I don't know. It seems wrong to penalize kids who are coming to Penn State and what the joy of college football is meant to be in their future.

This whole thing has turned out to be so much worse than anyone expected if anything could be worse than a grown man being able to hurt little boys who didn't have a solid family to protect them and for other grown men to look the other way for the sake of fame and glory and money and tradition....

I totally agree with the article. With that being said, my personal preferences would be:

1. A bowl ban for ten years so it's football program is devalued.
2. Heavy financial penalties imossed by the NCAA.
2. Decrease tuition cost, (due to it is no longer a beacon of integrity).
3. Pay all medical cost plus damages to all victims although they will never be the same again.
4. Take down all statues and references to Joe Paterno.

Joe Pa's failure to follow-up in this incident was a colussus error in judgement that ruined all the good work he did. It's sad that many years of doing good was greatly overshadowed by his willingness to cover this up.

My heart goes out to the victims is my botom line.

I am not a graduate of Penn State, and maybe I would feel differently if I were, but every time I see that Paterno statue, my stomach churns. How can people view that and not think of those children any more?

We lived in Happy Valley for many, many years. My husband got two degrees from Penn State. Our daughter was born there. While we were not huge football fans, we did enjoy all the hoopla that went along with it during game day.

First let me say we have our Penn State flag flying at half staff in front of our home to express our shame and sadness for the children who have been harmed. Those children we know of, those I am certain we have yet to hear about and those who will always suffer in silence.

But I don't understand the posters who are so certain that destroying and shaming the entire Penn State football program and the reputation of everyone associated with PSU: the students, faculty, cafeteria workers, librarians, everybody, is the solution. Speaking only for myself, I don't know how we could feel any worse.

Keep in mind that JoPa is dead, Sandusky will hopefully will be in jail for the rest of his pitifull life, the rest of the "Suits" who ran Penn State will soon be arrested and come to their just "rewards."

The Second Mile Club is about defunct, if not already dead. New laws are being put into place within Penn State to more fully prevent this type of moral holocaust from happening again.

What I am wondering is what good will it do to punish incoming student athletes and shaming every student attending Penn State who had nothing to do with this mess.

Why are you being so unkind to innocent people you don't even know?

http://s1267.photobucket.com/albums/...ty_sealsvg.png

The players, current coaches, current administration, and fans had NOTHING to do with the situation. I cannot concur that they should be punished for the wrongdoing of Curley, Schultz, Spanier, Paterno, and mostly, Sandusky himself. Sandusky is paying a belated penalty, and Paterno may have suffered the worst penalty of all - hastened death and loss of a previously untarnished and magnificent legacy. Curley, Spanier and Schultz will likely pay a penalty either with a jail sentence, and/or loss of reputation and respect, not to mention already losing significant careers. When people say it is an institutional or systemic problem, I disagree. The institution made no decisions - it was the weak people involved. I say this with neither a fan interest in Penn State, nor any malice.

What should the football program be required to do? First, it is a huge moneymaker - how about letting it continue to make money and require that for the next X number of years they donate a million dollars a year to a fund for the victims, and a million dollars a year to child abuse charities. Also, require them to buy advertising on any broadcast they appear on, to highlight child abuse and how to deal with it.

I do feel for those stuck in the politics of this mess. Still think that the punishment should be some kind of long term community service like approach done by the football program and their backers. Something that will turn a negative into a positive like having Penn State's football program fund child abuse hotlines and information centers in the Pennsylvania and surrounding areas. Have these programs marked with the note that they are partially funded by Penn State.

You just hurt the innocent by killing off the Penn State football program. Unfortunately, that is what usually happens with these kind of politics. The politicians make a stink for a while, the worst of the worst are punished, and then this just happens at some other school later on.

Other schools have survived.
 

Baylor University was hit by scandal with the basketball program not long ago. A young man lost his life at the hands of another player. Individuals were involved with covering up information to protect themselves because they had violated NCAA rules. Individuals and Baylor were dealt severe penalties - rightly so. It has been a long road back for the men's basketball program and the school, but they are back and stronger than ever. They advanced to the Elite Eight twice in the last few years. The girls basketball team won the National Championship twice recently, including last year breaking a record for number of wins. The football team won an exciting bowl game and their quarterback Robert Griffin III won the Heisman Trophy last year. The students who felt the pain while attending (my son being one), now have something to cheer about.

