APIf you’ve followed the Freeh/Penn State coverage on CFT, you know I’ve never been an advocate for NCAA involvement in this matter — at least as it pertains to the indication of a cover-up of Jerry Sandusky‘s crimes. But plenty of you have made your voice heard that the NCAA should act swiftly and to its fullest extent.
You might — might — get your wish.
In an interview on PBS’ “Tavis Smiley” show last night, NCAA president Mark Emmert indicated that the school could be facing penalties from college football’s governing body, and potentially devastating ones at that.
Here’s the quote from Emmert stirring up speculation (additional emphasis added). You can also watch the full interview HERE.
“I’ve never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university and hope never to see it again. What the appropriate penalties are, if there are determinations of violations, we’ll have to decide. We’ll hold in abeyance all of those decisions until we’ve actually decided what we want to do with the actual charges should there be any. And I don’t want to take anything off the table.”
Most of what Emmert says isn’t anything new, and he doesn’t pull the trigger, but it sounds like he’s okay with the NCAA levying sanctions against Penn State if violations are found. But therein lies the real question: what bylaws are being violated from the rule book? As we shared in our Freeh report reactions landing page, the NCAA could attack this in four different ways (per a Nov. 17 letter to PSU interim president Rodney Erickson):
- Article 2.1: ”It is the responsibility of each member institution to control its intercollegiate athletics program in compliance with the rules and regulations of the Association. The institution’s president or chancellor is responsible for the administration of all aspects of the athletics program. These principles of institutional control are further elaborated on in Articles 6.01.1 and 6.4 of the NCAA constitution. “
- Article 2.4: ”For intercollegiate athletics to promote the character development of participants, to enhance the integrity of higher education and to promote civility in society, student-athletes, coaches, and all others associated with these athletics programs and events should adhere to such fundamental values as respect, fairness, civility, honesty and responsibility. These values should be manifest not only in athletics participation, but also in the broad spectrum of activities affecting the athletics program.”
- Bylaw 10.1: individuals should ”act with honesty and sportsmanship at all times so that intercollegiate athletics as a whole, their institutions and they, as individuals, shall represent the honor and dignity of fair play and the generally recognized high standards associated with wholesome competitive sports.”
- Bylaw 19.01.2: ”Individuals employed by or associated with member institutions for the administration, the conduct or the coaching of intercollegiate athletics are, in the final analysis, teachers of young people. Their responsibility is an affirmative one, and they must do more than avoid improper conduct or questionable acts. Their own moral values must be so certain and positive that those younger and more pliable will be influenced by a fine example. Much more is expected of them than of the less critically placed citizen.”
The articles and bylaws are vague enough that you could look at the NCAA’s prerogative in this matter from both sides. On one hand, there’s nothing explicitly in the rulebook that deals with child-sex crimes or their coverup. By the Emmert’s own admission, the NCAA would be acting on the “spirit of the bylaw.”
But likewise, because this is such a unique case, ambiguity in the NCAA’s bylaws theoretically grants access to inquire, investigate and levy sanctions.
Just as this is so much more than a football story, this is so much more than a simple athletic violation.
Whether the NCAA will punish Penn State remains to be seen, but given Emmert’s comments, I would say the interest doesn’t solely lie with the public.
Emmert and his office has already stated that their investigation will not begin on Penn State until they are cleared to begin by state prosecutors and the grand jury which continue to investigate the matter.
Emmert has sent to Penn State an inquiry letter with 4 major and pertinent questions. Upon Penn State’s reply and after ongoing proceedings have concluded, the NCAA will investigate.
With the spotlight of the world press and millions of interested people, the NCAA will have to act forcefully with sanctions. I would expect some form of the “Death Penalty” for Penn State, to set an example that such “coverup/complictious behavior is not acceptable (though they will certainly use “lack of institutional control” as a major component of their sanctions). If the new Penn State Board has any sense, they my try to pre-empt NCAA sanctions by self-imposing such sanctions on themselves? Would be a good gesture of the new board to break with the “old” board which was in place during the scandal.
1.) Unethical behavior.
2.) Lack of instituational control.
3.) Failure to monitor.
….
