My proposal for Penn State's punishment and a request for yours
I know this violates the “one thread per day on Penn State” idea, but I’m honestly interested in where the broader MGoBlog community stands on this. Plus, if we can have four threads/day on a video game, I think we can have a couple on the biggest college football scandal in recent memory.
I haven’t seen this proposed, but here’s what I would do:
Probation, monitoring, demanded apologies, etc., and a one-year ban on playing college football… effective in 2018.
My arguments for the 2018 ban:
1. It’s a real punishment. Missing a year of college football would hurt, and on top of that, recruits over the next several years would have to commit knowing that there’s one year in which they couldn’t play. Recruiting surely would suffer for the next few years. Plus, there something appealing about a crime-punishment parallel in which the PSU leadership let horrible things linger for a long time so the punishment lingers for a long time as well.
2. It enables the Penn State players, who knew and did nothing wrong, to finish their careers at Penn State without a poorly targeted punishment that hits them more forcefully than anyone else. This punishment hits the institution more broadly. Future recruits who know about the 2018 ban and commit anyway are punished, but they know what they’re getting into beforehand.
3. It gives everyone time to plan for this. The conference and Penn State’s out-of-conference opponents get extra time for scheduling, local businesses get time to anticipate a one-year loss in game day revenue, etc.
4. It’s better than a lot of the alternatives. Scholarship reductions don’t seem appropriate to me, because that’s a strange penalty given the wrongdoing. I don’t like the idea of removing Penn State from the Big Ten, because it’d be a massive pain that would be extremely harmful to a lot of innocent people. I think an SMU-style death penalty is too much. At the same time, the cover-up here directly benefited the football program (relative to what would have happened if this story came out), so I think it’s entirely appropriate to issue punishments that affect Penn State on the field.
So anyway, that’s my idea. I’d be interested in thoughts on this and on where you all stand more generally.
I like it. It doesn't ignore the situation, and it doesn't go overboard like kicking PSU out of the big Ten and killing JoePa's family.
Why punish anyone when you can start a new bogus charity to help kids, utilizing taxes on Penn State football tickets? Just ask Nick Saban how its done: link
Then when the new charity commits a mortal sin or two, send the remaining funds to your favorite religious tax-evading non-profit in order to avoid having to satisfy expected liability judgments to the victims: link
2018 is quite removed from the original sins...let them move on quickly if a punishment such as you have laid out comes to fruition
2012 is pretty removed from the original sins as well though.
I agree...I don't support a death penalty here...just my opinion
But delaying the punishment would basically make it a 6-year pre-penalty followed by a couple years of post-penality fallout. SMU didn't even get what would be in effect a decade penalty.
I actually disagree with that. I think we'd be surprised by the number of (mostly local) kids who would commit anyway because they love the school and want to rally behind it. They'd just use that as a redshirt year or something. Plus, if you're a good recruit (say Big Ten level but not typical Penn State level) and you suddenly have a chance to play at Penn State because some other kids are passing on it, I think that you'd seriously considering going.
Maybe local kids who love PSU would still commit, but many of those would be kids who typically have no business on a Big 10 roster. Your major talent would not want to mess with this. I agree with the above post that this would destroy the program for several years. Not saying this is good or bad/appropriate or not--just saying that I think it would be devastating for PSU.
This would destroy the program for at least a decade, maybe forever. The time it took Michigan Basketball to become good again would be nothing on this.
The next five years would be a wash, especially since Penn State is already in serious rebuild mode. Then the death penalty year. Then at least four years to get things back on their feet. In the meantime, there is no guarantee that the fans won't simply stop buying tickets for a dying program and good coaches won't shun the job as poison.
Frankly, it's entirely possible that PSU never truly recovers even without the death penalty. If O'Brien turns out to be good, they have a chance, but if he doesn't...
Relax with the over reaction man. PSU football will not fall off the map. They have a 100K stadium and a bunch of whackos with nothing better to do in central Pennsylvania than support that team and Joe Pa even after the Freeh report. That entire community is built around the school, and football is its ritual.
Will they be elite over the next decade? Almost surely not...but they haven't been much to write home about over the past 15 years either. 3 Big Ten titles since they joined the conference, with mostly mediocrity over that spell.
