Penn State - What should NCAA do?

[Dr Z]

Andy Baskin makes his point

I have trouble listening to NCAA President Mark Emmert spit out of both sides of his mouth. You can't impose a $60 million fine on Penn State, and then expect people to respect the NCAA, when you are selling off the new Division I National Championship Game to the highest bidder.

This story is not about the NCAA's ego. Does it really matter that the NCAA stripped away Joe Paterno's wins from 1998-to-2011?

It's a joke. This story should be about helping victims. Now, it's about the NCAA flexing, saying “Look at us. We are so powerful that we wiped Paterno's records off the face of the earth.” Does stripping Paterno's wins make the pains of the victims go away?

The NCAA, once again, made this story about money and power. The victims are, once again, in the background.

[LZIp]

Andy Baskin makes his point

I have trouble listening to NCAA President Mark Emmert spit out of both sides of his mouth. You can't impose a $60 million fine on Penn State, and then expect people to respect the NCAA, when you are selling off the new Division I National Championship Game to the highest bidder.

This story is not about the NCAA's ego. Does it really matter that the NCAA stripped away Joe Paterno's wins from 1998-to-2011?

It's a joke. This story should be about helping victims. Now, it's about the NCAA flexing, saying “Look at us. We are so powerful that we wiped Paterno's records off the face of the earth.” Does stripping Paterno's wins make the pains of the victims go away?

The NCAA, once again, made this story about money and power. The victims are, once again, in the background.

Im no fan of the NCAA..but to clear some things up:

1) The 60 million dollar fine really is nothing when it comes to PSU football. That is 1 year's worth of football revenue, that has to be payed in 5 years. The money being fined is going towards some organization for sexually abused kids. So the money is being used to help victims.

2) How else can Paterno be punished, being that he is dead? The players still know who won the games, have their rings, and their bowl victory memorabilia. If im not mistaken, OSU and USC both had to forfeit their victories in their recent major violations. Where is the outcry for them?

[Class of 82]

Im no fan of the NCAA..but to clear some things up:

1) The 60 million dollar fine really is nothing when it comes to PSU football. That is 1 year's worth of football revenue, that has to be payed in 5 years. The money being fined is going towards some organization for sexually abused kids. So the money is being used to help victims.

2) How else can Paterno be punished, being that he is dead? The players still know who won the games, have their rings, and their bowl victory memorabilia. If im not mistaken, OSU and USC both had to forfeit their victories in their recent major violations. Where is the outcry for them?

I don't think anybody's feeling sorry for Penn State itself, or even its football program. I certainly am not.

What bugs a lot of us, I think, is that the NCAA is pretty blatantly on a public relations blitz to maintain some aura of moral authority that they simply do not possess... all in order to protect, not change, the staus quo. The idea that what they've done to Penn State is going to re-establish some sense of proportionality to the multi-billion-dollar business that is college football is simply laughable and is an insult to any thinking person and an even greater insult to Sandusky's victims. Of course, that's just my opinion.

But as Dave in Green pointed out, this is far from over. More criminal prosecutions and the lawsuits have yet to occur, and you can bet we will be learning lots of new things in the months and years ahead, with some of those things almost certain to be different from what we think we know now. One thing we do know, however, is that Penn State will have $60 million less to compensate the real victims in this tragedy.

[g-mann17]

I don't think anybody's feeling sorry for Penn State itself, or even its football program. I certainly am not.

What bugs a lot of us, I think, is that the NCAA is pretty blatantly on a public relations blitz to maintain some aura of moral authority that they simply do not possess... all in order to protect, not change, the staus quo. The idea that what they've done to Penn State is going to re-establish some sense of proportionality to the multi-billion-dollar business that is college football is simply laughable and is an insult to any thinking person and an even greater insult to Sandusky's victims. Of course, that's just my opinion.

But as Dave in Green pointed out, this is far from over. More criminal prosecutions and the lawsuits have yet to occur, and you can bet we will be learning lots of new things in the months and years ahead, with some of those things almost certain to be different from what we think we know now. One thing we do know, however, is that Penn State will have $60 million less to compensate the real victims in this tragedy.

