Unprecedented Pennalty

Wow. Where to begin? The NCAA went H.A.M on Penn State and in typical NCAA fashion, it went way too far. I know this punishment for the Jerry Sandusky scandal isn't the death penalty, but it's beyond harsh. Let’s start out with the punishment:

• $60 million fine
• Four-year postseason football ban
• Five-year probation for athletic department
• Four-year scholarship reduction (10 initial; 20 total)
• Vacating wins from 1998-2011 (112 wins)

And from the Big 10 conference, Penn State received (among others) these punishments:

• Four-year ban from Big 10 championship game
• Reallocating Penn State’s forfeited share of conference bowl revenue. Approximately $13 million will go to Big 10 community charities dedicated to protecting children.

I included these two sanctions by the Big 10 conference as an example of perfectly reasonable ways to punish both the university and the football program, without arbitrarily trying to revise the past or excessively hurting current and future student-athletes. That second punishment by the conference gets a round of applause.The Big 10 came up with this Solomon like decision and they can’t even count!

I’m on board with the first four NCAA penalties. Money talks, so that $60 million fine is the only way to get the attention of a University with a $1.7 billion endowment. Secondly, the postseason ban for the football program is a must. Penn state can’t stand to potentially make millions of dollars in extraneous postseason competition while under punishment. OK, moving on.

I didn't even blink twice when I saw probation for the athletic department and scholarship reductions. A central issue in the Sandusky scandal is poor institutional oversight by PSU and these penalties are punitive oversight measures. Yawn, what’s next?  Vacating wins from 1998-2011. You cannot be serious!  I don’t understand vacating wins as a punishment. How do you read a record book with vacated wins, especially one with 112 vacated wins? Like this? It just doesn’t make sense

The vacated wins means that the last football game Joe Paterno officially won was November 22, 1997 instead of October 29, 2011. They mean that instead of ending his career with most wins all-time (409), Joe Paterno is now 12^th in career wins (298). The farce of the vacated wins punishment is that they don’t make Penn State return the MONEY that they won from these wins (ticket sales, concessions, conference bowl revenue, etc.). Altering record books pales in comparison to altering pocketbooks.

Players from 1998-2011 are also hurt by the vacated wins and none of them knew about the Sandusky scandal or the university’s cover-up. Adam Taliaferro, a former PSU football player that successfully rehabbed from a spinal injury he sustained in a 2000 game, tweeted: “NCAA says games didn't exist... I got the metal plate in my neck to prove it did..I almost died playing 4 PSU..punishment or healing?!? #WeAre.”

Taliaferro is a current member of PSU board of directors; obviously, he and hundreds of teammates will have an issue with the vacated wins when they put themselves at physical risk to have a grand total of zero wins in 13 years of football sorta-kinda-but-not-really played.

What do you think about the NCAA’s sanctions? Take the poll to the right