photo via Getty Images
Say adios to JoePa’s statue.
The famed statue of Joe Paterno was taken down from outside the Penn Statefootball stadium Sunday, eliminating a key piece of the iconography surrounding the once-sainted football coach accused of burying child sex abuse allegations against a retired assistant.
Workers lifted the 7-foot-tall statue off its base and used a forklift to move it into Beaver Stadium as the 100 to 150 students watching chanted, “We are Penn State.”
What you are is about to get pounded on all over by the NCAA, folks.
CBS News has learned that the NCAA will announce what a high-ranking association source called “unprecedented” penalties against both the Penn State University football team and the school.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the source told correspondent Armen Keteyian.
Can I get an “oh, shit!” from the congregation?
It sure smells like somebody’s in a hurry to take advantage of the situation with a good old-fashioned power grab. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be one of those circumstances where the cure is worse than the disease, considering how bad the latter is.
Get The Picture 
I’m guessing a 3 year death penalty. Just a hunch.
And I would have no problem at all with it since it certainly seems like the powers at be in the state of Pennsylvania have no intention of shutting it down.
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Not only that, the defensiveness that you still hear of amongst students and former players just reeks of a distorted culture. The cries about innocent players and others who did not participate in the cover-up cannot be justified in the face of an entire campus culture needing a major attitude adjustment.
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I’m guessing a major power grab by the NCAA using the horrible facts of the situation to exponentially expand its authority as an implied threat to use to arm twist schools into submitting to NCAA demands about virtually anything the NCAA wants. Just a hunch. What was it that Rahm Emanuel said? “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
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If that does happen just maybe Richt can target some big uglies and secondary help to transfer here to provide some depth. It’s not like we don’t have the room to take one or two (or fifteen.)
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EXACTLY.
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We used to get some good Dawgs down here from Pennsylvania.
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Was thinking the same thing!
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Hey Senator! You should make this photo one of your “Write in the caption..” entries.
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Man – after how lightly the NCAA treated tOSU, the criticism they received, and the backlash against the NCAA – with the foul order emanating from PSU – no telling how far Emmert will go.
Can’t really say anyone will say ‘enough’ given the perfidy of the administration at PSU – you are right, the precedent going forward is of concern…
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I don’t think the word precedent is located anywhere within the NCAA rule book.
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Well, see what happens when you put up statues of living people?
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Amen brother, somebody keep an eye on Vince!
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Yep, we never find out anything bad about dead people.
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True, artist and presidents are worth a lot more dead.
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WWL reporting that the source says it won’t be the death penalty, but that they’ll wish it was after all is said and done.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8188629/penn-state-nittany-lions-not-facing-death-penalty-monday-ncaa-source-says
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Well, I guess we’ve found out what the NCAA won’t turn a blind eye to.
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There is no justifying what happened at PSU, but I do not see any way to justify what the NCAA is doing either. No due process. Just empowering the NCAA president to hand down penalties. And oh what investigation did the NCAA do? None. They are using the Freeh report, which was done at the request of PSU. PSU finally gets its head out of the sand and has an independent report done to see just how bad things are and the NCAA uses that against them. What message does that send?
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Not so very different from the NFL model, you know! More creeping fascism, I tell ya.
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The sanctions seem rushed given the lack of due process. One would think the NCAA would want to make sure it was on firm ground with regard to any announced sanctions, particularly since the argument has been made that the NCAA shouldn’t penalize a program for strictly criminal behavior. As the ESPN article linked by Bman shows, one member of the appeals committee for the NCAA already believes (without even hearing the sanctions) that the NCAA is acting beyond the scope of its authority.
Also consider this, just this week Louis Freeh had the findings of his investigation into the bribing of FIFA soccer officials declared to be “not conclusive” by an appeals committee-with the result that the sanctions against the accused were reduced.
I’m not defending Penn State or even arguing it should escape sanction, but the NCAA should make a point of getting it right. (This leak doesn’t help.)
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Keep in mind that the NCAA has worked with the FBI on past investigations, notably Cam Newton’s, so it’s not that much of a stretch that they would just use the findings of someone far more concise and effective than the NCAA’s own probes have historically been.
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Here’s Penn State looking south at the abuse and the tragedy unfolding from the faculty, the president, and the AD at Duke in the false accusations and racial bias against three male athletes on the lacrosse team and they learned nothing from it. Nope. It is ashame what those players had to suffer thru from another “elite, politcally correct, it is all about me education system” at Duke. And now those at PSU will have to endure the same.