I LOVE watching college football. As the summer heat is at it's worst I start looking forward to cooler weather and the excitement of the upcoming NCAA football season. It is unfortunate that the NCAA penalties for such crimes will be felt by innocent people. You can't change what's been done in the past, but only hope to do what will deter it from happing in the future and protecting future victims. IMHO I don't think any penalty would be too severe for what's happened. Penn State and the students will survive, but no one should forget what's happened to remind us all to do the right thing in the future.

Punish those that committed the crime as much as possible. That would include removing the statue, fines, jail, community service, and what ever else could be meted out to those who broke the law or conspired in any type cover up.

Do not punish the current students, football players, coaches, or anyone not involved. There are many students there who got there with scholarships and sports talent that otherwise would not get to go to college. Place the blame on the adults that failed, not on the kids trying to get a decent education.

I agree 100%. I also must add that if sanctions may be levied it would be unfair to take wins or scholarships away from the school as this did nothing to improve the preformance of the team.
The school must admit that Joe P. was not the saint that they thought he was and his statue should be taken down.

It's a culture of corruption, just like the hierarchy that protected the pedophile priests.

Somebody (-ies), behind all those closed doors, wanted it this way. And one of the most influential of those somebodies is not talking, because he died when it started to hit the fan.

For someone who prided himself on running a program that had no NCAA violations, a very high graduation rate and two national championships, Joe Paterno sure disappointed a lot of people. We'll never know why he did what he did or didn't do. I agree it's not fair to punish innocent people like the players, the merchants, the townspeople and students who had nothing to do with the horrendous actions of one man and the cover-up by others.

I'm not completely familiar with the entire situation, but from what I understand, the one guy was abusing kids and Joe Paterno, evidently knew about it and didn't say anything. If that's the case and there are no other people involved why punish the school or the program at all? The guy that committed the crime is being prosecuted and the guy that covered it up is dead.

If there were other people involved in the cover up then they should be removed from their position and prosecuted criminally. Punishing the program is punishing people that had nothing to do with the crime.

Joe Paterno Statue
 

Should Joe Paterno's statue be taken down.

Statues of living, like Penn State's of Joe Paterno, problematic - Steve Rushin - SI.com

Yes, and very soon.....

Yes! The sooner, the better.

Should be up to the victims/survivors and their families from the Penn State football program child abuse scandal. If this statute is a reminder of the cover-up done by some of the Penn State football team administration of long term child abuse-- which I take it included Joe Paterno-- then it should be removed, and soon.

It should be about empowering the victims/survivors though and not so much about the image of Penn State.

Penn State hasn't won a game since 1997
 

The NCAA has spoken and removed ALL wins from the Penn State program dating back to 1998. No Bowl games for the next 4 years. Fines and scholarship losses. Players may switch schools without sitting out a season.
Some will say "too harsh" .... others will say "a slap on the wrist". The NCAA did not sit on it's hands on this one.
......
Sandusky, once a member of Penn State, is now a member of State Pen.

Have not heard this news yet. What about sanctions on other sports?

I will have to watch the Internet and see what kind of re-actions the various societies and associations for the prevention of sexual child abuse have to say about these punishments imposed on Penn State. National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children*

Prevent Child Abuse Pennsylvania https://www.facebook.com/PreventChildAbusePA

Home | CAPA

http://www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/index.php?s=99

No punishment handed to Penn State will make these victims whole again.

Pter King's MMQB Column.

Joe, and his statue, had to go.

Last fall, I was critical of the Penn State administration for firing Joe Paterno over the phone, during the crazy week when the board of trustees decided to dump the coach. I thought it was classless, given what Paterno had meant to the university and the football program.

Now, obviously, things have changed. I've thought for years that the Penn State football program, to Joe Paterno, had gotten to be more about Joe than it was about the players. There's no way Paterno was energetic and vital enough in his 80s to coach a Big Ten football team as well as a younger man, yet for years no one could oust him from the job. It was Paterno running the school, doing what he wanted, staying as long as he wanted, and it set the stage for other bad things to happen. Other very bad things.

Like an athletic director who allowed, according to the Louis Freeh report, the investigation into a sex act between Jerry Sandusky and a child to be buried. There can be no arguing how disgusting and disheartening that is. For those reasons, particularly now that the second one is out in the open, it's clear to me the university didn't owe Paterno anything at the end -- other than to take down the statue that would have been a constant reminder of the stain caused by looking the other way while young boys were sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky.

