Bob Costas on Meet the Press: 'Death penalty' for PSU football.

involved in this cover up certainly had the agenda of the football program saving face and in turn not to hinder recruiting. I really dont know how people can sit there and say this had nothing to do with the football program.

Kind of wary about the death penalty. The feds are going to come hard after PSU anyway. 

If this had happened at Michigan, I would have already written a letter to the university President saying we should voluntarily put football on hiatus for a year, maybe longer.  It's the most appropriate way to show remorse.  This shameful cover-up  happened because football was king at PSU.  Show that something matters more than football by voluntarily suspending the program for a year (or more).

Graham Spanier has a PhD in Sociology and is a an expert in family sociology and and a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.  He was a founding editor of the "Journal of Family Issues". If anyone knows the impact of sexual abuse perpetrated on children and the adverse effect on their families as well, it should be he.  Yet he, apparently, colluded with the other administrators and was complicit in allowing the cover-up to continue.  He certainly knew that child predators and pedofiles do not recover from their obsessions and they must be stopped.  That he ignored the victims and future victims is beyond criminal to my way of thinking.

Graham Spanier may no longer be president of PSU, but he is an interim professor of Sociology currently teaching at PSU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Spanier

For me, if we were do this logically, the punishment would be as follows:

3-5 postseason ban. Allow them to play the games, thus allowing stadium workers, vendors, etc. to keep their jobs. This doesn't take away anything from the rest of the Big Ten, but keeps  Penn State from having any real meaning allowed to their football season. No trophies or titles for the Nittany Lions.

A "donation" of a certain percentage of profits (50%? 75%? 100%?) to various victims of child molestation groups across the country. 

To me, this allows the least amount of harm possible on people uninvolved in the scandal while thoroughly affecting the idea that the football team is too big to face consequences....as well as actually putting funds towards helping people who have been harmed in similiar tragedies. 

Is a garden gnome

It's already been touched on by some, but making the argument that a Death Penalty/sanctions only hurts people who did nothing wrong is a really terrible argument.  That's how sanctions and penalties work.  The current USC players and most of the OSU players were not involved in the scandals that led to their respective sanctions.  Obviously sanctions hurt players/coaches that had nothing to do with the original trangressions, that's how it works.  

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/meet-the-press/48189038/

The trustees refusal to remove the statue and their anonymous quotes after seals it for me. Not only the death penalty but out of the B1G as well. Back to 11 they can join the big east. The students riot for a pedophile enabler who even wants them in our conference anymore?

I thought the Cam Newton situation would result in some kind of action, and then surely that Tresselgate would force them to act decisively. I don't know how Calipari is still in business. Now, with revelations of the most horrendous crimes being covered up with the most appallingly purposeful "negligence", if the NCAA can't do something commensurate, I give up entirely on them. They should fold up the tent and let colleges organize themselves. Who cares about the other stuff they do if this can pass?

has merit.  I understand the reasoning.  The PSU Football culture spun out of control and allowed this and other criminal activity to go on knowingly and unchecked.  There should be a severe penalty against the Football program and it should be relegated to its appropriate place wihtin the institution.  If PSU aint' going to do it, let the NCAA give 'em a time out and force 'em to do it.  This has nothing to do with the current players.

If you go to http://thefreehreportonpsu.com and click on "Watch the Announcement", the URL changes to http://thefreehreportonpsu.com/#!prettyPhoto

I don't think the webmaster got the memo on the seriousness of this report.

I think there's a good argument for shutting down the entire university as an entity. Shutting down for a few years the small portion of the athletic department that was at the root of this evil seems like the minimum possible punishment. Whether the NCAA has grounds to do it or not is another question.

i am slightly concerned about what will happen to other psu sports if football is suspended. football is the cash cow and if you suspend football, its likely that at least several other sports at the school will go under. this could produce an absolutely disastrous effect on the entire student athlete body for years.

Obviously severe punishment has to be dealt out to PSU. For those of you opposed to the death penalty, can I ask what would be more appropriate? Bowl bans and scholarship reductions won't do anything to a traditional powerhouse. That's been proven to us on multiple occaisions. This was a cover-up that a lot of the athletic department was involved in. They enabled child molestation by not only failing to seek out authorities, but by continuing to allow Jerry Sandusky access to the athletic facilities after he was done working. That part obviously hasn't set in for some of you. Ohio State got punished because players sold things they worked for, for tattoos. If Penn State gets anything remotely similar to that punishment, what message is that sending? Punish the entire athletic department by cancelling PSU football for a few seasons. It's not a rash decision when you put it into perspective. If anything, it still won't do justice for the crimes committed. All of you people who are saying "Oh no, you can't do that. Innocent people will be effected!", here's a quick thought; Innocent people have already been effected by this whole thing because some assholes thought their reputation and football team was more important than protecting children. There are more important things than a fucking football team. Get this done so that the victims don't have to hear about this whole thing everyday anymore.