Sometimes it is best to burn it all down and start over. Maybe one day the press will stop protecting and gloriying their chosen ones. And so will the athlectic boards, trustees, and select alumni.
Joe Paterno hung on so long as a coach thru age and etc, until all this came to light.
All those years I had to put up with relatives in Pennsylvania raving about the greatness and virtues of “Joe Pa”. Now they say nothing and they are in disbelief.
Probably only one coach on the staff at UGA is not discouraged about the short roster. Coach Grantham was use to that in the pros. His use of personnel and game plans last year were brillant Really fun to watch that and those players have success in his coaching and schemes. I’ll say it again. Coach Grantham is a great defensive coach and any kid who wants to go to the next level….as an underclassman you have the chance to walk out with a PhD in hand, too.
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Can’t help but remember the obnoxious Penn State guy I had to play golf with, at a national business convention in the late ’80’s: when he found out I was a proud DAWG, the dude wouldn’t shut up about Jan Kemp.
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Ted Roof is probably wishing he had stayed at UCF
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Good observation WarD.
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An interesting question will be how said penalties are implemented, and if they will allow players to transfer out without sitting.
Remember, we do have the former head of the Penn State strength program with our program…
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Ohio State and Wisconsin are about to get stronger. Meyer walks between rain drops sometimes.
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Don’t sweat it. With the top-down balance of the B1G Purdue or Illinois are bound to rise up and be consistent credible forces (!) to the “traditional” power axis of Tattoo St. & “Just Keep Running the Ball, Dammit” U.
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I am willing to wait till Monday morning, but right now it seems to me any penalties by the NCAA are so far out of the purview of the NCAA that some organized effort to stop this seems needed.
Please forget for a minute, if you can, heinous nature of what was allowed to go on at Penn State.
The NCAA does not have, nor should they have, the power to adjudicate, on their own, penalties for behavior that clearly involves no violation of NCAA rules.
What possible advantage could Penn State have gotten on the football field from this situation?
If this is allowed to stand, whatever the penalties may be, then the next time a university president makes a secret deal with a football coach to secure the coach’s future services, the university would be subject to discipline by the NCAA.
I don’t have any need for the NCAA to point out the egregious, heinous nature of what went on and Penn State, and I don’t want Mark Emmert to be able to attach his outfit to any problem at any university, anywhere.
Let the NCAA work harder at enforcing the rules they have rather than making up new areas for enforcement.
It is clear to me the NCAA has leadership problems and lacks institutional control.
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Advantages gained? Well, the entire sordid deal was swept away for 14+ years (that we know of now!!) which permitted Paterno to attain all-time Ws standing and which then turned the wheels of the Recruiting Bus.
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Look for a serious challenge court challenge to any penalties imposed on Penn State by the NCAA. This will not pass muster in any Federal Court. No “Due Process” at all and the NCAA authority allowing Emmert to impose sanctions like this is coming ex post facto. Emmert has “jumped the shark” with this. Whatever bowl ban is imposed by the NCAA actually penalizes the Big 10 financially not just Penn State. What will the NCAA do if Jim Delaney puts together a coalition of Big 10 schools who announce that they oppose the imposition of sanctions on Penn State by the NCAA as being beyond the scope of the NCAA’s power? Penn State has at least one in-conference natural ally in this–Ohio State. There is at least one other natural ally in the Big 10’s brother conference the PAC 12–Southern Cal. What would Emmert do if the Big 10 and the PAC 12 together stated that they would ignore, indeed that they REPUDIATE, the actions taken by the NCAA? This could actually lead to the death of the NCAA as we know it. Can Emmert spell h-a-r-i k-a-r-i? If not, he sure needs to learn.
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Oh, get real, Mayor. “This could actually lead to the death of the NCAA as we know it”…Hyperbolize much?
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No. I stopped smoking years ago and haven’t had any breathing problems since then, but thanks for asking.
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People seem to confuse the NCAA with a government institution. It’s not. It’s a voluntary membership. It’s a private club. It’s basically Augusta National – they can kick out anyone they want whenever they want. They also can tell you, “You can stay in the club, but you’re going to have to clean the toilets for the next 4 years, and you can’t hang out in the bar.” Nothing you can do about it as a matter of law.
It’s not quite that simple – the NCAA has lost cases before against individuals. It can’t defame people (Tark, Jones). It can’t arbitrarily set salaries (assistant basketball coaches) at member schools. But when it comes to organizations and membership, the NCAA has few limits. It can set conditions for PSU to participate in sports against other NCAA members. If PSU doesn’t like the conditions, it can opt out of NCAA competition.