They will probably more like Notre Dame and fade further into irrelevancy, but the idea of them not being able to sell tickets is ridiculous.
Oh, it would definitely hurt, but that's partly the point. I just don't think they'd have Akron-level talent. I think they'd have Purdue/Illinois-level talent.
I have a broader view, which might be wrong, that historical football powers are extremely perserverant with this kind of stuff. No one expected Penn State or USC to recruit like they have this year, but they're doing it. If that kind of thing happened at NC State or Iowa State, I think you'd see a much steeper drop off from their typical recruiting classes to their post-scandal ones.
I tend to agree with you. It would severely hurt their recruiting.
In fact, I remember hearing a lot of people say that Michigan Basketball recruiting was hurt for years from the fact that it took the NCAA years to fully investigate and then come to a decision on the punishment.
I'm not sure, but don't believe so. Local kids and marginal kids may do well to sit out a year for a chance to play at PSU.
I love it...however the press wants more blood so they can say they took the moral high ground...it's a non-loser to the press
into a saintly figure. The same press that presented the program as wholesome. The same press that turned a deaf ear to rumors, that did less investigative work than was done when Michigan stretched too much, and in at least one case, ignored a direct suggestion that the program wasn't what it was made out to be, right? Yes, by all means let them have the moral high ground.
This was my first thought as well.
Saban actually was quoted as suggesting something along these lines. (Not that I usually agree with him). He suggested a certain percentage of revenue from all sports at PSU be considered a tax for the crimes and be set aside to go to charity supporting victims of abuse. Might be the wisest thing he as ever suggested. Nothing you do to the football program will take away the pain of the victims. So you might as well try to get something good out of it. Punishing current players (which is what the NCAA typically does) is never fair to those kids who had nothing to do with the scandal.
I think this, or a version of this, is the best idea; if you kill the football program you kill the revenue that will pay out all these lawsuits they're going to lose. Better to keep it running, reserve a small amount for scholarships for the players or whatever, and pay the profits to the victims.
If I were a victim and I were able to negotiate a settlement that gave me a percentage of football revenues for, say, 10 or 20 years, that would be pretty good.
PSU is a state agency, so I assume that when they lose those suits the state general fund will have to come up with any $ beyond what would be available from PSU's budget in that year. Obviously the state would be on the hook for more if PSU athletic revenue is diverted elsewhere, but the plaintiffs will get paid in any case unless I'm missing something.
PSU's endowment is more than enough to cover the lawsuits. I do think that a percentage of athletic department revenues should be contributed though - this is an excellent idea.
My only concern with your idea is that it would punish every other sport at PSU because they are so reliant on football money to fund operations. The school would have to either dig into its endowment/find alternative means for funding (which may be impossible) or cut/demote some programs. That doesn't seem fair to other sports that had absolutely nothing to do with the football program or what went on there.
But it would be up to the PSU BOT to either cut certain programs (and the corresponding amount of male or female programs) or use their endowment to fund those programs until the athletic department became self-sufficient again. Endowments themselves are peculiar in that they really only exist to be large sums of money, which bring prestige to the University by virtue of the committments (faculty, facilities, etc.) the University can make due to the size of the endowment. In reality, the endowment isn't used for any of those things but rather is invested in for-profit enterprises (PE Firms, mututal funds, hedge funds, etc.) while not paying taxes on its profits (whole other issue, IMO). The groups that benefit from the endowment are the individuals in charge of the money, which at PSU would be the BOT and at UM the Regents (I believe), the investment office at the school and the various private, for-profit, investment firms that invest the money on their behalf. If the school wants to build a building or fund a program, rather than use the endowment, it sells the name to a wealthy donor. See the Ross School of Business. At Harvard they can't build enough to satisy naming demands of alumni and non-alumni alike. The point is, if PSU is willing to sacrifice some of it's prestige to fund money losing sports, I think that's a small price to pay given the circumstances. If they don't want to, I suppose that's another type of prestige they're sacrificing but completely up to them.
Post #1. Huzzah!
too much money goes towards overhead and the salaries of the execs.