Last year, I asked Penn State student journalist Emily Kaplan to weigh in on her feelings about the case when it was at its peak. I do the same thing this morning, as the university braces for today's reported NCAA sanctions:

For as long as I can remember, my neighboring town has been known for a terrible scandal. It had to do with the football culture. Glen Ridge, N.J., is a well-manicured suburb of New York City, where the streets are lined with majestic shade trees and quaint gaslight lamps. But in 1989, three members of the high school football team sexually assaulted a developmentally disabled young woman. An idyllic community was ripped apart and lives changed forever. Twenty-three years later, Glen Ridge is still, to some, stigmatized by "Our Guys," which became the title of the New York Times best-selling book about the incident and its fallout.

As I prepare for my senior year at Penn State, I can't help but wonder if my school will forever be known for its terrible scandal.

Of course, it had to do with the football culture. Our guys failed, enabling a serial child molester to reign. Penn State's so-called leaders made a mockery of our school's motto, "Success With Honor." Innocent children suffered, and now, as men, they must still cope with the ramifications.

As we move forward, it doesn't matter what statues we take down, or what football games we don't play. Nothing can undo what has been done. So where do we go from here? Our school's in a crisis, but it's not an identity crisis. I think we can identify what allowed this to happen. Mostly, our football culture became, in essence, our university culture. We deified a flawed man and gave him too much power.

It's easy to say this in hindsight. We all fell into the trap, enamored by the brand and the promises. I owned a Joe Paterno bobblehead doll and had a poster of him in my dorm room. We can disassociate from Paterno all we want -- throw out the knick-knacks and take down his statue, which happened Sunday morning -- but what's more important is to disassociate from the culture of secrecy and prioritizing football in unhealthy doses.

We, the 500,000 living alumni and 40,000 students, need to find a way to ensure that money and football and public perception will never again take precedence over doing the right thing. Which will be a challenge. When I heard that some of my peers camped out in tents outside Paterno's statue, "protecting it from vandalism," I wish they had looked at the bigger picture. Who was protecting those children?

For years Penn State built a powerful brand, and did everything to protect it. Now our university, like the town of Glen Ridge, will be long branded by its scandal. But moving ahead, Penn State has a unique opportunity to be known for something more: as leaders in child-abuse education.

I look at a grassroots network of Penn State alumni who founded the ProudPSUforRAINN campaign, urging Penn Staters to donate money to prevent and treat victims of sexual abuse. They reached their goal of raising $500,000 in less than one month. That's a great start. What can we do in six months? One year? Ten years?

These are the people who are Penn State. We, not the football guys, have the opportunity to define our own legacy now

Read more: Tying up loose ends before heading out on my annual training camp tour - Peter King - SI.com

They will leave the Joe Paterno statue up but they're going to have him look the other way.''

-- @AlbertBrooks, the comedic actor.

What a great post! Thank you!:bigbow:

Your welcome!!!!

By vacating 112 Penn State victories from 1998-2011, the sanctions cost Paterno 111 wins. Former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden will now hold the top spot in the NCAA record book with 377 major-college wins. Paterno, who was fired days after Sandusky was charged, will be credited with 298 wins. Vacated wins are not the same as forfeits - they don't count as losses or wins

ESPN is all over this today. It will take Penn State a long time to recover but it will recover. Only the football program gets the NCAA sanctions and not any of the other sports. At some point in time we have made "sports" more important than education in our Universities. Basically, Football was the most important thing at Penn State. But before we start throwing stones we had better take a closer look at our own schools and Universities. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge sports fan but truthfully sports at the H.S., College and Professional level has gotten completely "out of hand" the last several years. Just how much does a 100 million dollar (plus) player contribute to our society. Is there anything wrong when all 5 of your starting freshman leave for the NBA after using just one year of their college scholarship? I was under the impression they were at the University to get an education. We pay a coach 5.3 million which is much more than a top science professor or even the President of the University. Anything wrong with that? What does this say about our culture----about our society? We have no problem building a new multi-million dollar stadium but there are no funds available to staff the new cancer institute. Maybe just maybe we got our priorities all wrong. I feel badly for the students, faculty, staff and alumni of Penn State University but they will recover in a relative short time. For the children abused by a coach at Penn State, it will take years, if ever.

Next....O.J Simpson didn't run 2000 yards in 1973.

This is such a stupid move by the NCAA. How about all the kids that played on those teams that did nothing wrong? Why are they being punished by having their records expunged?

In fact why is the school being punished at all. Some one committed a crime and some people helped to cover up that crime. The person who committed the crime has been prosecuted and will be punished. The people who cover up the crime should be prosecuted and punished. Why are tens of thousands of students and school employees who had nothing to do with any of this being punished. The university didn't commit any crime. Institutions can't commit crimes. People committed the crime and individual people should be punished.

love greg gutfeld comment on the five [fox news] - wonders if he should contact his bookie to see about resettling his account! lol

Guess you just don't get it. The kids had nothing to do with it. Paterno had to be punished for his complicity and the only viable way is to tarnish his image forever. That's what the NCAA has done.