People arguing for the government or legal system to “step in” in the name of “reigning in creeping fascism” or something along those lines miss an important point – this is freedom FROM government regulation at work. I’m not saying that’s a good thing in this case, but it’s at least the flip side of that coin. Asking the courts or Congress to intervene in a case like this is just asking for yet more federal centralization of power, IMO.
Public opinion / brand / NCAA money – if you don’t like this move, those are your weapons. But I don’t have any significant issues with Emmert moving on this at an executive level or the severity of the penalties.
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It just gets confusing, they basically now have to create a whole new framework for ethical behavior unrelated to their historical function of preserving level playing fields (child rape – this many scholarships. not stepping in to stop ongoing domestic abuse at UVA, this long a post-season ban, ect.). Seeing as how they handle their existing responsibilities, I don’t care much either way about how the handle Penn State, but do worry about how confusing everything will get going forward.
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I don’t think any government agency beyond the state of Pennsylvania should be involved in any of this and did not say they should be.
Since we don’t know the severity of the penalties, I reserve comment on that part.
The NCAA has a due process process and it does not appear to be holding to that in this case.
I get the distinct whiff of grandstanding by Emmert here, and that should not stand.
Mark Emmert is not the commissioner of college football….you gotta wonder what Jim Delany’s reaction to this is.
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This was low hanging fruit that the NCAA just had to go after. The way they have been savaged by the press the last few years for doing nothing or in fact doing too much, they just couldn’t resist. ASEF is right this is an association and if the Association wants to blackball you they can. PSU is the next USCw.
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No question the association can black ball anybody the ASSOCIATION wants to black ball.
But is the director of the NCAA endowed with the power to do that unilaterally?
If this action had gone through the full process I would be a little less uncomfortable with the precedent it sets, but I would still have questions.
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I am not defending what Emmert is doing or attacking it. I am just noting that NCAA members create their own environment here. They write the rules, define Emmert’s office, and assign him powers. If he’s going to act in violation of PSU’s membership contract with NCAA, then he’s going to get overturned in court – but I suspect he has vetted whatever it is he’s going to do with the NCAA’s in house attorneys and a few outside consultants. I could be wrong on that, because that’s an assumption on my part.
I also think a creature that political (meaning Emmert) has run his ideas past the most important representatives of his core constituency – meaning Slive, Delaney et al. I am again willing to assume (which means I could very well be wrong) that he has their blessing, at least in principle.
Due process is a right of law in certain situations but not all – hence the Augusta National comparison. In this case, the NCAA is dealing with an almost unimaginable amount of public record evidence in addition to the Freeh report. I am not sure what PSU could add to the fact tree that would mitigate what we already know, which makes a due process review of the evidence rather pointless. As for whatever penalties come down the pike, PSU will appeal them and so will have access to due process to that component of this.
One final time – none of what I have said should be read as justification for what I think Emmert is going to do tomorrow morning – which would be Emmert invoking the equivalent of a morals clause in the NCAA membership contract as pretext for unilateral executive sanctions. I’m just nothing that this is the by-product of the freedom for organizations, within limits, to write their own rules and appoint executives to administer them.
If Emmert goes way beyond what the membership considers fair or violates some core principle they old dear, the appeals committee will overturn the penalties, the members will rewrite some rules, and life will move on.
Once again, it all comes down to the university presidents.
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I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea of eviscerating Penn State…what I do disagree with is Emmert establishing a precedent which allows the NCAA to become the ultimate arbiter of institutional behavior far beyond the playing field.
So we agree on that part….but the assumptions you are willing to make, and call them just that…I just find it hard to believe any major college administrator or conference official would support anything that gave this kind of overarching power to what is, in effect, a police club, operated, endowed and managed by its member institutions.
Guess we shall see in the ayem.
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While I share your concern about where this could lead, I am glad to see sanctions since it was obvious PSU was not going to punish themselves much more than an “I’m sorry but the guy is dead and we know we should have looked at this harder over the past 14 years”. I am certainly no fan of Emmert, or how the NCAA has acted in its role with investigations, decisions, and handing down punishment, but someone had to step up. I wish it weren’t Emmert, I truly believe the PSU Trustees should have abandoned the football program for 5-10 years. It was clear the Athletic Department and those with oversight of the Athletic Department had decided nothing, nada, was going to derail their search for victories, money, and JoePa’s quest to set a record. And if they were willing to overlook this “minor indiscretion” what else do you think they may have allowed to swept under the rug for dear old WE ARE, and Paterno’s obsession to beat Papa Bowden? I doubt anyone was competing with Penn State on a level playing field except possibly tosu, Auburn, Miami, and maybe USC.
