Death Penalty for Penn State?

[alanu]

I don't think the football program deserves the death penalty, but I think they deserve harsher sanctions than USC recently received, which would included bans from post season play and scholarship limitations.

Just because Penn State will suffer due to the publicity of the scandal, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't receive some pretty harsh sanctions from the NCAA.

[drc]

Duly note that didn't say I was for the death penalty. I don't have an opinion either way on that at this time.

One thing is for a practical purposes, the NCAA has to have harsh penalties. If they don't a future offending university will use that as a marker and say "It would be unfair for us to get harsh punishment, because Penn State didn't."

Barry went to schools that had crappy sports teams, so we shouldn't go by his opinions

One last thing. If you look at a university from afar-- especially if through ESPN et al lenses-- a sports team seems to dominate the university more than it really does. Up close, you see all the other stuff. I live in Seattle and while U of Washinton football is always big, the local newspapers regularly focus on all aspects of the university, including the forestry department and medical schools. So I'm sure Penn State isn't 80% football team, 20 percent academics. In fact, I think it's a pretty good state school and there are a lot of people there who don't really care about the football team.

A neat thing about being a nerd in Seattle, is there's a 24 hour U of Washington channel where they show lectures from all departments. I've watched brain surgery to computer science to abnormal psychology. And intermingled in there they will have a football coach press conference.

[barrysloate]

Boston University were the NCAA hockey champions my freshman year.

[nolemmings]

One thing is for a practical purposes, the NCAA has to have harsh penalties. If they don't a future offending university will use that as a marker and say "It would be unfair for us to get harsh punishment, because Penn State didn't."

This is one reason why I'm not certain any sanctions are appropriate. What happened at Penn State is so far beyond the pale that the only NCAA punishment suitable would be the death penalty, and I do not think that proper. If a university engages in wholesale test score cheating, illegal booster payments and steroid promotion for its athletes and gets the death penalty, they will always be able to say "geez our sins aren't nearly as heinous as allowing little boys to be raped, how come Penn State got less than what we did?"-- if in fact something less is imposed.

David I agree that there is so much else done at a university that serves the good and often goes unnoticed. The impact of the likely $100M-$200M or more in settlements with the victims here is pretty severe and will adversely affect the university top to bottom. I'm not convinced at this point that more needs to be done.

[drc]

I went to the University of Wisconsin, which is a football powerhouse now but entirely sucked while I was there.

And, for Barry, they won the NCAA Hockey Championship when I was a senior.

[barrysloate]

David- I just googled the team and discovered BU did not win in 1970; funny how my memory failed me. But they did win in 1972, my last year there.

[drc]

I should add that I respect but entirely disagree with Todd's conclusion. When the head coach, athletic director, university president and head of the university police together aid and shield felony level crimes over a multi year period by a former coach (with position and I believe office at the university), and commit their own crimes in the process, this deserves very substantial punishment. Re-reading what I just wrote, it sure sounds like something that might deserve a NCAA death penalty.

The significant difference with SMU is they were repeatedly warned and penalized for acts they simply continued to do. Penn State wasn't given earlier NCAA warning. However ad of course, one shouldn't need NCAA warning to stop shielding a child rapist. That they weren't told to stop by the NCAA is a more than feeble excuse at best.

Another interesting aspect is before the brouhaha, SMU had been trying to better its university reputation and academic standing. Administrators wanted to increase academic standards for athletes and some even threatened to drop football if it got in the way of the school's academic mission. Many at the school thought football and it's lax academics and unethical behavior hurt the university. Thus, when the NCAA considered the final punishment, many at the university were already not adverse to football team punishment and dropping the program had already been considered. In short, the school was not as tied to football as you might think.

[autograf]

Anything they do will punish the players for something THEY didn't do and weren't involved in. Post season bans and scholarship losses will hurt the effectiveness of the players and the team. Since that's the case, they should effect the death penalty for the program. Shutter it for five years. Allow the existing and committed players to transfer immediately to other programs at any level of play and start over in 2017.