I agree. If they wanted to take Ol' Joe's wins away...fine. But what about the athletes that played. They could say that they did this and that....now they have nothing. Why block the current players from the post season. Fine the school...ok. Strip JoePa's wins....ok. Everything else...no good.I think the NCAA went way overboard with vacating all of those wins. It's the athletes that won those games and the athletes had nothing to do with this case.
I consider EVERYONE that benefitted from the success of the football program at PSU to be equally culpable.....including the ENTIRE university, staff, students, local businesses, and community. If they weren't so focused on a WINNING football team and what it meant to the university and surrounding community, MAYBE someone wouldn't have looked the other way and hoped this situation would "just go away".
Sorry I'm late to comment... but holy cow! This punishment was B.S.! Yes, it could have been worse (although, not by much)... The lame excuse of making an example of them... is the biggest bunch of ! I never liked that grade school classroom approach to discipline. It's not necessary to punish everyone for the acts of a few.
State College primarily exists as a town because of Penn State. Many businesses heavily depend on the money spent by football fans. People will lose their jobs, businesses will fail.
Based on your analysis, why aren’t we punishing the businesses and populace of Bloomington IN and Lafayette IN? After all, didn’t they also benefit from all the Penn State fans that spent money when the team was in town?
What was done by a few to effect a cover-up was wrong, but I disagree that an entire town has to be punished.
I agree. If they wanted to take Ol' Joe's wins away...fine. But what about the athletes that played. They could say that they did this and that....now they have nothing. Why block the current players from the post season. Fine the school...ok. Strip JoePa's wins....ok. Everything else...no good.
I think the punishment let them off easy in comparison to punishments given to other schools for far lesser activities.
Were you this passionate when Ohio State was punished after their players traded some pins for tattoos?
Okay, you really do know how to get me fired up... In answer to your question, YES! This one was even worse. Of course what those guys did was pretty dumb. But, what ever happened to the idea of an informal type restitution? The gods at the NCAA could still make their point, just correlate the punishment with the offense - just sayin..
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As for the "so-called lawyer" who started it - HIS actions are more appalling! I hate it when these morons who call themselves attorney's do stuff like this.
I agree on the lawyer.
I still think the NCAA was too lenient in comparison.
Using Ohio State as the example. The players who traded their own pins for tattoos are no longer at the school. Ohio State still lost scholarships and is banned from a bowl game. What Penn State did was much, much worse and a criminal activity. Yet they lose scholarships and are banned for 4 years. I know there is the money and the wins, but the wins don't matter going forward and the football program brings in more from alumni each year than they are being fined. Fines are good, but I don't like giving a business the chance to just buy their way out of a situation.
Ok, a few of the players did something venal, how is that the fault of the school or the program, and why does the program get punished? A simple "you don't do stuff like that, you don't get to play anymore" to the players who did it should suffice.
In Penn State's case, there are obviously several people complicit in the coverup, but is this endemic to the system, or are they just a collection of knaves? Seems the NCAA's first impulse is to treat the program as a unit, and loot it for a bunch of money, then inhibit its action into the future. How does this represent justice for those victimized? Are they going to see any of this loot?
Something happened. It's too late to prevent it, obviously, but whatever became of the idea of finding the guilty and punishing them?
"...had to do something to the school"?
My point is, that the "school" or the "program" would have to be complicit in the violation, in the sense of knowing about it, and actively covering it up. The NCAA is not operating on the legal level of preponderance of evidence, they're not seeking definitive evidence, they're just swaggering around looting the deep pockets in closest proximity to the guilty. If the guy at USC was criminally guilty, why can't he be pursued even though he's not there anymore? How can it be presumed that the school was complicit?
Penn State trustees file appeal...
Penn State Nittany Lions -- Trustees appeal to NCAA, vow federal lawsuit - ESPN
A Penn State board of trustee member filed an appeal Monday afternoon with the NCAA over sanctions levied against the university after the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal.
Three other trustees joined the appeal, which states that the consent decree university president Rodney Erickson signed with the NCAA agreeing to the sanctions is "null and void" because Erickson "lacked the legal authority" to enter into such an agreement without the board's approval.
They should just take the punishment and lie low.