Penn State football punished by NCAA over Jerry Sandusky scandal

Penn State football punished by NCAA over Jerry Sandusky scandal

By Steve Yanda, Monday, July 23, 2012

Under legendary coach Joe Paterno, Penn State football became one of the most recognizable and successful brand names in college athletics. But on Monday, the NCAA levied unprecedented sanctions against the program for its role in the sexual abuse scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, erasing part of the team’s illustrious history and making its prospects in the near future increasingly dim.

The NCAA fined the school $60 million, imposed a four-year postseason ban on Penn State football, significantly reduced the number of scholarship players the team can field over the next four years, placed the program on probation for five years and enabled any current or incoming player to transfer and play immediately without restriction.

But perhaps the most significant individual sanction in the context of college football history is that all of Penn State’s wins from 1998 to 2011 have been vacated, which means that Paterno, who oversaw the Nittany Lions’ football program for nearly 46 years, no longer is the all-time winningest coach at college football’s highest level….

Earlier this month, former FBI director Louis J. Freeh released a report that found Paterno, in concert with three other top Penn State officials, had covered up allegations of child sexual abuse made against Sandusky, a former assistant coach on the football team, for 14 years….

Penn State has signed a consent decree and will not appeal the sanctions. In an interview with the Centre Daily Times, Penn State President Rodney Erickson said it agreed to the sanctions in order to avoid an NCAA death penalty….

Erickson said in a written statement that the money to pay the fine would not come from tax money, tuition dollars or donations….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/penn-state-football-punished-by-ncaa-over-sandusky-scandal/2012/07/23/gJQAGNeM4W_story.html

UPDATE 4-Penn State hit with unprecedented penalties for Sandusky scandal
Tue Jul 24, 2012

* Penn State football avoids “death penalty”

* NCAA president cites “tragically unnecessary circumstances”

* No bowl games for four seasons, scholarships reduced…

By Edith Honan

July 23 (Reuters) – The governing body of U.S. college sports fined Penn State University $60 million and voided its football victories for the past 14 seasons in an unprecedented rebuke for the school’s failure to stop coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children.

NCAA President Mark Emmert said the school had put “hero worship and winning at all costs” ahead of integrity, honesty and responsibility.

Penn State was not given the so-called “death penalty” that could have suspended its football program but it was banned from post-season bowl games for four years and had the number of scholarships available to players reduced from 25 to 15.

Penn State officials were accused of not taking action after being alerted that Sandusky, a former assistant football coach, was sexually abusing children. The scandal tainted one of college football’s leading coaches, the late Joe Paterno, and led to his firing last year along with other top school officials.

The punishment, announced by the National College Athletic Association at a news conference in Indianapolis, was unprecedented for its swiftness and breadth. It was the latest blow to an institution still reeling from Sandusky’s conviction last month on child molestation charges.

The case was another blotch on the diminishing legacy of Paterno, who until Monday’s action had held the record for victories among big-time U.S. college football coaches in a career that spanned more than 40 seasons. Paterno lost that status since the NCAA’s punishment includes voiding the Nittany Lions’ victories between 1998 and 2011 – the time period covering when allegations against Sandusky were first made and Sandusky’s arrest….

Emmert said the NCAA chose not to levy the so-called “death penalty” because it would have harmed individuals with no role in the Sandusky scandal….
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/23/usa-pennstate-idINL2E8INCC020120723

How I Came To Talk About My Abuse, NCAA Penn State Sandusky Sanctions, Paterno Statue Removed

also:
- NCAA could fine Penn State as much as $60M as part of Sandusky sanctions
- Nightly News   |  Aired on July 22, 2012 Coach Joe Paterno statue removed

How I Came To Talk About My Abuse
07/19/2012  Carissa Phelps – Attorney, Author

When Carissa Phelps was 14 years old she found herself in a last-chance rehab facility for young people, on the verge of becoming another casualty of the streets. What had started out as frequent sleepovers at friends’ houses to escape the wrath of her stepfather and her chaotic, impoverished home, grew into full-fledged running away, until her exasperated mother finally abandoned her at Fresno’s Juvenile Hall. She was 12 years old.

From this point, Carissa pinballed between the streets and various group homes or state run facilities. She experienced trauma that no child should have to endure at the hands of a brutal pimp, who made her walk the streets. But by some miracle she survived, and the child victim grew up to be a strong, successful woman, driven by her desire to pay it forward by helping kids in need.

RUNAWAY GIRL: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time (Viking, $26.95), by Carissa Phelps, co-authored with Larkin Warren, is her story. Here, she explains why she decided to tell her story, and how people misrepresent what she went through….