4.) Football program directly benefited from a result of this 14-year cover-up.
5.) Death Penalty.
Just suspend or harshly penalize the athletic director and president individually from football-related activities for two years. I’ve heard that there still could be issues in those offices.
Bill O’Brien and the players made commitments to the school and don’t deserve things taken away from them when they had nothing to do with Sandusky.
If it’s a “lack of institutional control” penalize anyone at the top because those were all JoePa’s guys and they were gutless enough to follow his orders! The majority of coaches are not and it’s time to leave them alone!
I don’t know why it’s that hard to go after specific individuals so that the whole team doesn’t suffer.
@rajbais — quit worry about the team and worry more about the victims.
It’s called COLLATERAL DAMAGE!
Is it always fair? No. But, that’s the way the system works.
What PSU did is a million times worse than SMU…so why spare the worst offender of all-time? Death Penalty is the minimum PSU should get. Really. The crimes & 14-year COVER-UP is THAT bad!
This is way out of their jurisdiction, should they go this route, then they must amend their own manual and mission statement (the manual is soley dedicated to comptetive balance). Furthermore, every institution that is part of the NCAA needs to be given the opportunity to re-evalutate thier membership in an organization that will work as a double whammy to law enforcement.
Did the NCAA step in with the Bobbie Petrino incident? Did they look into the Florida A&M hazing death (the school is an NCAA brand)? How much did the NCAA get into TCU over the 6 players busted as part of a drug ring? While some of those are still being investigated, there is a huge slippery slope that the NCAA is walking into. I am no longer confident that the NCAA will not take full action against PSU, but should they do this, they will find themselves having to police EVERY incident that directly or indirectly involves a sports pogram… including those involving school names alone.
This PSU situation is soooo bad that the NCAA literally needs to rewrite their by-laws on the fly, to correlate with these unimaginable crimes. Its that bad.
Seeing what the NCAA has done to USC and SMU and hasn’t done to other programs like Ohio State, North Carolina, and South Carolina, I’m afraid Penn State will only get a slap on the wrist.
1.3 FUNDAMENTAL POLICY [*]
1.3.1 Basic Purpose. [*] The competitive athletics programs of member institutions are designed to be a vital part of the educational system. A basic purpose of this Association is to maintain intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of the educational program and the athlete as an integral part of the student body and, by so doing,
retain a clear line of demarcation between intercollegiate athletics and professional sports.
1.3.2 Obligations of Member Institutions. [*] Legislation governing the conduct of intercollegiate athletics programs of member institutions shall apply to basic athletics issues such as admissions, financial aid, eligibility and recruiting. Member institutions shall be obligated to apply and enforce this legislation, and the enforcement procedures of the Association shall be applied to an institution when it fails to fulfill this obligation.
@rajbais
Did USC deserve what they got? As the NCAA concluded, no one at USC knew Reggie was taking improper benefits from the non-USC affiliated agent. 5 years after Reggie left USC, USC was hit with sanctions that affected players that had nothing to do with it. Was that fair?
Steelernation a.k.a. Pitt Fan;
The 4 people who covered this up are gone from the school and most will be going to jail. There will be NO DEATH PENALTY, it makes no sense, but there will be penalties. The people calling for the death penalty are the same people who said Vick shouldn’t get a second chance in the NFL and are now cheering for him on their fantasy team. And unlike 99.99% of the people of Penn State, he was the one funding it.
And just so you know, even if Penn State would get the death penalty, Pitt will still suck. They couldn’t even be good in the Big East…..
So steeler1nation, even though there are rules in place, they should change them after something happens so the rules accommodate it?
Rules are given up front for fairness. You can’t simply see something you don’t like and adjust the rules accordingly. There is no purpose of rules then.
In Ohio St. those who were guilty got fired or left for the NFL. Yet, Ohio St. still suffers. In Miami, a few were guilty, yet the entire team is being punished. Why then is PSU different? Maybe they should be punished more because the school did more. This is the pit of disgusting. If you can punish an entire team for some getting a tattoo, then you can punish an entire school for child rape. If the NCAA can not do anything to PSU, we do not need them to do anything ever to anyone.
