Penn State sanctions by NCAA

NCAA president Mark Emmert handing out the sanctions. (Getty Images)

The NCAA on July 24 punished the Penn State football program with a $60 million fine, a four-year ban from participating in postseason bowl games and the erasing of 112 wins by the team from 1998 to 2011. That also means Joe Paterno's all-time record of 409 wins no longer stands.

For the Penn State community, this must seem like yet another punch to the gut when all they want to do is move on. The university itself has accepted the sanctions, saying:

"The NCAA ruling holds the university accountable for the failure of those in power to protect children and insists that all areas of the university community are held to the same high standards of honesty and integrity." 

The sanctions may seem extremely harsh, but let's not forget that the child abuse scandal is one of the worst in the history of American college sports. The report by former FBI director Louis Freeh released on July 12 revealed that university officials "repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to [Jerry] Sandusky's child abuse from authorities, the university's board of trustees, the Penn State community and the public at large." (Members of the late Paterno's family dispute this report.)

The important takeaway from the sanctions is this: the NCAA is not simply punishing Penn State for its institutional failure relating to the series of incidents, it is sending out a message repudiating coach worship in college sports and allowing the success of a football program to cloud the judgement of an entire college community.

There are those who still defend Paterno and feel he was thrown under the bus by an overzealous media. I'm sure it hurts his family when people in the media describe him as the "enabler" of a child rapist. I wouldn't venture as far to label him a facilitator of evil but rather a flawed man.

All humans make mistakes. Paterno's mistake was that he did not do enough to prevent something horrific which he knew was going on. As the overused cliché goes, with great power comes great responsibility. If the Penn State community holds Paterno to such a high regard as a football coach, surely they must have expected him to do more in his situation.

Ultimately, the July 24 verdict is not about Paterno. The NCAA sanctions are meant to punish an entire football program which failed to protect the most vulnerable from being violated.

Reverence for Paterno and the program he seemingly built makes this episode a bitter pill to swallow. The man did immeasurably great things for Penn State and college football too, let's not forget. But 50 years from today, I am sure that the Penn State community and college football fans will be glad that those in charge today did the right thing.


More reading:

• Penn State penalties to have lasting impact — Adam Rittenberg, ESPN
• Sports above all else leads to huge Penn State penalties — Christine Brennan, USA Today
• Why the NCAA's sanctions on Penn State are just dead wrong — Dave Zirin, The Nation