ESPN: Paterno's vacated wins restored!

[bkrownd]

It's funny how people get all sanctimonious yelling about the awful NCAA, but they've been a toothless organization WRT football since they lost control of the television rights decades ago. The Money is the Power. Television (companies, networks, conferences and athletics departments in cahoots) is firmly in control of college football, and the NCAA is just trying to survive while riding the tiger. Anything they do that jeopardizes the television money and university brands is going to get tied up in lawyers and courts for as long as possible, which is ultra-expensive and usually a losing cause. But the universities need the thin veneer of the NCAA appearing to have any authority, or college football will just descend entirely into the ethical black hole of being pay-for-play athletics meat market business. The more television money is involved, the bigger the arms race has become, and the dirtier and more insane college football has become.

 

[Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0]

I'll take that dare. The examples you use aren't analogous for the simple reason that they all involve the more difficult burden of proof of CONSENT. Jerry Sandusky was dealing with children on campus, in the facilities, in his home, where consent is not a factor. There was no real difficulty in proving Sandusky guilty - dozens of victims/witnesses, pages of damning testimony, etc. This was hardly a he-said / she-said situation. This was a chronic pedophile using his connections and contacts to keep his activities covered up 10+ years that resulted in the shattered lives of many young boys. The scale alone perpetrated by one man (and his enabling network) is not analogous.

I'm not standing up for the schools you mentioned, nor the behavior of the athletes who have been implicated in these college rape accusations. And I wouldn't be opposed to NCAA investigation in cases where the university or local authorities aren't doing their due dillegence. But to say these are comparable incidents is nonsense. And for the record, if a university like FSU or Notre Dame have a chronic problem with rape-cover up, then by all means the NCAA should attempt to get to the bottom of the situation. Especially when local authorities seem to be complacent or complicit.

Side note: Note that Mother Jones article did not raise the story of ex-Gopher and felon Dom Jones. That's because the Glen Mason and the U did the right thing, and dismissed him from the team immediately. Would be nice to see more schools put football aside to do the right thing.

I agree first off the NCAA should be able to get involved in policing institutions that cover up and enable criminal activities within its athletic programs. After reading some other posts, there were good points made for stepping in.

That said, I still think the NCAA's reaction (overreaction perhaps) was overreaching. In a previous post you reasoned that Penn State had a competitive advantage due to protecting Sandusky. Yet, schools have been protecting and enabling individual's criminal actions for decades with no repercussions by the NCAA. Notre Dame is a prime example of that. Didn't they preserve their competitive advantage by making sure players didn't pay for their crimes? The Nigel Clay quote from the article I cited was interesting. He said, "Well, speaking for myself and a lot of other people, we felt like we were above the law…like OU would protect us from anything." SI did an article titled OKLAHOMA: A SORDID STORY. HOW BARRY SWITZER'S SOONERS TERRORIZED THEIR CAMPUS. The NCAA investigated and sanctioned OU not for criminal activity of its players that the program enabled, but for illegal gifts to players and summer jobs provided to players that they didn't need to show up for. http://www.newson6.com/story/10550339/how-the-mighty-fall-barry-switzer

The only unique element of the Penn State case is nature and heinousness of the crime. Otherwise, they are 100% analogous IMO based on the competitive advantage argument. I still am not sure what rule(s) were broken or if they violated any code of ethics as I would interpret them. I would welcome amending the code of ethics to include criminal actions that schools are involved in directly or indirectly as long as punishment doesn't include vacating legitimate wins. To be clear, I'm not happy for the Paternos that these wins were restored, I'm happy for the young men who did nothing wrong but were made to feel like they somehow screwed up.

In response to some of you who posted hypothetical situations as what the NCAA did was justified, I think you are fooling yourselves if you think the NCAA would come near investigating any of them had Jerry Sandusky been a model citizen all this time. There wouldn't have been enough outrage to pressure for them to get involved. That's my rant for today.

 

[1983]

Excellent. The NCAA should've never been involved in this criminal investigation. The wins have been rightfully restored though, sadly, Paterno is not around to see it.