@papabush88 Reggie Bush was a football player who committed NCAA violations directly. Totally different.
@ collegefan – why do you assume I’m a sh1TT fan?
If you don’t have rules against the rape of children, the cover up, the look the other way mentality…Common sense rules…Why even have a rule book at all? Don’t give me this competitive crap, fairness on the field etc……This is without a doubt, not only a crime, but something that is so henious, the NCAA will have to make a landmark decision that involves humanity, which we all know they are incapable of, it will boil down to money……..
“On one hand, there’s nothing explicitly in the rulebook that deals with child-sex crimes or their coverup.”
—–
heck, there will be now!
These extent to which they conspired to actively cover-up and shield Sanduuuushbag should easily supersede any arguments to the contrary…
Death Penalty, yesterday please
Steelernation;
You’ve been on this since the very beginning. Where everyone should be very mad about the situation, it seems that you have had a for Penn State long before this situation. Seeing that your a Steeler fan, it would make sense that you cheer for Pitt (Penn State’s little brother in PA when it comes to College Football). Who is your fav. team?
Here is a link to the NCAA Manual incase any of you would like to look at it.
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/aub/genrel/auto_pdf/2011-12/misc_non_event/1112ncaa-compliance-manual.pdf
@psublueandwhite
You’re right. TheReggie incident is way different from the Penn State scandal. Penn State scandal was worse. It happened over a longer period of time than Reggie and ruined lives. Reggie took charitable benefits. That’s a positive thing. If my boss gave me a raise, it wouldn’t make me work harder. I work hard every day. The highest officials at Penn State allowed for child molestation to go on and it benefitted their team. Unlike Reggie Bush, more than one person at Penn State was involved in this egregious situation. I think the Death Penalty is stupid, but if SMU deserved it, Penn State deserves something worse.
Wow… even the NCAAs rules on suspending/terminating membership (article 3.2.5.1) is based soley around athletic competition.
I fuly expect the NCAA to change the language of their rule book to handle crimes that pertain to athletic programs. But it will do so after whatever their actions are in response to PSU.
It’s utterly moronic to suggest that programs should be penalized by the NCAA when student athletes receive things for free (tattoos, clothes, cars, etc.) , but that the NCAA should not act when administrators cover up crimes (which itself might be a crime) for the clear and obvious benefit of the athletic program. That opinion is stupid beyond description.
Think it’s a legal issue as much if not more than an NCAA issue. I don’t trust them to ever make the correct decision.
I think penn state needs to be proactive and impose their own sanctions. Unfortunately
Any call for the death penalty is too much. Sorry, but I don’t see how any of this should relate to sanctions on the program by the NCAA.
What happened there was deplorable and inexcusable, but to call it “lack of institutional control” pertaining to football is stretching it. I’d like to see the hammer dropped on them, but it shouldn’t be by the NCAA.
Its also utterly moronic to ignore something that is, just because it contradicts how you feel. Like Ben K said, there is some loose language, but the jurisdiction of the NCAA is “heavily” implied in its own manual.
@steeler1nation
@papabush88
Well, I should restate this.
PSU only deserves punishment if the NCAA changes the whole damn rule book and reimburses anything that the justafiably unfairly punished schools lost.
The penalties and sanctions have one common thing: involvement with student athletes.
If you’re asking for PSU to get nailed, you’re tolerating the unfair rules of the current. Change the stupid current ones and revise the damn rule book!!! It’s outdated by 50 years anyways!!!
Plus, the state government should be the only or biggest judge and executioner. PSU is likely in violation of laws to the point where they can get funding cut for them.
If the NCAA were to do anything under the current system it would be to urge the PA governor, “CUT THEM OFF [FINANCIALLY]!!!” That’s the only thing that it should do until it revises the current stupid rule book it has!!!
By the way, why are players never penalized by the NCAA for getting arrested or convictions???
Bobby Knight chokes Neil Reid (and by law that’s an assault) and he gets fired for his later incident with Kent Harvey. No NCAA Sanctions on Indiana!!! Knight gets a few million in a buyout and later coaches Texas Tech, but at least the late Myles Brand was declared a hero for firing him, sticking with the zero-tolerance policy, and was later named the president of the NCAA.
