Penn St. hit hard

The Game Room
#1

Did the innocent employees of Enron suffer such a penalty, other than the loss of jobs, which was merely consequent? (And they were compensated, presumably, with unemployment benfits, etc.) They’re punishing the masses for the actions of a few. It has never been established that the team, collectively, knew about the accusations against Sandusky. In fact, the sanctions are based on the presumption that there was a coverup. So why punish the football team for the criminal activity of its administration, including one who is dead and one who is in prison for life?

This will, of course, have extended consequences. Who, in the next 4 years is going to commit to Penn St.? And how much talent who would have otherwise committed to Penn St. think otherwise even beyond the 4 years? Guilt by association. A poor, poor model.

#2

There’s about ten threads about Penn State, but I figure we need one to discuss the penalty issued from the NCAA today:

I think the bowl ban was expected, but the cash and vacating of wins is… wow. Paterno was the winningest college coach in history but now drops to 12.

I think the logic is sound. Some might say vacating wins is a post facto punishment, but it essentially buries Paterno’s legacy. Part of me says that no penalty will ever be sufficient for what went on there, but it is incredibly harsh. Deservedly so, perhaps.

Thoughts?

#3

I’d rather have ‘wins vacated’ (can the losing teams claim them? Northwestern could use an extra W a year) than lose my job.

#4

Yay!!!, says Tuskegee St. We beat Penn St. Just look! We beat them “vacated” to nothing.

#5

Wow, they weren’t kidding about coming down hard. And not inappropriately IMO.

  • $60 million fine
  • vacating of all victories from 1998 - 2011 (dropping Paterno to 12th on all-time win list)
  • bowl ineligible for four years
  • players allowed to immediately transfer and play for other schools
  • 20 scholarship reductions

In addition, the Big Ten conference is donating PSU’s share of conference proceeds for the four years (about $13M/year) to child abuse charities, and barring the school from the conference championship game.

#6

Message to the Twitterverse: please, please, please, think twice, wait ten minutes, read again, and wait another ten minutes before posting your opinion on the penalty.

Prediction: at least three celebs/athletes/PSU alums will incite the ire of the planet by a knee-jerk tweet today.

#7

Damn, Hippy, sorry. I didn’t see your thread. I looked, too, I swear.

#8

No - vacated wins do not transfer to the losing team.

#9

What happens to the Big Ten Championship title for those years when PSU won it? Does it go to the second-place team or will there be no champion for those seasons?

#10

Same here, Mince, and when I saw yours I reported it. No harm no foul. :slight_smile:

Anybody heard from Matt Millen? He’s on my list for “most likely to sully what reputation he has” by saying something terrible.

I hope the new coach got on the horn to alumni and told them to not say a damn thing. Not for a few hours, anyway.

#11

Modding: I merged these threads, and I may suggest that this thread either be merged into the larger Penn State thread or that some of the posts from that thread be moved here.

We know there was a coverup based on the Freeh Group report. Paterno, Curley, Schultz and Spanier knew one of their assistants saw Sandusky do something inappopriate with a child in the showers in 2001 (whether they were told it was rape or just something sexual) and they did not tell the police or child welfare authorities or the school’s board of trustees. They decided to handle it quietly on their own. That’s a coverup. And mind you, they were aware of the abuse allegations against Sandusky from 1998. The sanctions are severe in my opinion, but they’re intended to punish the school for the actions of the people in charge of the football program and the school. PSU more than earned that. The athletes are being punished as minimally as possible: they can transfer to other schools without losing a year of eligibility. Yes, it may be hard for Penn State to field a competitive football team in the future. That’s too bad for their students, but they don’t have some kind of right to a winning team. The alternative would send the message that no matter what your school and its athletics leaders do, it shouldn’t be allowed to affect something as important as football.

When a win is vacated, it does not change the result of the game. It means Penn State (and Paterno) don’t get credit for the win. And yes, Penn State’s championships and bowl wins were also vacated. The wins don’t go to the losing teams, they’re just vacated.

#12

This is ‘hard’?

  1. Vacating past victories - I’m sorry, but big fucking deal.
  2. Bowl ineligible for 4 years - they were talking about killing the program forever. This is, by comparison, nothing.
  3. The fine: given the revenues the program generates just from Big Ten membership, it doesn’t seem like a killer - a lot of money, but money they can afford.
  4. Players allowed to transfer - well, of course. Again, bfd.
  5. The scholarship reductions: will this be in effect permanently, or just for the next 4 years? This is really the only meat to the penalty, as best as I can tell - and only if it’s permanent. Because my guess is that that would really demote the importance of football at Penn State. With 20 fewer scholarships than everyone else, they’d have a hard time competing nationally anymore, and might want to find a different conference rather than become a Big Ten doormat.
#13

*emphasis added

Ok, but this reinforces my point: the football team proper had no idea WTF. It wasn’t a rule violation, which, depending on severity, would warrant such sanctions. This case is wholly disconnected from the football team proper. Sorry, but I just don’t get it.

#14

Joe Paterno was the living embodiment of the “football team proper,” and he’s the one who instigated the coverup. The players had no idea, and the sanctions were designed to minimize the impact on the individual players while still punishing the school.

#15

I’m not generally an NCAA apologist, but the punishment seems appropriate to me. Hit them in the wallet, get Paterno out of the record book, keep them away from bowl games, and make them pay on the field. No blue-chip jock is going to want to play football at PSU for a couple years with no chance for a bowl game and playing for what will soon be the Big Ten cellar dweller. In about ten years they can get back to being a top tier team but it’s going to be a long painful slog.

#16

I haven’t seen any serious discussion of killing the program forever. Were you under the impression that “the death penalty” permanently got rid of a football program?

#17

Sure, it’s history and affects no one today, in a practical sense.

So, will you thank me that I didn’t cut off your left hand when I cut off your right hand?

So you won’t mind if I steal $500 dollars from you every week when you make thousands?

It is a bfd, to the program, the overwhelming majority who are innocent bystanders in this whole shit hole of a mess.

Of course it’s not permanent, but may have permanent consequences. They’re punishing the players as if they had control over the administration. If there was a huge coverup and Paterno had such dominance over the program, how could you fault anyone but Paterno and those above him, if anyone?

#18

Nobody ever talked about getting rid of the program forever. There was talk about banning them from NCAA competition for one year.

Why is that the foremost consideration? The leadership of the team and the school knew all about it and they’re in positions of responsibility. It’s almost impossible to punish the school and the athletic department leadership without punishing the team, and that’s life. The punishment to the football team is mitigated by the fact that they can transfer to other schools with no loss of eligibility if they don’t want to play for a team that is playing under these sanctions, and future recruits will come to Penn State knowing the situation.

It was a loss of institutional control: consider how fucked up it is that a member of the football staff was accused of abusing children and the leadership of the school and the athletic department asked “How does the football coach want to handle this?”

When the coach and the head of the athletic department (not to mention the president and VP of the university) do something like this and apparently do it to avoid embarrassment for the football team, it is not at all disconnected from “the football team proper.”

#19

(wrong thread)

#20

When children demonstrate they cannot play properly with toys, you take the toys away from them. It does not break my heart that the regular football players have their toy taken away from them, too. Perhaps they and everyone else will be more vigilant in the future.

If we didn’t make these big punishments, what would be the incentive for reporting next time? Next time it will be, “Oh the boss says don’t report it, and even if we get caught, it will just be a slap on the wrist.”

I think the penalty should have been even harder, personally.