When we call sexual exploitation of youth something like “prostitution” we put all the blame where it does not belong. We focus on the youth, on the child, on their behavior. In the recent Sandusky hearing, the questions were not about the child’s “promiscuous” or “needy” behavior that led to their being easy targets for abuse. Today, the focus is not on what a child victim is wearing or that they may have admired or sought out the person that was abusing them. Thankfully for the Sandusky victims and for many other child sexual abuse victims we’ve gotten past that type of victim blaming when it comes to straight child sexual abuse. However, for the children and youth that are commercially sexually exploited we are still far off.

What I experienced was not prostitution. I was twelve. I was abused. There was nothing about it that made me feel like I was in control. It was the opposite. I belonged to someone. He controlled me. He played games with me to get me to obey him and to make sure that I knew he was the boss. Up until that point I had rebelled against all adults, so it was odd for me to follow his rules, but he made sure I knew that he was in control….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carissa-phelps/child-abuse-runaway-girl_b_1686791.html

NCAA could fine Penn State as much as $60M as part of Sandusky sanctions

By Jerry Hinnen | College Football and Olympics Blogger
July 22, 2012

The NCAA will fine Penn State at least $30 million and perhaps as much as $60 million for its involvement in the Jerry Sandusky scandal, industry sources told CBSSports.com’s Brett McMurphy.

The record fine will go toward an endowment for children’s causes, sources said.

“This is a fine like no fine before,” an industry source told CBSSports.com.

CBSSports.com’s Dennis Dodd has reported Penn State will face “significant penalties that could severely damage the football program’s ability to compete” when the NCAA announces sanctions against the football program at a 9 a.m. news conference Monday.

To put the fine in perspective, Penn State’s athletic department had $116 million in revenue for the 2010-11 school year, the most recent data available according to figures from the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics.

A source told CBS News correspondent Armen Keteyian that Penn State will suffer “unprecedented” punishment for its collective failure to report Sandusky, recently convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse, to the proper authorities.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the source told Keteyian, indicating that both the football program and the school itself would face sanctions….

Bob Williams, the NCAA’s vice president of communications, said after the Freeh report was released that Penn State needed to answer “four key questions, concerning compliance with institutional control and ethics policies.”

Likely of particular interest to the NCAA were the report’s conclusions that the school had “decentralized and uneven” oversight of compliance issues – laws, regulations, policies and procedures.

“Certain departments monitored their own compliance issues with very limited resources,” the report found. Ensuring compliance with the federal Clery Act, which requires the reporting of crimes, was handled by someone with “minimal time.”….
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/eye-on-college-football/19632027/ncaa-to-sanction-penn-state-source-says-school-may-prefer-death-penalty

Nightly News   |  Aired on July 22, 2012 Coach Joe Paterno statue removed
A statue of famed Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has been removed following the report that he knew Jerry Sandusky was being investigated for child sex abuse. NBC’s Michael Isikoff reports.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/48278494

Penn State did not fully cooperate in Sandusky probe, Former chairman becomes first Penn State trustee to resign post-Sandusky

Penn State did not fully cooperate in Sandusky probe: governor
By Mark Shade HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania Thu Jul 19, 2012

(Reuters) – Pennsylvania’s governor said on Thursday that Penn State University officials may have intentionally withheld information from a grand jury looking into allegations of football coach Jerry Sandusky’s child sex abuse. Penn State’s cooperation in the Sandusky investigation, dating back to 2009, was “incomplete,” despite a subpoena from the state attorney general, Governor Tom Corbett said at a news conference. Corbett was Pennsylvania’s attorney general in 2009, before he was elected governor in 2010….

Penn State failed to turn over all the evidence sought by the grand jury looking into Sandusky, Corbett said.  “It was not initially provided by Penn State University when it was subpoenaed by the attorney general’s office,” he said. “I am very disappointed in the lack of forthcoming evidence to the subpoena that was given to them by the attorney general’s office,” he added.  Pennsylvania newspapers reported that Corbett said that emails implicating university officials did not come to light until after charges had been filed in the Sandusky case.

Penn State spokesman Dave La Torre said that Penn State is cooperating fully with all investigations. “Penn State has, literally, turned over millions of pages of documents to investigators and continues to cooperate with any and all requests for information,” he said.

The grand jury investigation into the case remains open, according to Attorney General spokesman Nils Frederiksen. He would not say whether Penn State might face obstruction of justice charges or if any other charges might be pending….

Penn State also faces an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, which is weighing whether it violated the Clery Act that requires colleges to report criminal incidents on campus, and by the NCAA, which governs U.S. college sports and is weighing sanctions against the university.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/20/us-usa-pennstate-governor-idUSBRE86J00G20120720

Former chairman becomes first Penn State trustee to resign post-Sandusky   CBSSports.com wire reports July 19, 2012

A member and former chairman of the Penn State board of trustees resigned on Thursday, becoming the first board member to do so in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

Steve Garban said in a letter his presence on the board had become “a distraction and an impediment” to its efforts to move forward.