Death Penalty probably will not happen...but I totally agree with Costas.  PSU should do a voluntaty Death Penalty for 2 season.

Death Penalty is the only way that they can get away from the stink of the paterno error and move on and start over.... but that will not happen.  There is too much $$ involved.

The season starts in 7 weeks. No way the NCAA acts that fast. Plus, how do the 12 teams on PSU's schedule replace them? Might not be a good reason, but it is a big reason why it won't happen this year.

Seeing as how they didn't bother to do anything after the news broke last season, except have a prayer meeting before the Nebraska game, I highly doubt PSU has any class. Even Pelini thought that the game should not be played. 

I see a common refrain from the posters defending PSU in this thread that you can't punish the institution because it will hurt innocent people.  There is some force to this claim, but be careful.  At it's limit this type of thinking justifies refusing to ever punish large institutions, because there will always be somebody who didn't know about the wrong doing that will be harmed when the institution is punished.  E.g., if we fine KPMG for tax fraud, some innocent janitor may be fired as a result. 

One trouble with a focus solely on the responsible individuals is that it may not be effective as a deterent.  If the structure of the institution is such that it incentivizes bad behavior, then altering that structure may be more effective in avoiding future bad behavior than simply threatening to punish wrongdoers.  This is, I think, part of the point of the Freeh report which states that the culture at Penn State must change to help prevent future bad acts. 

Another problem with focusing solely on the individual wrongdoers is that it ignores the benefit innocent people recieve from bad behavior by others in the institution.  The KPMg janitor may have gotten a bigger bonus because KPMG had more $ as a result of tax fraud.  He did nothing wrong to get the money, but it's not clear he is morally entitled to it (the law calls this state of affairs, "unjust enrichment").  In the PSU situation the whole school, football team included, benefited by the cover-up.  They avoided, amongst other things, paying  liability to victims and suffering the bad PR.  Even innocent people received these benefits and so they arguably can have these benefits taken away.

I'm glad that PSU is not on our schedule this year (assuming no death penalty). The game would not be enjoyable to me. How can one cheer for football knowing that your opponent's leaders aided and abetted and child rapist without any significant appreciation of the matter by their institution at large? Seeing PSU fans rejoice about football within Paternoville would make me vomit.

Anyone remember when Vince McMahon almost beat the piss out of Costas live on off the record in 2001? Man that was hilarious.

Also, and this is probably redundant given the anonymity here, but whoever went through and marked "redundant" to my and other posts, way to bring something to the discussion.  I don't know why this bugged me so much, but for such a sensitive and nuanced situation the childishness of a couple of people here is just annoying.  You have an issue with something said, then respond and add to the discussion.  Blanket "derp, I don't like your opinion so you suck" responses lowers the quality here.

Lots of people knew about Sandusky.  The friggin' janitors in the lockers rooms knew.  They reasoned that JoPa and Curley were okay with what Sandusky was doing, though, and feared that they would lose their jobs if they came forward first.

That's a sick, sick culture.  PSU needs to make a clean break with it, and if the current leadership can't see that, then someone on the outside is going to have to force them to see it.

this is a great debate.. even though the primairy charges are criminal, I think the university is still gonna get reemed

That article is shit, how about common sense that you would turn in that turd. I wish Joe could have got some jail time to get pounded in the ass.

I dont understand how the parents would allow their sons to commit to a school that just went through the worst scandal in college football history. Even with a good new hire coach, I would not let my son go to that school. Yet PSU will have a good recruiting class after all of this.

As a doctoral degree holder from PSU, and a undergrad Michigan degree, I have a unique perspective, I think. I have a loyalty and respect for Penn State the academic institution, but I'm a wolverine when it comes to sports and the college experience in general. 

The death penalty has some appeal, but I don't think it would work to stop the football is king hysteria at Penn State, so I'm torn about it. Especially if the NCAA levies it, it will just entrench the fanbase even more. No, I think what Penn State needs to do is to publicly repudiate everything that is Joe Paterno and the grand experiment.

Tear down the statue. Remove the name from the Library, and refund the Paterno's money. Vacate all of Joe Paterno's wins. All of them. Every cupcake, every regular season win, every bowl, and both national championships. All of it. Prove once and for all that no one man is bigger than the university. Prove that football is secondary to the academic mission.

This hurts none of the current players, but makes it clear that Penn State is going to make a meaningful break with it's past.

Instead of not allowing the football team to play for a year or more I thought of another punishment that might actually hurt PSU more and still allow the football team to compete. Would it be possible for the B1G to withold shared money from the BTN and bowl games for a year? Hit them where it really hurts, in the wallet.

Along with that hit them where their pride is, Joepa and football. Remove every win since 2001, any titles won, clean the slate like they never played. Lastly remove the statue, it's got to go and a shrine should be built to remember the victims. Instead PSU is doing it's best to remove the memory already with the plan to remodel the shower room. Disgusting.