That’s why it’s unfair for PSU under the current rules!!! That is it!!!
In addition, why not have any empathy for Bill O’Brien and the players??? They’re people too and they deserve credit for sticking with the program!!! It takes guts to “jump on the ‘Titanic’”!!!
Bill O’Brien took the worst job in all of sports!!!
He moved his wife and family for the job!!! Don’t screw him over like this!!! We empathized with ex-Bobby Petrino assistants for moving families when he quit the Falcons after Michael Vick went to jail for dogfighting!!!
The Nittany Lions were terrible under Tom Bradley and the majority of ex-NFL coaches and assistants underperform in the NCAA!!! Even though I feel that they’ll do nothing this year and a bad football team is like having no football team anyways he still deserves a chance to show what he is made of and should be embraced properly because to work with something ravaged is a tough thing to do.
Despite the profits, it’s still a ravaged team and it’s likely not going to make as much money because JoePa and the chances of winning are gone.
If you shut down the program, PSU football can always be king on campus after it resumes!!! Look at the leagues after their lockouts!!!
Plus, you need the University to be notified that there can’t be anything JoePa-related on the football team!!! If that’s the case it will be the “JoePa syndrome” all over again and then everyone will forgive the Paterno family and put the damn statue back up because everyone forgets easily.
A great way is to show that PSU is anti-JoePa is emphasize that this is Bill O’Brien’s team!!! If you shut it down there’s a good chance that with no coach, staff, or players that they could get a JoePa guy into State College when football resumes!!! Why should we continue the “JoePa tradition” when it had to go???
The same could happen with football being played, but the more you put a non-JoePa as a head coach the less remnants of him are there.
JoePa REMNANTS ARE NOT THERE ANYMORE!!! Plus, why should we shocked about his role in the Freeh Report???
Did he not cry in front of his locker room??? No one cries that much unless they’re that extremly guilty of something!!!! Plus, what about all the people who said “Joe’s dead. Let him rest in peace. No speaking ‘ill’ of the dead?”
It’s a joke to say all this, but later react with “STOP FOOTBALL” because the public was that stupid to wait for Louis Freeh to expose JoePa!!!!
It’s so stupid and disrespectful to the current head coach and the players when JoePa’s role could have been figured out BEFORE his firing!!!!
If the PSU football opposers are so credible and smart why did everyone embrace or not oppose the hiring process of a new coach???
The PSU opposers could have figured out JoePa’s role earlier on!!! Now they deserve to watch PSU football because they were that dumb to wait this long to see what he likely did!!!!
If this was a coach stealing recruiting funds to fund interstate crime (or any felony that isn’t as morally disturbing as Sandusky’s), would there be such a public outcry for the NCAA to act?
While the NCAA is at it, how ’bout they do something to Arkansas for Petrino exchanging sex for a job in the football department (and a car; and $20k)-isn’t that solicitation?
I’m not saying they are equal acts of immoral activity, but if the NCAA is going to penalize acts that aren’t directly related to the athletics- why not penalize them all?
“Why are you sending my daddy to jail for stealing that car? You’re punishing me, the innocent by his absence”
- Worse than Westboro Church members aka PSU apologists.
And Oh ya
LOL @ anyone who doesn’t understand that the Death Penalty is a 100% certainty and is coming without any doubt whatsoever.
I think the NCAA will focus not only on Joe Paterno and the rest of the rape enabling crew, but also on the testimony of Vicki Triponey. She has indicated that Joe Paterno and company stopped her efforts to handle football player discipline differently than regular students. Those differences prevent their crimes, some of them felony assaults, from becoming public. Several of them would have required game suspensions and potentially being thrown off the team. That smells of NCAA violations to me.
let’s say the NCAA does nothing and Perv State wins the Big 10 or has an amazing season…….
what title sponsor would allow themselves to be associated with Perv State? would Tostitos, Vizio, Discover, AllState allow for Pervs to play the game? Would they threaten to pull out of future sponsorships if tie ins forced them to allow Perv State in?if the NCAA is too cowardly to do anything then just start writing letters to the title sponsors.
maybe Penn State could play in the NAMBLA Bowl?