PSU needs to aviod civil trials, pay the victims a more than fair sum of money, and encourage a federal law that severly puniches everyone in education that does not notify the police (not their boss) when they are told of these types of allegations.
As for footbal punishment, I don't know. The OP's idea sounds logical. Maybe make it 2014 and allow current students to transfer freely?
Possibly next year as well. Afterwards, I would like to see someone from the conference take a trustee type role over Penn State's athletic department for a set amount of time, during which time they understand they're on double secret conference probation.
This trustee will work with PSU to change the culture within the program, have some significant power regarding institutional control, Cleary Act compliance, ect. and submit reports to the CoC/P. If there are satisfactory results the trustee will disappear and PSU can move on from this as a member in good standing.
While I understand the arguments about current players losing out with this season and maybe next, I think it's worse to see that football take the field in the fall. It seems distasteful and callous, IMO.
Disgraceful, yes. But this would be an overreaction. Most of the insitution had nothing to do with this. Punish those involved (put them in jail for all I care), but don't punish every student/athlete/coach/professor/administrator that works for the university.
Sometimes you don't get a second chance. This is one of them. Boot them. I don't want to be reminded of the rythmic slapping everytime I look at a PSU football team uniform and I certainly don't want some transcendant season where they rise above it all. Fuck them.
Most schools can't fund their other sports through football. Just because Penn State has had that luxury doesn't mean they can't adapt. Maybe they will have to cut back. Maybe their alums and boosters will cover the expenses. Maybe they can pay student fees like most places. Wasn't a big part of their problem that the football program was too important? That was true in part, because it was easiest, not because it was right.
This cover-up ran from school administration, athletic department administration, head football coach and campus police department. This was not merely a football issue, it was the institution. The entire place should be shut down....they knowingly ran a rape room on campus and actively covered it up for a decade +. Shut it down! This is lack of institutional control and if the Institution cannot protect children on their campus, they shouldn't have a campus. I really don't care about the collateral damage that involves anyone representing PSU, if a man is guilty of rape and is sentenced to 30 years in prison, don't you think his children will suffer? Those he is responsible for, out of no fault of their own? If the program gets nuked, it is not the NCAA to blame, it is PSU Administration
Personally, if I was a student there, I'm OUT! I don't want Pennsylvania State University on my Diploma.
the rioting of the students, the stubborn refusal to remove the statue, that whole culture needs to be eradicated from the Bi1G. I'd take Pitt or MD in a heartbeat over PSU right now. I live in FL and it's much easier to find a flight to go see UM in Pitt or College Park, and much safer to attend the game. PSU is unsafe for visiting fans at night games. Not so anywhere else in the B1G. For all these reasons i say get thee gone. we are better off without them.
There is no right answer for this topic.
This argument about innocents inevitably suffering some impact doesn't make sense to me. It reads as if we should continue doing this wrong because we have always done this wrong. We've used chainsaws for twigs before; nearby trees/shrubs have always been collateral damage - let's continue with the chainsaw.
Human beings can intervene - collateral damage is not inevitable. Why not elect a pair of garden scissors for the twig?
PSU the institution (which is to say, students, alums, professors, workers) is more than 99% innocent. The football players - and all PSU student-athletes for that matter - themselves are 100% innocent.
Fire the board; perhaps put some, if not all, of them in prison, along with anyone else who knew and did nothing (possibly even McQueary).
But leave the >99% of the institution to heal.
No example will be made otherwise - it has already been made. And it will continue to be made with the parade of erstwhile power-holders headed to the approriately deemed federal pound-them-in-the-ass prison.
Your comments on this are more thoughtful than the ones I just responded to below. If you get a second, I'd be interested in your reactions to those (on punishing both institutions and individuals because of incentive problems).
If that's the argument you're going to use, I think we need to be prepared to do away with all NCAA program punishments, since it applies equally well to Penn State, Michigan basketball, USC and Reggie Bush, ect.
Maybe that's a good idea, but beside the tools the NCAA has at it's disposal (death penalty down to making sure a janitor signs a form acknowledging he committed a secondary violation) I'd be interested in how punishment can be enacted for rule breaking, as a practical matter, without inflicting collateral damage.