WOW how does Coach Bowden feel about that honor? Kinda backed into it..not the same as actually earning it so the honor is hollow.

PSU ALWAYS had the highest student scholar/graduation rate of any school out there. Their priorities were always education before sports and many players sat out who violated the strict rules of going to class and maintaining grades. Check the stats.......

In fact why is the school being punished at all. Some one committed a crime and some people helped to cover up that crime. The person who committed the crime has been prosecuted and will be punished. The people who cover up the crime should be prosecuted and punished. Why are tens of thousands of students and school employees who had nothing to do with any of this being punished. The university didn't commit any crime. Institutions can't commit crimes. People committed the crime and individual people should be punished.


I agree. Why should the students have to suffer. The football players had nothing to do with this incident and they work real hard at grades and play great football and should be allowed to play in the bowl games. All the students at Penn State work hard and the school itself is a wonderful school. T

It makes us realize that no matter how we live our lives, and what success we encounter, and what rewards we get and fame we enjoy, we are still ordinary people who are responsible for ordinary things.

I hate to see the people in happy valley who had nothing to do with these shameful events suffer but it was so bad or so wrong that unfortunatly now, even MORE innocent people have to suffer.

Its all About Media Capital
 

We all view things differntly and when I view the Penn State situation would comes to my mind is what i perceive tobe the BIGGER STORY.

What comes to my mind is why is it that whether it is a church, a university, boy Scouts of america, a high school, a Day Care Center, an office do they all have the same reaction COVER IT UP. answer that question and all of the above goes away. but like mass shootings, disbehaving celebrities over sex school teaches it gets 24/7 coverage until the capital is run out and the media is onto the next big payoff for ratings.

We have become a reactive society emoting platiudes feigning indignation and then we all just sit back blink and deflate and wait for the next scandal

The players on the teams from 1998-2011 had nothing to do with the victories? I would beg to differ. The fact is that they had everything to do with those victories and nothing to do with this crime, yet their records are being expunged.

Kids who are currently playing on the Penn State football team are not being allowed to play in bowl games. How does that punish the people who committed the crimes?

Penn State took down Paterno's statue. That should be enough. To falsify history does nothing.

In fact why is the NCAA Involved in this at all. This was a criminal situation that should be dealt with by the courts. It had nothing to do with sports.

I can only hope that all college/universities take a good hard look at their programs from recruitment, academics, game day...! As a parent of a former college football player I have seen and heard what goes on behind the scenes. Football programs in college have gotten too big...I know it's about money, big money, and winning but at what cost? shouldn't college be about academics first and foremost?

I assume the Catholic church will lose its' tax exempt status and pay a $60,000,000 fine. It's only fair.

:beer3:

Tainsley: I couldn't agree with you more. :bowdown: NCAA "If you find yourself in a place where the athletic culture is taking precedence over academic culture, then a variety of bad things can occur." No doubt the NCAA is making an example out of Penn State. Unfortunately, the football culture took precedence over exposing a scandal of sexual abuse by one of the football coaches----it was "covered up" in order to protect the football program. Was the punishment "harsh"? Were innocent students and players affected? Yes and Yes. Hopefully, other schools will take a second look at the culture of their athletic programs and reconsider their priorities. 5.3 million for a college football coach! That kinda sort of tells you the rest of the story. I could give you a long list of other major universities where the athletic culture has taken precedence over the real mission of the school. TOO BIG TO FAIL----seems like I've heard that phrase one too many times the past couple of years.

How do you punish a dead man?

I guess the only way is to punish the school, the students, the faculty, the employees and thousands upon thousands of alumnae. That otta do it! Yeah. That'll show him!

I found this revealing about the Penn State scandal.
 

Changing The Way We Think About Prevention: The Joe Paterno Statue, Sanctions, and Looking Forward

I do believe that the problem lies more in a culture denying that victims are all that important when compared with various institution's interests. It is a lot broader than just Penn State. I do hope that this does something positive to put an end to the sexual abuse of kids. The Catholic Church priest abuse scandal has not had as much of an impact--in the U.S. anyway-- in curbing sexual abuse of kids in other areas of society.

Joe Paterno's Biography
 

Article from his biography claims he broke down crying on the day of his firing.


Paterno biography: Penn State coach “sobbed uncontrollably” after firing | SI Tracking Blog