Paterno was completely aware his good friend Jerry was an active pedophile and did nothing to protect children. Others at Penn State knew this as well including big time boosters who also were friends with Jerry. Don't kid yourself. I agree the NCAA does not belong in a criminal investigation and I could careless about their wins and losses. Paterno was a great football coach but a disgusting individual and I am glad he is not around to see his wins reappear.

 

[1983]

I've put my opinion of this entire issue out here numerous times. So I will eschew from rehashing much of it here.

Personally, I don't care about the wins. Joe Pa won a lot of football games. Give them back, or revoke them. It makes little difference to me. Joe Paterno can be the winningest D-I coach of all-time again, that's fine. In the court of public opinion, he is also the Rape-enabling-est coach of all-time.

The NCAA continues to make themselves look like a fool (now a universal constant). So no change there.

I am bothered by the folks who say the scandal had nothing to do with winning football games though. If you don't think covering up a major pedophilia scandal on your campus and in your facilities for a decade plus doesn't provide a competitive advantage, then you are kidding yourself.

Recruitment of football players to PSU was based in part, on not only program success, but also convincing kids and parents alike that PSU and its staff had an impeccable reputation and high ethics and morals. Would Joe Pa have landed some of the players he did if he had to go to a recruit's parents house and answer questions about that whole pesky coach committing child rape thing? Hard to stand on a platform of high ethics and morals when you have something like that in the open. Recruitment was most certainly impacted positively by the cover up. And that provides a competitive advantage. And a route for the NCAA to intervene. Unfortunately, football is too big to fail at Penn State, and ultimately, even the NCAA agreed.

Perfect analysis sir

 

[vagopher]

The obvious distinction between what happened under Haskins and what happened at Penn State is that the Gophers were playing those games with players that should have been ineligible due to the academic fraud taking place. Penn State was not playing with ineligible players.

I am all for Paterno getting the wins back. The entire situation is disgusting and Paterno's legacy has been tarnished beyond repair just for his association with Sandusky no matter how much of what was going on he was actually aware of (which of course we will never know). But in this case I still see a difference between this being a criminal vs. a football issue and have not felt that the NCAA should have been as involved as it was. The people responsible are being punished by the legal system as they should be for the criminal acts that took place. The school was dragged through the mud and will always have this associated with them but from a football standpoint they really don't deserve to be punished at all at this point.

I don't see a distinction between playing with players who should have been declared ineligible and a coach who should not have been coaching. An investigation of the Sandusky case concluded that Paterno concealed facts related to the case and may have persuaded university officials not to report Sandusky as early as 2001. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Paterno. If that's true, its egregious.

 

[tikited]

The obvious distinction between what happened under Haskins and what happened at Penn State is that the Gophers were playing those games with players that should have been ineligible due to the academic fraud taking place. Penn State was not playing with ineligible players.

I am all for Paterno getting the wins back. The entire situation is disgusting and Paterno's legacy has been tarnished beyond repair just for his association with Sandusky no matter how much of what was going on he was actually aware of (which of course we will never know). But in this case I still see a difference between this being a criminal vs. a football issue and have not felt that the NCAA should have been as involved as it was. The people responsible are being punished by the legal system as they should be for the criminal acts that took place. The school was dragged through the mud and will always have this associated with them but from a football standpoint they really don't deserve to be punished at all at this point.

Wow, I just cant find one thing to agree with here. Dragged through the mud? You really think that Penn State U is the victim here?

 

[GopherinPhilly]

the NCAA exposed itself as a sham of an organization in the Paterno matter. This was not their business. And meanwhile their business is ON FIRE and they are doing nothing about it.

Well said oh wise one.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Wow, I just cant find one thing to agree with here. Dragged through the mud? You really think that Penn State U is the victim here?

Where in there did I say the school is a victim? The people associated with this have been or still are in the process of being punished for their actions. I just don't think the football team deserves to be punished for what was a criminal action.