First let me say that what happened at Penn State is gross, horrible, unacceptable and a terrible tragedy. Second let me tell you why the NCAA will not punish Penn State, this whole tragic event is a criminal matter and out of the NCAA’s jurisdiction. A simple analogy would be this, the IRS does not prosecute murderers who pay their taxes.
There you go DKhuey, now that is something in the NCAA’s wheelhouse. All these stupid people who think child-rape has anything to do with what the NCAA is meant for, are stupid, plain and simple. They believe without the NCAA giving PSU the death penalty, PSU will not see a death penalty. Infact, people are so outraged, they will suspend common sense and in the process completely miss that fact that, even without the NCAA, PSU will apear all but dead. They will not get the recruits they used too, bowl organizers aren’t going to want to invite them. Their student body will, more than likley, shrink considerably. Their Alumni will not throw as much money to the school. The school is going to get sued, they may lose state/federal funding. Tell me, how will the NCAA one up those outcomes? If people want the Death Penalty, its coming, just not from the NCAA. Now everyone needs to stop being knee-jerk, self-righteous, anger-driven maniacs.
To all those who say the death penalty or harsh sanctions would not be “fair” to the coaches and players because they were not involved in this situation, I think “being fair” went out the window when program started covering up the raping of children by an assistant coach of the program.
The competitive edge that PSU received was that they hid a child rapist from the public ,so it wouldn’t hurt their image amongst potential recruits nationwide, so it wouldn’t stop the money from flowing in, continuing a lie of a clean program that helped mold boys into men through the values put in place by its leaders. Penn State lied to everyone because the money was too great that they wouldn’t even stop decades long of abuse of children.
Penn State is just hanging on hoping this goes away soon. Media outlets need to become the voice of the people and start publishing stories of students at other campuses who don’t want PSU football playing their school, get quotes from other school presidents, AD’s and coaches. PSU does not want the money to stop. Somebody needs to wake them up to just how bad this really is. There is nothing to compare this to …ever.
Without a doubt, what Penn State allowed to happen on their campus and in their community going back to the 1970′s is worse than anything that any other school which received the death penalty ever did. They deserve the ultimate penalty for their program.
The NCAA needs to take prompt, decisive action and not linger Reggie Bush style for years and years. If you agree, sign the petition at:
http://www.change.org/petitions/ncaa-president-mark-a-emmert-impose-the-death-penalty-on-the-penn-state-football-program
Not to diminish what PSU did – how about Norte Dame and the football player who had unwanted sex with a young lady who later committed suicide and the university protested the player; University of Northern Iowa protecting the two football players who sexually assaulted a girl; no sanctions to BU for one of its hockey players who raped a girl. Te issue is that the NCAA has not as yet sanctioned a team for any sort of sexual assault by players.
A second problem is why did this happen – not to protect Sandusky, but to protect millions of dollars. The NCAA is complicit in allowing programs to generate so much money that coaches become masters of the campus.
I think most likely is all programs were examined there are cover-ups for many crimes. The money involved is so large that institutions feel the need to protect their income.
Maybe it si time to do away with D-1 sports as it is now structured – stop the fiction that D-1 is about student-atheletes and recognize they are employees of the college. Create for pro-basketball and football a true farm system instead of the current travesty.
look at that picture^^^^
Is it a requirement of old white politicians and men in power to have terrible haircuts.
I dont trust someone with that head
DEATH PENALTY!!!!!!!
The death penalty is very appropriate to end a program (PSU) that created a culture where someone can’t call the police when they see a child raped. They had to ask JoePa first! Despicable!
I think they should take all Paterno’s wins from1998 untill last year, because he found out what was going on but didn’t do anything and lied to the grand jury about it too..
So many posters on this thread predicted extremely well.
The case can be made now since the NCAA’s Emmert came down with large sanctions, that Penn State probably would have opted for the Death Penalty if they had a choice, which they didn’t.
Maybe the penalty just handed down will serve as a warning to other athletic programs all across the U.S. which have also gotten “too big to fail.”
May all the victims of Sandusky receive all the help they need, so they can be helped and maybe healed.