Yes it is your opinion, however poor it may be.

They have a $1.7 billion endowment, and this is an institutional problem, I think they have plenty to take care of victims.

The hate for the NCAA is cynicism at its finest. I won't throw their PR campaign at any one. But the bottom line is that they had a right and duty to do something to Penn State.

[GP1]

It's a joke. This story should be about helping victims.

Darn right it is a joke. It misses on many levels.

Where it hits is helping victims, but they are going about it the wrong way. If this effort is to reform psu in some way, why doesn't psu have to fund something on campus that would help further the understanding of what a victim goes through and methods of treating the damage? Isn't that what a university is supposed to do...further knowledge and science? Look towards the future? Forced funding for something for five years tells me after five years, the funding will discontinue...not exactly forward looking by the ncaa.

Shouldn't they also use money to fund the criminology of this problem? Questions such as..., How do we better help law enforcement understand signs of abuse and act in a more efficient manner?....should be asked and researched.

These are just a couple of ways of turning a negative into a positive. Everything the ncaa did was to damage psu. Nothing good will come out of it.

[Class of 82]

Yes it is your opinion, however poor it may be.

They have a $1.7 billion endowment, and this is an institutional problem, I think they have plenty to take care of victims.

The hate for the NCAA is cynicism at its finest. I won't throw their PR campaign at any one. But the bottom line is that they had a right and duty to do something to Penn State.

With all due respect, I don't see how it's possible not to be cynical about the NCAA, especially when it's president pretends they are all about education and higher learning when what they are actually all about is a multi-billion-dollar industry. These sanctions are entirely about the NCAA's cosmetic image. Nothing more. Underneath that holier-than-thou facade, they are rotten money-grubbers to the core. And they have been for quite some time now.

As for Penn State's endowment, it's nowhere near big enough to make even one of these victims whole, if you ask me.

[BirdZip]

On the subject of speaking out of both sides of their mouth, at the beginning of this thread we had several peole saying that the NCAA should stay out of this. In fact, the results of the voting as of this writing have the poll winner being that the NCAA should stay out of it. Yet at the same time many of the same people are saying that waht the NCAA sis is terrible because it does not help the victims. So they should help the victims but not punish the perpetrators? Penn State should seek to help the victims. The NCAA should seek to help ensure that this is less likely to happen again in the future. Crippling a program like this is a nice reminder to anyone else put in this situation in the future that the best thing to do is to end it rather than cover it up.

[BirdZip]

I despise Notre Dame and their fans. Lets add another program that is associated with centuries of child molestation coverups.

With that said, Notre Dame and Nebraska are better additions than Missouri and Texas A&M

If this is a slam at the Catholic church then there's no reason why this post should not be removed. I'll keep my further comments to myself since I'm not 100% sure that is what you were getting at.

[Dr Z]

So the money is being used to help victims.

Victims? Or the victims? I think you missed Andy's point while you were clearing things up.

Sean Lee's mindset is on the victims.

[g-mann17]

With all due respect, I don't see how it's possible not to be cynical about the NCAA, especially when it's president pretends they are all about education and higher learning when what they are actually all about is a multi-billion-dollar industry. These sanctions are entirely about the NCAA's cosmetic image. Nothing more. Underneath that holier-than-thou facade, they are rotten money-grubbers to the core. And they have been for quite some time now.

As for Penn State's endowment, it's nowhere near big enough to make even one of these victims whole, if you ask me.

It's a "multi-billion-dollar" non-profit that gives the majority of it back to communities and schools so that people can get an education for free and continue being an athlete. Understand that the NCAA is bigger then the 10,540 men that play FBS football. I love that, because its a non-profit, they are "rotten money-grubbers" as if access to the sports and athletes the NCAA represents has become limited. Even an Alabama game is cheaper to go to then any NFL game (assuming you get a face value ticket).