 

[MNVCGUY]

I don't see a distinction between playing with players who should have been declared ineligible and a coach who should not have been coaching. An investigation of the Sandusky case concluded that Paterno concealed facts related to the case and may have persuaded university officials not to report Sandusky as early as 2001. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Paterno. If that's true, its egregious.

The distinction is that there is a direct rule against playing with ineligible players whereas as far as I am aware there is no rule that would vacate wins for a coach or assistant coach being involved in a criminal matter.

 

[GopherinPhilly]

The distinction is that there is a direct rule against playing with ineligible players whereas as far as I am aware there is no rule that would vacate wins for a coach or assistant coach being involved in a criminal matter.

Hey, if you are to use logic and reason and read the rule book you are not allowed here. This is a crazy only thread.

 

[Deleted_User]

The distinction is that there is a direct rule against playing with ineligible players whereas as far as I am aware there is no rule that would vacate wins for a coach or assistant coach being involved in a criminal matter.

Wouldn't the wins be vacated as the institution would normally fire coach harboring a criminal? That is the distinction in question. It was never about the players.

How is that for logic and reason?

 

[MNVCGUY]

Wouldn't the wins be vacated as the institution would normally fire coach harboring a criminal? That is the distinction in question. It was never about the players.

How is that for logic and reason?

Again pretty sure that would still not lead to any of the wins being vacated. How often do you hear about schools vacating wins after they fire a coach regardless of the reason. The NCAA vacates wins that involve ineligible players or other NCAA violations. It seems like the issues that took place with Sandusky were criminal and disgusting but they were also not NCAA violations so there really was no NCAA justification for stripping the wins off of Paterno's record.

We can all go back and forth about the moral implications and all the other horrible things associated with what happened but in the end as it relates to Paterno's win/loss record there is not an NCAA reason to remove the wins. Which is why they were restored.

And just to be clear I don't condone what happened at PSU, just trying to help those in here that can't seem to understand why the wins were restored. Even though I am sure in most of those cases it is probably a lost cause.

 

[WanderingGopher]

Some good points in this thread, but I think the discussion is conflating a number of separate issues.

- I would not have agreed with vacating wins at the outset in this case, but once done I think it's outrageous that it can be "undone."
I strongly believed PSU's football program deserved the hammer here, but vacating past wins for the coach seemed pointless to me at the time and more of a psychological punishment than an actual one. I've never liked the "undoing what already happened" aspect of vacating wins. But once the school AGREED to this punishment as part of the settlement that avoided worse sanctions, it's severely wrong IMO that people associated with the school can reopen it via litigation and have it undone. (Sort of a "double undoing.")

- While I say who cares whether Paterno is officially the "winningest coach" or not, it's the scaling back of the scholarship penalties and bowl ban that is infuriating. PSU as a PROGRAM fully deserved punishment for this heinous situation which occurred within its football program, by individuals deeply connected to its football program, and hidden 100% because the leaders of its football program (those leaders including the AD and President, as well as the "see no evil" coach) were protecting its almighty football program. PSU fans want to argue it's a "university issue" or "criminal issue" because all they care about is the football team. Laughable position.

- Fans of every school that gets punished inevitably complain that (1) it's "unfair" because school [x] did worse and only got [y] punishment, and (2) it's "unfair" to punish the kids who had nothing to do with it. Dumb, strawman arguments. Going light on you would just continue the problem, and the nature of college team athletics is that when a program screws up its current and future players are going to pay the price.

- Some are suggesting that this settlement proves that the NCAA had "no legal right" to penalize in this situation in the first place. Baseless. The NCAA's authority is extremely broad, and moreover, PSU's BOARD APPROVED THE PENALTIES. That should have been the end of it. Books closed, end of story. The ongoing case and settlement IMO proves what this was about in the first place, that the football program at PSU comes above all else and people there will do anything to protect it, including spending tens of millions of dollars or whatever it takes to beat down the NCAA after the fact.

- Unfortunately this proves yet again that when you do something wrong, the best way out is to fight the NCAA every inch of the way rather than being honorable as an institution and taking your punishment. UNC is going to end up proving the same thing, as did Miami recently.

