By Kevin Foley
The NCAA didn't impose death. But the sentence it did hand down guarantees Penn State football will not be competitive on the football field for years to come.
Life with the possibility of parole is the best way to think of it.
There will be no appeal, the university cooperating with the NCAA and accepting the verdict, the new administration no doubt eager to get this disgraceful episode behind it.
The NCAA levied a $60 million fine, the equivalent of a year's worth of gross football revenues, the money to be used to establish a fund to protect children from abuse. There will be no bowl games and scholarships will be severely restricted and Penn State will be on probation for five years.
A hint of the punishment to come played out over the weekend when a curtain went up to hide the sad spectacle of workers removing the statue of the late and now disgraced Joe Paterno from its prominent position in front of the university's stadium.
Then first thing Monday morning NCAA President Mark Emmert announced all of the school’s football victories between 1998 and 2011 would be vacated, symbolically wiping away forever Paterno's legacy as the winningest Division One football coach in NCAA history.
As the punishment was announced on live television, Penn State students were seen reacting with shock and disbelief, some weeping at the sanctions meted out by the NCAA.
Listen, kids, reality bites. Actions (or inaction) have consequences. Your university did exactly the right thing. Learn from this lesson and move on.
Emmert went on to explain the death penalty would have hurt many who had no role in facilitating Jerry Sandusky's serial raping of little boys. We're talking about people like athletic department secretaries, trainers, ticket office employees, janitors, concession stand workers, and other folks who were as horrified as the rest of us. Good call.
For the young men who accepted scholarships to play for this storied program, they can now leave, the NCAA's one-year waiting period for transfers waived for any Penn State player who wishes to get a new start at another Division One school. I expect a number of players will move on.
Sadly, the Paterno family still doesn't get it. Through an attorney, the Paternos issued a statement late Monday complaining about the way the NCAA imposed the sanctions without consulting them first.
They evidently don't understand the Paternos are no longer royalty in Happy Valley.
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Kevin
Foley is president of KEF
Media Associates, an Atlanta-based producer and distributor
of sponsored news content to television and radio media. |