Why shouldn't they be money hungry? They represent the schools and athletes, and yeah some of you idiots are going to say "they don't pay the athletes, or give them their fair share" if the NCAA wasn't money hungry that money would go straight to real corporations as the profit from the revenue the sports create. Heck, the biggest money-grubber associated with the sport is ESPN. If not, NCAA football would not be nearly as big as it is. ESPN took a risk showing games that no one was "interested" in and it made their whole network what it is today. I would be more angry if the NCAA (collegiate athletics version of NFL Properties) didn't money grab. So many of you look at the multi-billion dollar deals (that stretch over 5 years in most cases) and villify the NCAA for going after the money.

When you read about the "attrocities" of the money hungry NCAA, remember where that is coming from, it's coming from the people that have to shell out the money to get the rights to show the sports. Its coming from ESPN and CBS because it cuts into the revenue they get to keep that would never go to any of those athletes.

And your final comment...

As for Penn State's endowment, it's nowhere near big enough to make even one of these victims whole, if you ask me.

Yet you are mad that the NCAA is fining Penn State $60 million over five years and giving it to organizations that research the prevention and treatment of sexual abuse and not directly to the victims.

[LZIp]

If this is a slam at the Catholic church then there's no reason why this post should not be removed. I'll keep my further comments to myself since I'm not 100% sure that is what you were getting at.

Why should my comment be removed? Everything I posted was fact, expect that you can change centuries to decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases

[Class of 82]

It's a "multi-billion-dollar" non-profit that gives the majority of it back to communities and schools so that people can get an education for free and continue being an athlete. Understand that the NCAA is bigger then the 10,540 men that play FBS football. I love that, because its a non-profit, they are "rotten money-grubbers" as if access to the sports and athletes the NCAA represents has become limited. Even an Alabama game is cheaper to go to then any NFL game (assuming you get a face value ticket).

Why shouldn't they be money hungry? They represent the schools and athletes, and yeah some of you idiots are going to say "they don't pay the athletes, or give them their fair share" if the NCAA wasn't money hungry that money would go straight to real corporations as the profit from the revenue the sports create. Heck, the biggest money-grubber associated with the sport is ESPN. If not, NCAA football would not be nearly as big as it is. ESPN took a risk showing games that no one was "interested" in and it made their whole network what it is today. I would be more angry if the NCAA (collegiate athletics version of NFL Properties) didn't money grab. So many of you look at the multi-billion dollar deals (that stretch over 5 years in most cases) and villify the NCAA for going after the money.

When you read about the "attrocities" of the money hungry NCAA, remember where that is coming from, it's coming from the people that have to shell out the money to get the rights to show the sports. Its coming from ESPN and CBS because it cuts into the revenue they get to keep that would never go to any of those athletes.

And your final comment...

Yet you are mad that the NCAA is fining Penn State $60 million over five years and giving it to organizations that research the prevention and treatment of sexual abuse and not directly to the victims.

Hey gmann, enough with the name-calling, alright? There's no call or cause for that just because people disagree.

My dissatisfaction with the NCAA has little to nothing to do with the punishment they've meted out. (I would grant that they found themselves in a damned if you do/damned if you don't situtation, but they have no one to blame for that other than themselves.) My problem has to do with the fact that 1) the NCAA really has no useful role in solving or preventing what's fundamentally at issue here, and 2) they are so clearly self-serving and self-interested that it makes me sick. Want to make sure no college president or athletic director or coach or whoever covers up criminal behavior again? You send them to prison, and then you take away large sums of their own personal money. THAT will put far more concern into the minds of the masters of college football than anything the NCAA could even think about doing. There's a criminal and civil process in progress to achieve these deterring ends, and that process needs to continue until every single culpable person is suitably dealt with.