 

[station19]

Some good points in this thread, but I think the discussion is conflating a number of separate issues.

- I would not have agreed with vacating wins at the outset in this case, but once done I think it's outrageous that it can be "undone."
I strongly believed PSU's football program deserved the hammer here, but vacating past wins for the coach seemed pointless to me at the time and more of a psychological punishment than an actual one. I've never liked the "undoing what already happened" aspect of vacating wins. But once the school AGREED to this punishment as part of the settlement that avoided worse sanctions, it's severely wrong IMO that people associated with the school can reopen it via litigation and have it undone. (Sort of a "double undoing.")

- While I say who cares whether Paterno is officially the "winningest coach" or not, it's the scaling back of the scholarship penalties and bowl ban that is infuriating. PSU as a PROGRAM fully deserved punishment for this heinous situation which occurred within its football program, by individuals deeply connected to its football program, and hidden 100% because the leaders of its football program (those leaders including the AD and President, as well as the "see no evil" coach) were protecting its almighty football program. PSU fans want to argue it's a "university issue" or "criminal issue" because all they care about is the football team. Laughable position.

- Fans of every school that gets punished inevitably complain that (1) it's "unfair" because school [x] did worse and only got [y] punishment, and (2) it's "unfair" to punish the kids who had nothing to do with it. Dumb, strawman arguments. Going light on you would just continue the problem, and the nature of college team athletics is that when a program screws up its current and future players are going to pay the price.

- Some are suggesting that this settlement proves that the NCAA had "no legal right" to penalize in this situation in the first place. Baseless. The NCAA's authority is extremely broad, and moreover, PSU's BOARD APPROVED THE PENALTIES. That should have been the end of it. Books closed, end of story. The ongoing case and settlement IMO proves what this was about in the first place, that the football program at PSU comes above all else and people there will do anything to protect it, including spending tens of millions of dollars or whatever it takes to beat down the NCAA after the fact.

- Unfortunately this proves yet again that when you do something wrong, the best way out is to fight the NCAA every inch of the way rather than being honorable as an institution and taking your punishment. UNC is going to end up proving the same thing, as did Miami recently.

#1 And that is because that's the only power the ncaa has.....because they are handling ncaa violations. In a criminal case such as this, the govt has the power to send to trial, send to prison and award civil damages. Recruiting and eligibility issues are not against the law. That's what the NCAA is for.

#2 The BOARD approved the sanctions because they were threatened with the DEATH PENALTY.

 

[Deleted_User]

Again pretty sure that would still not lead to any of the wins being vacated. How often do you hear about schools vacating wins after they fire a coach regardless of the reason. The NCAA vacates wins that involve ineligible players or other NCAA violations. It seems like the issues that took place with Sandusky were criminal and disgusting but they were also not NCAA violations so there really was no NCAA justification for stripping the wins off of Paterno's record.

We can all go back and forth about the moral implications and all the other horrible things associated with what happened but in the end as it relates to Paterno's win/loss record there is not an NCAA reason to remove the wins. Which is why they were restored.

And just to be clear I don't condone what happened at PSU, just trying to help those in here that can't seem to understand why the wins were restored. Even though I am sure in most of those cases it is probably a lost cause.

I'll try to be phlegmatic about your underdeveloped thoughts by taking it on one point at a time.

Coaches being fired normally would not need to vacate wins is a true statement in general. Except, this is not a general case. This is a case of a high crimes of a felonious nature that involved a conspiracy to cover up the crimes to preserve their status in football. So, this is an exception.

There are two types of infractions: institutional and individual. This case was about institutional infractions as a member body. So, your point about ineligible players does not follow from the premise. It is pure and simple an illogical assertion.

As for the argument that they were not NCAA violations, yes they were violations. The executive officers agreed that they were violations when they signed the penalty agreement. That contract stated the violations and the leaders of PSU agreed and signed. Whether or not the rule existed prior to that signature is immaterial. That document described the nature of the penalty and PSU consented and agreed that it is true. Your opinion is unnecessary and subordinate to that document.

