A Pennsylvania court has decided it needs more information regarding the agreement made between the NCAA and Penn State in 2012. The court is reviewing the legality of the agreement regarding the sanctions agreed to by the university and the NCAA in the wake of the release of the Freeh Report, which reviewed the response to the Jerry Sandusky molestation scandal.
The lawsuit raising the challenge to the NCAA is sponsored by Republican State Senator Jake Corman, who initially focused solely on keeping all fine money paid by Penn State in the state rather than seeing it spread to other states. The NCAA fined Penn State $60 million as part of the sanction terms, with the money being used to raise awareness of child abuse. The NCAA believes that money is entitled to be spread to anywhere it chooses, but Senator Corman is looking to enforce a 2013 state law that would keep that money within Pennsylvania to raise awareness. The court has declared Penn State should be made a party of the lawsuit because the punishment agreed to had an impact on Penn State employees and personnel. A further examination of the agreement terms is now required before the court will make any decisions one way or the other.
''This court will not make a legal determination which has such far reaching implications without conducting a hearing on the disputed factual issues,’' Judge Anne E. Covey said, according to the Associated Press.
''We’ve always had concerns about it, the way the NCAA acted, and so now the court is seeing this as well,’' Corman said.
The agreement signed by Penn State president Rodney Erickson resulted in the $60 million fine, a four-year postseason ban on the football program, a significant reduction in scholarships for the football program and the vacating of 112 wins in the football program’s history. The NCAA has already turned over a number of scholarships and will allow Penn State to return to a full scholarship limit much sooner than initially agreed to. Penn State has already served two seasons of a postseason ban and has two years remaining, unless the NCAA reduces that sentence as well at some point.