Garban, who had stepped down as board chairman after Sandusky’s November arrest but had remained a board member, was harshly criticized over his handling of the crisis that engulfed Penn State, and he faced persistent calls from alumni and fellow board members to resign.

An internal investigation by former FBI Director Louis Freeh found that Garban was briefed twice about developments in the Sandusky case but didn’t share what he knew with the entire board, depriving trustees of a chance to prepare for the worst crisis in Penn State’s 157-year history….

In April 2011, the report said, Spanier told Garban about a grand jury investigation of Sandusky. Garban, in turn, failed to alert fellow board members. Garban told investigators that Spanier downplayed the Sandusky probe, and he recalled his former boss saying, “It was the third or fourth grand jury and nothing would come of it,” the report said.

Then, on Oct. 28, Garban learned from Penn State’s chief lawyer that two university administrators were about to be charged with failing to report suspected child abuse. Garban told investigators he was “astounded” when he saw Sandusky in the Nittany Lion Club at Penn State’s home game against Illinois on Oct. 29. Yet he informed only two other trustees — James Broadhurst and John Surma — that charges against Sandusky, Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz were imminent. http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/19617513/former-chairman-becomes-first-penn-state-trustee-to-resign-postsandusky

Jerry Sandusky Retirement Package Revoked By Penn State University, Pension Remains, Sandusky fallout: NCAA ‘death penalty’ possible for Penn State

Jerry Sandusky Retirement Package Revoked By Penn State University, Pension Remains The Huffington Post  By Tyler Kingkade  7/18/12

Jerry Sandusky has been downgraded.

Penn State University has officially revoked the retirement package of Sandusky, a convicted pedophile, according to the Daily Collegian. Sandusky, a one time assistant football coach at PSU, retired in 1999 and received a lump sum payment of $168,000. The Freeh report, released last week, noted this was a highly unusual amount.

Another bizarre condition of Sandusky’s retirement included giving him “emeritus” status, which allowed him generous privileges. At the time of his retirement, Sandusky was an assistant physical education professor and assistant football coach positions, which wouldn’t qualify him eligible for the emeritus rank. He was given wide access to use facilities on campus, including the locker rooms and showers where he was found to repeatedly molest and rape young boys.

University spokesman Dave La Torre gave further details to the Collegian:

He said the following portions of Sandusky’s retirement package have been revoked: four free football season tickets for the rest of his life and the opportunity to purchase four more within the 35-yard lines; two men’s and women’s basketball season tickets for the rest of his life; lifetime use of a locker, weight rooms, fitness facilities and training room in the East Area locker room; a five-year agreement, subject to renewal, between Sandusky and Penn State to work collaboratively in community outreach programs such as The Second Mile that “provide positive visibility to the University’s Intercollegiate Athletics Program,” as well as a 10-year agreement, subject to renewal, giving him an office and telephone in the East Area locker room.

Sandusky was found guilty on June 22 of 45 criminal counts relating to the assault of 10 boys over a 15-year period. La Torre said he’s unclear about when the university officially revoked the retirement package.

La Torre told The Huffington Post Sandusky’s emeritus was officially removed….

The $168,000, in addition to 71 separate payments made between 2000 and 2008 by Penn State to Sandusky for items including travel, meals and speaking engagements, will not be revoked, the Collegian reports.

However, Sandusky will still be collecting nearly $5,000 a month through his pension from taxpayers. Some lawmakers have said they want to review any possible options to cut Sandusky off from his pension, but they acknowledge that would be unlikely.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/jerry-sandusky-retirement-package-revoked-psu_n_1679879.html

Sandusky fallout: NCAA ‘death penalty’ possible for Penn State
By Michael Muskal July 18, 2012

With Penn State University expected within days to respond to NCAA concerns about how the school handled reports involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and allegations of child sexual abuse, the real question for sports fans is whether, and how, the celebrated football program will be punished.

The NCAA, the governing body of collegiate sports, is not likely to act quickly enough for there to be any action before the football season opener scheduled for Sept. 1 against Ohio University. The Nittany Lions have the dubious pleasure of opening at home, at Beaver Stadium. That stadium has been the focus of protests about a statue of Joe Paterno, the late head football coach, who was portrayed in less-than-flattering terms in the recent university-sponsored report on the Sandusky scandal….

The NCAA, for its part, has taken nothing off the table, including the so-called death penalty, shutting down the program for at least a year, said its president Mark Emmert in a PBS interview Monday. Emmert said he’s “never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university.”….

The Freeh report blamed top university officials for failing — not once, but twice — to act on reports that Sandusky had sexually abused boys in the showers of the school’s football training facility. The officials acted to keep the reports in-house, despite legal requirements that they tell outside authorities, because they feared the impact of bad publicity on the school. The report also discussed a culture of fear that prevented anyone from acting against someone affiliated with the school’s powerful football program.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ncaa-penn-state-death-penalty-20120718,0,4725237.story