As for you being helpful, you are not. You are clouding the issue with a series unsubstantiated points of view.

The case is clear and unambiguous in the facts. Paterno and the administration covered up a crime to preserve the football program and to gain revenue, to continue unfettered from sanctions at any level of penalty, and turned a blind eye to felonies in ongoing progress. That is sufficient reason for private sanctions. There is no legal reason why they could not assess penalties for any reason and enforce it when both parties agree. The agreement should have been enforceable.

 

[mplsbadger]

Saying that Penn State Football didn't benefit in the intervening years because of the coverup is like saying the Clinton administration didn't benefit in the 1996 election because the Monica Lewinsky affair remained a private matter.

 

[Sportsfan24]

I've put my opinion of this entire issue out here numerous times. So I will eschew from rehashing much of it here.

Personally, I don't care about the wins. Joe Pa won a lot of football games. Give them back, or revoke them. It makes little difference to me. Joe Paterno can be the winningest D-I coach of all-time again, that's fine. In the court of public opinion, he is also the Rape-enabling-est coach of all-time.

The NCAA continues to make themselves look like a fool (now a universal constant). So no change there.

I am bothered by the folks who say the scandal had nothing to do with winning football games though. If you don't think covering up a major pedophilia scandal on your campus and in your facilities for a decade plus doesn't provide a competitive advantage, then you are kidding yourself.

Recruitment of football players to PSU was based in part, on not only program success, but also convincing kids and parents alike that PSU and its staff had an impeccable reputation and high ethics and morals. Would Joe Pa have landed some of the players he did if he had to go to a recruit's parents house and answer questions about that whole pesky coach committing child rape thing? Hard to stand on a platform of high ethics and morals when you have something like that in the open. Recruitment was most certainly impacted positively by the cover up. And that provides a competitive advantage. And a route for the NCAA to intervene. Unfortunately, football is too big to fail at Penn State, and ultimately, even the NCAA agreed.

Well said my man.

Penn State gained a competitive advantage by hiding the fact they had a pedophile on campus. The fact that Joepa in DEATH still has the power to reverse the NCAA speaks to what he could and should have done in life; had Sandusky barred from campus until there was proof he was not raping a child in the shower.

Joepa was the worse kind of scum; worse than Sandusky. People don't wake up one day and have sexual urges for kids. They have some kind of sick perversion thing going on. In their case, lock them up, hide the key and let the prison doctors spend the rest of the perverts life helping them figure it out. Joepa? He was not sick, he was calculating. And he placed the reputation of himself and Penn St. over that of innocent children.

The response of Penn St fans demonstrate that nothing less than a lifetime ban was going teach them anything. They are enablers.

The person I thought Joepa was would have told the President get this person off of this campus until this is resolved. Remember this is the same person who was asked to influence the people on who the next President of the most powerful nation on the planet should be. Joepa would have been listened to.

 

[Sportsfan24]

The obvious distinction between what happened under Haskins and what happened at Penn State is that the Gophers were playing those games with players that should have been ineligible due to the academic fraud taking place. Penn State was not playing with ineligible players.

I am all for Paterno getting the wins back. The entire situation is disgusting and Paterno's legacy has been tarnished beyond repair just for his association with Sandusky no matter how much of what was going on he was actually aware of (which of course we will never know). But in this case I still see a difference between this being a criminal vs. a football issue and have not felt that the NCAA should have been as involved as it was. The people responsible are being punished by the legal system as they should be for the criminal acts that took place. The school was dragged through the mud and will always have this associated with them but from a football standpoint they really don't deserve to be punished at all at this point.

Penn State played games with players who may not have chosen Penn State had they been aware they had football coache/s who like having sex with young boys and administrators willing to cover it up.

 

[Sportsfan24]

I would love to get Terrelle Pryor's take on this. He was suspended 5 games and lost tens of thousands of dollars because he sold HIS stuff while a college student and with no NFL affiliation.

For those who are unaware; the NFL succumbed to NCAA pressure. They were going to make it tougher on NFL personnel on college campuses.