As for the NCAA, listening to Dr. Emmert, you'd think that integrity taking a back seat to expedience is a new thing in big-time college athletics. You'd think that the disproportionate power of high-profile coaches and programs is a new thing. And you'd think that the NCAA has within itself either the will or the wherewithal to change what's fundamentally wrong in big-time college athletics. (They have neither and want neither, imo.) For God's sake, man, who does he think he's kidding? The NCAA is neck-deep in the money-and-power-fest that allows this kind of crap to happen. The sell-out happened long ago, and everybody who was in on the take is STILL on the take every bit as much as they were before these sanctions were handed down. And that's exactly what they want to keep public attention focused away from, in my opinion. (Hey, do you think a janitor or a grad assistant who witnesses a crime by a high-profile coach at Alabama or Ohio State or Texas is going to feel any safer about reporting what they saw and keeping their job after Emmert's press conference? I sure don't.)

As for ESPN and the networks, there's no law that says college football and basketball has to be on television so college presidents and coaches and NCAA executives can make fortunes. There is a sort of law, however, that money (and the love of it) corrupts.

P.S. I'm not "mad" about any of the sanctions handed down, per se. I'm "mad" because I don't like powerful people trying to get away with snowing the public. And I don't like outright hypocrisy and ass-covering in the so-called name of integrity. Unfortunately, it happens a lot these days, and I for one have had more than enough of it.

[Dave in Green]

As due process continues in the judicial system for those who may or may not have knowingly contributed in any way to enabling Sandusky's heinous crimes, more information will come out that may make the NCAA's actions appear more or less appropriate.

But it's important to remember that the NCAA is an association of schools and not some independent body. Without the support of its member institutions, the NCAA ceases to exist. Representatives of member institutions voted to enable the NCAA president to take whatever actions against PSU that he deemed appropriate. So, in reality, this is all the other schools as an association supporting the actions that the NCAA took against a fellow member school. So while others may agree or disagree that the actions taken were the most appropriate and effective, PSU's fate in terms of NCAA punishment was decided with the full approval of its peers. They all have to live with the results and all of the potential future implications.

[GP1]

Why shouldn't they be money hungry? They represent the schools and athletes,

Actually, the money grubbers are the university presidents, athletic directors and coaches. The ncaa doesn't represent the athlete-students. If they did, they would actually treat them better and include them in their money grubbing. The ncaa represents the institutions.

The presidents say college athletics is important to the overall life of a student even though most would gladly give up good educational programs for a good football team any day. The ADs use college athletics to convince the presidents they need more stadiums to become a world class institution and the presidents fall for it every time. For a bunch of people with PhD's, they sure are stupid. The ADs use these construction programs to pad their resumes in order to move on to another school and make more money. The coaches go right along with it because participation in a "building process" is easier than putting together a "winning process". The athlete-students do all of the real work. Actually, I think a good topic would be: "Who Is More Sleazy, University Presidents, Athletic Directors or Coaches?" All three are pretty bad and I would have a hard time picking which is worse because they are so intertwined at this point. I lean towards ADs but could be swayed with a good argument.

[Class of 82]

For a bunch of people with PhD's, they sure are stupid.

Every time Gordon Gee-whiz opens his mouth, I think the same thing. He makes something like $2 million a year, or about half of what he has to pay his football coach.

[LZIp]

Every time Gordon Gee-whiz opens his mouth, I think the same thing. He makes something like $2 million a year, or about half of what he has to pay his football coach.

Your University disagrees. We had him a guest speaker here in Spring Semester.

[Class of 82]

Your University disagrees. We had him a guest speaker here in Spring Semester.

That's nice. A lot of folks seem to like him just fine, and maybe he avoids putting his foot in his mouth when he's not talking about athletics.

Whenever I think of Gordon Gee, I think of him interviewed after a nationally-telecast tie against Michigan and calling it "one of the greatest victories in the history of Ohio State."

[Captain Kangaroo]

That's nice. A lot of folks seem to like him just fine, and maybe he avoids putting his foot in his mouth when he's not talking about athletics.

Whenever I think of Gordon Gee, I think of him interviewed after a nationally-telecast tie against Michigan and calling it "one of the greatest victories in the history of Ohio State."

That's almost as good as Dennis Helsel shouting out to the Rubber Bowl faithful "This is the greatest win in Syracuse history!" Or Tom Wistercill exclaiming "The cupboard is not bare!"

