The NCAA & Penn State

“Granted, the outrage over child rape would be rightfully greater, but to dismiss criminal activity of lesser degree or even suggest college DUIs are in the same stratosphere is absurd.”

This is my exact point. It’s not absurd. None of it falls under NCAA jurisdiction, no matter how heinous the crime. Or, none of it should, anyway. It’s not an amateur athletics/football issue. That fact that the crime is what it is allows the NCAA to overreach here, and that bothers me.

Sandusky should rot in jail, and so should those that allowed this to stay covered up. I think the NCAA is right in doing certain things — vacate the wins, fine the program, whatever. PSU covered this up to protect it’s wins and legacy. Take those things away.

A bowl ban and scholly loss, a severe scholly loss, punishes almost nobody that had anything to do with a (mostly) non-football issue. Did the NCAA do anything about Baylor’s murder? I forget because they were also caught cheating. They don’t punish schools with repeat criminal offenders, like Florida under Urban Meyer or even that great 2-3 year run Mack had.

If you are OK with the NCAA coming down on programs that allow this type of atmosphere, fine. I’d be OK with it, too, but it’s not something they’ve done. Now I feel they have to start.

but here’s my thing: Emmert’s very first comment in the announcement was about how this case brought on “deeply powerful emotions.” I believe the NCAA overreacted because of that. Had the crime been nearly anything else, PSU’s punishment would not have been so severe.

I don’t think the NCAA should respond emotionally. That’s not their job.

the only part I have a problem with is who is handing out the punishment, and who is actually punished.

A jury of peers should decide these people’s fate, not the NCAA. They nuked a city to kill one warlord.

Your creepy uncle that you haven’t seen in over a decade did. It’s not really a matter of whether or not your employer can fire you at that point, but should they.

I get the point you’re making and that point is correct. Sandusky and the PSU administration need to take it from every angle possible.

I fully understand what you’re saying. People involved in hit and run accidents may be prosecuted under the penal/transportation code here in Texas depending on the nature of the accident, and they may also be sued in the civil courts. Prosecutors routinely make restitution a part of any plea bargain deal, as they have every right to do so. This does bot preclude seeking damages in the civil courts.

However, that’s what the civil courts are there for.

Further, I’m not even saying the NCAA shouldn’t have stepped in. I’m simply stating that the fact that they did, while certainly creating a deterrent for future inaction by coaches and administrators, isn’t necessarily “proper” (if that’s the right word, might not be) under the system the NCAA and it’s member institutions have set up. The action here is kinda like an executive order, or the president exceeding his authority under the war powers act. At least an argument could be made, and is being made, to that effect.

In other words, I guess I’m just of the view that unprecedented circumstances doesn’t necessarily always warrant unprecedented action.

My wife, if she existed, wouldn’t have a set of bylaws that limited the scope of her ability to punish me or whatever (that would be nice)…the NCAA, however, does have such bylaws.

Your example shows the problem at Penn State. You know about the Bryant thing; he’s gone. It was not hidden, could not be hidden, for a decade.

It wasn’t last November that people found out that PSU was weird, insular, secretive. I knew it and I’ve never been closer than the turnpike. It’s a state school but isn’t subject to public disclosure. That isn’t true at UT or anywhere else I know of. Even the regents turned down the responsibility of supervision, not just of football but the whole university. The CIA and NSA have more watchdogs than Paterno did.

I don’t know what the State College hotel owner, or the stadium hotdog seller, or the average alum could have done alone, but they should have put their voices together and yelled. If you care about something, you don’t put a halo on someones head and say, ‘take care of this, Holyone’, you keep an eye on it and protect it from those who claim to be saints. And that is why those that are PSU, are getting what they deserve.