 

[mplsbadger]

Latest from PSU president, http://espn.go.com/college-football...says-freeh-report-sandusky-scandal-not-useful

 

[MNGoldenGophers1]

Latest from PSU president, http://espn.go.com/college-football...says-freeh-report-sandusky-scandal-not-useful

A few thoughts:

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Penn State's president on Wednesday dismissed the university-commissioned review of how top administrators handled child molestation complaints about former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky as "not useful to make decisions."

Really? I assume this was run past the victims and they agree?

The NCAA last year restored the bowl rights and scholarships, and two weeks ago agreed to restore the wins.

"I think it adds more clarity and it reflects circumstances better," Barron said. The recent decision amounted to "removal of penalties that, in my mind, don't quite match NCAA obligations, and so I think the consent decree dissolution is a very positive thing for the university."

In other words, they got a slap on the wrist.

He said the NCAA's main role should be making sure teams don't get an unwarranted advantage on the playing field, and he argued any Sandusky cover-up did not result in the type of advantage teams get from illegal recruiting.

"I think it's increasingly clear that none of the things that transpired had any impact on the field," Barron said.

The case of Spanier, Schultz and Curley for an alleged criminal cover-up is pending before a county judge in Harrisburg, 90 miles from the Penn State campus. Barron said that proceeding might bring to light new facts.

So riddle me this, if Curley, Moe and Larry are convicted of a cover-up, just what was it they were covering up and for what reason(s)? If it wasn’t to protect the image of the university and their reverend football program, what else is there? I have a hard time believing the 3-stooges would put their careers and reputations on the line because they were concerned only with Sandusky’s good image. I guess we’ll need to let the proceedings play out.

"The price that's being paid is the fact that it's really torn our alumni base apart," he said. "They're constantly reading about it, they're constantly talking about who is standing up for the university, how they're standing up for the university, who did something wrong."

F’ the alumni! What about the victims?

Penn State is developing a proposal to the Big Ten Conference to revise an athletics integrity agreement that currently applies to the university. Barron said a discussion about returning Penn State's share of the conference's bowl revenues from recent years "will be a face-to-face discussion."

Yuck! This whole thing really sucks and it is creepy we sleep in the same B1G bed as Pedophile State U. Delany is no better than the NCAA and I suspect he’ll kiss PSU’s azz and give them their entitled bowl $. This is one more and very BIG thing that is so wrong with major college football these days.

 

[Gopher Bandanna Guy]

So riddle me this, if Curley, Moe and Larry are convicted of a cover-up, just what was it they were covering up and for what reason(s)? If it wasn’t to protect the image of the university and their reverend football program, what else is there? I have a hard time believing the 3-stooges would put their careers and reputations on the line because they were concerned only with Sandusky’s good image. I guess we’ll need to let the proceedings play out.

This is an excellent point, and one I've failed to mention in the past. Too many of the Joe-Bots, (and those who simply think the NCAA had no jurisdiction here) seem to ignore this whole issue. Okay, so only a handful of people were involved in the cover up, and its being handled legally. But what has happened at a major university and public learning institution that made these people think it was WORTH covering up? The culture of big-time collegiate football being 'too big to fail' of course. And if that isn't a crack in the door for the NCAA to put its foot in, I don't know what is.

 

[re3886]

The football program should have been burned to the ground, the ashes should have been buried in unconsecrated ground, a steak driven through them, and garlic should have been planted over it so that it could never been raised from the dead ever again. All wins over PSU's history should have been vacated. Sorry, but the victims can never be made whole again, why should JoePa's memory be different?

 

[Deleted_User]

The football program should have been burned to the ground, the ashes should have been buried in unconsecrated ground, a steak driven through them, and garlic should have been planted over it so that it could never been raised from the dead ever again. All wins over PSU's history should have been vacated. Sorry, but the victims can never be made whole again, why should JoePa's memory be different?

He doesn't deserve to be made whole.

 

[saintpaulguy]

Kent State will always be where the National Guard fired on students. Penn State,wins or no, will never not be known as the place where an assistant coach reported a rhythmic slap in the shower.