[BirdZip]

Why should my comment be removed? Everything I posted was fact, expect that you can change centuries to decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases

I stand corrected. The Catholic church is a horrible institution. Let's all have a church burning party. No-one (in their right minds) would ever seek to justify a cover-up of sexual abuse or the abuse itself, but to assume that all Catholic organizations are guilty by association is absurd. Your allusion to the scandal and cover-up is valid and, handled correctly, could lead to an interesting discussion. However, your condemning of Notre Dame simply because it is a Catholic institution (and associating it with child abuse) is ignorant.

There is nothing more dangerous than the conscience of a bigot.--George Bernard Shaw

I would advocate shutting PSU football down until the investigation is complete (otherwise how can you know whether or not guilty parties still exist within the program) and would gladly campaign for the removal of any involved in the cover-up, but I certainly won't throw the volleyball coach under the bus just because he works for PSU.

[LZIp]

I stand corrected. The Catholic church is a horrible institution. Let's all have a church burning party. No-one (in their right minds) would ever seek to justify a cover-up of sexual abuse or the abuse itself, but to assume that all Catholic organizations are guilty by association is absurd. Your allusion to the scandal and cover-up is valid and, handled correctly, could lead to an interesting discussion. However, your condemning of Notre Dame simply because it is a Catholic institution (and associating it with child abuse) is ignorant.

There is nothing more dangerous than the conscience of a bigot.--George Bernard Shaw

I would advocate shutting PSU football down until the investigation is complete (otherwise how can you know whether or not guilty parties still exist within the program) and would gladly campaign for the removal of any involved in the cover-up, but I certainly won't throw the volleyball coach under the bus just because he works for PSU.

I note the sarcasm ,Am not a fan of being called a bigot, however. Sorry that my comment about the Catholic Church, Notre Dame, both offended you.

Notre Dame may or may not have anything to do with the cover up of child molestations, but they do have something to do with negligence resulting in the death of an innocent kid and then turning blind eye.

[Dr Z]

Bud Shaw making some points.

Anything that debunks the myth of Joe Paterno is fine by me. Tearing the statue down for instance. But the NCAA's decision to revise the one thing we know he was -- a good football coach -- doesn't make sense. He's still the winningest coach in Div. I history in my book. That was fact, not fiction.

I'm paraphrasing something I heard on the radio the other day. "I think they should have left the JoPa statue up, but added a phone in his hand like he was calling the police on Sandusky. Then it could have represented what he should have done." --Howard Stern

[skip-zip]

But the NCAA's decision to revise the one thing we know he was -- a good football coach -- doesn't make sense. He's still the winningest coach in Div. I history in my book. That was fact, not fiction.

Totally agree. This wasn't cheating in athletics. This was criminal behavior by the a member of the coaching staff, and he hasn't even been on the staff for 13 years now. I can't think of any way this accomplishes anything, when producing wins and losses on the field was so unrelated to this tragic incident.

[Lee Adams]

Given the emotion I see in this discussion,I hope this motivates at least a few of you to actually get out in the community and give some of your time to those who are victimized. There are plenty of opportunities available to work directly and indirectly on behalf of victims of abuse.

[Captain Kangaroo]

Totally agree. This wasn't cheating in athletics. This was criminal behavior by the a member of the coaching staff, and he hasn't even been on the staff for 13 years now. I can't think of any way this accomplishes anything, when producing wins and losses on the field was so unrelated to this tragic incident.

John Wayne Gacey painted some great clowns. Roman Polanski made some great movies. Ted Bundy's ovehead slam was virtually unstoppable. And pedaphile-enabler Joe Paterno won a lot of fooball games.

[skip-zip]

John Wayne Gacey painted some great clowns. Roman Polanski made some great movies. Ted Bundy's ovehead slam was virtually unstoppable. And pedaphile-enabler Joe Paterno won a lot of fooball games.

You must have missed the word "tragic" in my post.

You may have also missed that it was specifically in reference to what is accomplished by removing past victories by Penn State from the record books.