Watch: NCAA boss won't rule out "death penalty" for Penn State
(CBS/AP) - The president of the NCAA says he isn't ruling out the possibility of shutting down the Penn State football program in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
In a PBS interview Monday night (see clip above), NCAA President Mark Emmert said he doesn't want to "take anything off the table" if the NCAA determines penalties against Penn State are warranted.
Complete Coverage: The Penn State ScandalEmmert said he's "never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university." He added, "What the appropriate penalties are, if there are determinations of violations, we'll have to decide."
The last time the NCAA shut down a football program with the so-called "death penalty" was in the 1980s, when SMU was forced to drop the sport because of extra benefits violations.
"This is completely different than an impermissible benefits scandal like [what] happened at SMU, or anything else we've dealt with," Emmert explained. "This is as systemic a cultural problem as it is a football problem. There have been people that said this wasn't a football scandal.
"Well, it was more than a football scandal, much more than a football scandal. It was that but much more. And we'll have to figure out exactly what the right penalties are. I don't know that past precedent makes particularly good sense in this case, because it's really an unprecedented problem."
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NCAA has to do something for maximum impact, something that will affect institutional memory for many years to come.
A penalty so awful, that no one at Penn State or ANY other institution would never ever think of doing this type of thing again.
Death Penalty for 10 years for all sports at Penn State that charge admission to view. Being banned from ANY conference associated with the NCAA for that period of time! (THAT MEANS YOU "BIG TEN") That will get EVERYONE'S attention for sure!
The answer is simple, remove all members of the university who had or should have had a working knowledge of the Sandusky matter and did not do their job.
Let me say this about knowing what was going on with Sandusky. Every coach on the field and their staffs were talking about Sandusky in 1998. Every one of those men saw him with young boys at the complex.
The direct administration knew about this problem and should have had their informanys/security watching him at his OFFICE on Penn State property.
The Board of Trustee had to know something was wrong when Paterno's replacement not only quit the program BUT was not hired by any other major university like the University of West Virginia. Something was wrong with Sandusky and someone told the other Universitys not to ask him for an interview.
By ousting the people who created the oppertunity for Sandusky, the message will be placed on the backs of the correct individuals and the message will be sent to the same group in every college in the land. That is fair.
It is entirely appropriate that the sports program not escape unscathed from this.
If there is a consequence (as there should be) for the University's turning a blind eye (if that is what they did), then it is the University and its reputation that has damaged the players, the contracts, their students, etc. So the entire "team" or community suffers because one of its members made a mistake. A punishment is its due reward, and if you wish to encourage universities to pay attention it's in their reputation and in the fundraising (or lack thereof) that you will get their attention-- by paying attention to the demands of justice and delivering the fair punishment.
If you ignore the consequences (on behalf of the innocent who misplaced their trust in a corrupt school), you will end up doing more damage in the long run. If you consistently enforce egregious violations and teach people that they will get caught sooner or later-- eventually people will stop trying to game the system, and you will save more lives from being broken.
Yes, Joe Paterno was involved in the cover-up conspiracy so shut down the football program. The players can transfer to other schools.
The AD, Tim Curly, was also involved, so it stands to reason that if they shut down football, then all sports should be eliminated at Penn State. The athletes can transfer to other schools.
Also, the President, Graham Spanier, and VP Gary Shultz were involved so it is probably a good idea to shutdown the entire university. The students can always transfer to other schools. As for the faculty and other employees, well I guess we have to expect some collateral damage.
In reality, destroying the football program would have serious university-wide repercussions. There would be less money for other athletic programs and what money these would receive could conceivably cause an increase in tuition and penalize future Pennsylvania college students.
With new leadership in place, and with a new board of trustees, I would hope that they can come up with something that would placate the rational and morons (unlikely) alike. Perhaps donating 20% of the profits received from football games for the next 5 years and 10% thereon to organizations that are involved with treating abused children, educating the public in recognizing the signs of child abuse and ultimately eliminating child abuse would be a good way to start.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The program itself needs to be punished somehow, or the guys who were outed as covering it up will just get replaced by more soldiers who will do anything for the football machine and the guys who weren't outed (trustees) will giggle that they got away with it while rolling in bank.
Or perhaps the NCAA can implement the death penalty on football, but require PSU to still sell tickets to (now non-existing) footbal games, in order to keep those funds coming in? Yeah, that's the answer!