegated a level or two, too.

Mike

[cpzilliacus]

But the NCAA is a private organization, so they can do whatever they want in your small-government utopia.

I'm so ready for the major conferences to bolt the NCAA and form their own organization.

The players are dirt-poor and the schools are getting rich off them. It's time for the big schools to create an association where they can pay the players enough to put gas in their cars, go see a movie every now and then, go out to eat, buy a few CDs, etc. Leave the NCAA for the mid-majors like Morehead State (my alma mater) or Kent State, and let the big schools form a more reasonable organization. Let sanctions be levied as a breach of contract and enforced via lawsuit, with due process and other rules of court cases in play.

H.B. there's another guilty party here.  That's the National Football League, which happily uses Penn State and many other college football teams as its farm system, free of charge.

If there was a serious discussion of reforming college football, it would involve paying the players in some way (and not just with four years of college education frequently of a questionable nature), and the NFL paying the colleges and universities for running its system of farm teams.

[route56]

From what I have been hearing through the grapevines and airwaves, Penn State had the choice of the current sanctions or having Beaver Stadium sit idle for one or two seasons.

The NCAA report suggests that Penn State's swift actions to terminate those involved in the cover-up, and the fact that Penn State had run an otherwise clean athletic program, were the main factors in deciding against implementing the "death penalty."

If Penn State hadn't taken the NCAA up on its offer, and sent this case to a full investigation, the sanctions against Penn State could have been greater, but more likely than not, they probably would have come to the same conclusion regarding implementing the "death penalty."

[bugo]

the "vacated wins" thing is pretty stupid.  it is an act of self-preservation by the NCAA.  how would they look if their Division I all time wins leader was an infamous shelterer of a rapist?

Vacated wins are always stupid.  It's like annulled marriages.

Annulled marriages are the best kind.