Anyone who makes the argument about "collateral damage" and punishing the folks that did nothing wrong must then defend the arguement that the death penalty should never be applied ever and most NCAA punishments (ie: bowl bans, loss of scholarships, etc) shouldnt be handed out as both have collateral damage. Any punishment to a school has collateral damage. Should Sandusky not go to jail because he is the bread winner for his family. What about his poor wife. Who will support her? I say tough shit. Football is the reason these crimes were allowed to go on for so long. I truly believe the culture at PSU needs to change and the only way to do that is to take away what is obvioulsy their number one priority. I do feel sorry for those that will be affected, but the crimes are so egregious and to try and pity a fan base and community who continue to defend Paterno is laughable. Like a previous poster stated, most D-I and every DII-III school do not have the massive cash influx that PSU does, yet they still field teams with student athletes who travel, train and compete at the best of their ability.
Bowl bans and loss of scholarships has no effect on stadium workers and local business'. A Death Penalty goes far beyond just punishing the team or the institution, and that's one of the reasons why the NCAA has been relucant to issue one again.
While I'm sure PSU could manage a few varsity sports, let's be real here. A lot of them would simply be cut. When we're talking about reducing scholarships the only people who are punished are the football players, not the Women's Tennis team.
And you still didn't answer about stadium workers? So we just tell them, "Yeah even though it was just 4 assholes in charge of this, you're the ones getting bent over, because you got a job at PSU. You should have known better"
Who is deterred as it stands now?
You're measuring deterrence by looking at the people in the stands. What did they do wrong (aside from being trashy scumbags in many cases)? From what are they being deterred? Attending football games and feeling good about their teams? Why should those things be deterred?
I agree there should be deterrence - but only as to the decisionmakers.
Just so we're clear, the perpetrators are going to jail, I'm sure donations to the school will take a big hit, they will have to pay out huge amounts of money for the lawsuits, and their name has been dragged through the mud.
That is all deterrance. In a hypothetical situation down the road where administrators are faced with the choice to report a crime or cover it up, the NCAA Death Penalty will not be a significant factor in the decision making process.
(Scene:in the University of Texas Athletic Director's Office)
UT AD DeLoss Dodds: "Well, Greg Robinson is a good guy, won us a national title as the defensive coordiantor, we should try to cover up his latest killing spree"
Random Flunky: "But, think about Penn State! They got the Death Penalty! THEY WON'T BE ABLE TO PLAY FOOTBALL FOR A YEAR!"
UT AD DD: "Well in that case turn him in. The threat of jail time for myself and the reputation of the university don't mean anything next to losing Longhorn Football for one whole year."
Donations haven't taken a hit. Penn State just had its 2nd best year of donations:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48126906/ns/us_news-giving/
Additionally, recruiting has been fine. So far, the impact of all of this on Penn State has been minimal.
They'll take Paterno's statue down. Write a ton of checks. Then PSU football will go on almost as good as before unless the NCAA/Big Ten steps in.
I heard they are just going to have it looking the other way.
Penn State will get sued off by the victims. They will likely win based on the conclusions of the Freeh report. The main perpetrators are in jail, soon to be in jail, or dead. Your solution put into other terms is like after WW2 was won to go back and nuke Tokyo in 1950 just because their leadership and culture had perpetuated atrocities. Who wins from that scenario?
PSU no longer has a clean name, the "Grand Experiment" has been debunked, and its surely going to lose a ton of money based on the lawsuits and most likely a much reduced rate of donations to the school. The NCAA has no role coming in after the fact and passing down judgment based on moral outrage.
Individuals guilty of wrongdoing need to be punished for what they do, but so do the institutions where it happens. Even after Ed Martin died, Steve Fisher was in San Diego, and our players had left Ann Arbor, it made sense that Michigan would have to pay. (Obviously, I think Fisher should have paid much more than he did, but that's for another day.)
Otherwise, there would be little disincentive for an institution to hire a coach who seems dirty. Hell, hire John Calipari, close your eyes while he does what he does, and then fire him when that dirty stuff comes out so that your institution doesn't get punished. I agree with you that the punishment targeting needs to be done carefully, but your idea isn't the right way to approach it.