Who is going to send the message to those guys, and the tens of thousands fans and former players who have asked everyone to remember all the good things? It is obvious they don’t get it, and if they don’t now, they never will. Scary to see the NCAA involved, but even more frightening to think we should let these apologists pretend they will self govern.
I did hear today that Emmert had the support of the committee he reports to, That committee has 22 university presidents on it from what was said in the report I heard. That would indicate there is wide spread support for this intervention or fear that this incident could harm the golden goose. Like you, I will wait to see what they have determined to be major sanctions against PSU but it doesn’t appear it is the death penalty. If that is the case, they may as well do away with the death penalty because it this doesn’t justify it, it will never be used again.
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A typically reasoned response, Mac….I will paraphrase what I said about Jan Kemp…It is something that needed to be done, I just wish it had not been done by the NCAA.
I firmly believe this is Penn State’s problem, not college football’s problem.
I had hoped, given time for public opinion to solidify, that the state of Pennsylvania’s higher educators would demand some proper punishment.
Which is how I believe this situation should have, and might have been handled.
I hope the NCAA’s handing out the punishment does not create the idea the NCAA is the arbiter of all major college activity that somehow involves athletics.
Then, what is now Penn State’s problem becomes a problem for all big time football.
Surely nobody really believes the NCAA is the proper group to hand out punishment to Penn State.
Very few people trust the NCAA to be fair, impartial and accurate. History reinforces this lack of trust.
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One final thought….if the governing body of college football metes out the punishment does this not give the appearance that what happened at Penn State is a product of college football?
And THAT, Mac, is what worries me, and what should, if I may, worry all of us here, because I do not believe that what happened at Penn State could have happened at any big time football school.
This NOT a football problem….it is a problem of individuals at an individual institution abrogating their responsibilities.
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Football people acting criminally to protect the image of a football program and allowing the football program to be used by a known criminal to insinuate his way into victims lives. I understand what you mean by “not a football problem,” but I hope you can see why others see it differently.
If this had been anything OTHER than PSU football, it gets reported, IMO. Which makes it, in my book, very much a football problem – and much more than that as well. Complicated. Lots of room for reasonable opinions – even opposing ones.
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That is a tough one SJ, it wasn’t a football incident in the strictest sense but it was certainly caused by “football fever” however that is defined. I hold Paterno mostly responsible because he was aware, and he was holding the highest cards. Simply put he could have handled it had he chosen to do so.
Now why would a man, who by all reports, excepting this particular situation, was honorable. high principled, and was above comprising his integrity for decades sell his soul? It was football, pure and simple. It was love of the university, love of his program, concern over over a scandal this late in his career, and afraid it could have led to his dismissal before he chased down Bowden for the record. In the end I believe his ego and desire for the CFB record was what blinded him. Take football out of the equation and I don’t think any of these men hesitate to report Sandusky. And that is the message the NCAA, and its institutions intend to send tomorrow. Football may pay the bills but it cannot be allowed to overshadow life’s bigger issues. I wish PSU had handled the matter themselves like you do, but this is a perfect time for a strong message to be sent and PSU needs a strong dose of medicine.
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I was surprised that Missouri Coach Pinkle didn’t catch more heat after these comments: “Pinkel said last week that “I don’t read a lot about it,” and seemingly dismissed
the investigation during his remarks Tuesday as a case of people who “are going to point fingers.”
“It’s so easy in hindsight to go back there and say what it is,” Pinkel said. “But don’t take away all this guy did, and to sit there and blame him for all this, I think is wrong.”
Well he did catch a little heat.
Missouri State Rep. Sarah Lampe: “Her statement lumped Pinkel in among “all but the most sycophantic of Paterno worshipers” who still defend the late Penn State coach
despite the report’s findings.
I think the former high school teacher and principal is not entirely through with the Coach.
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This could be the beginning of the end of NCAA.
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Very astute observation ericdawg. Most do not see the danger to the survival of the NCAA itself in this action, but it is very real.
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Maybe that’s Emmert’s goal here. Get the organization some teeth or put a bullet in it and put it out of its misery. Go for broke.
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The Iron Paterno statue would make another pretty good scarecrow in Greene County.
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In this Politacally Correct world, what did anyone expect Emmert to do?
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How many current Penn State players will jump at the opportunity to come play for a championship here with Coach Thomas?
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I like Saban’s idea of letting the football program stay in place but for the next 10 years or so charge 10.00 more for very ticket sold for all home games and that should total around a million dollars per year that could be donated to various child and family support charities. Better to do good than to punish innocent players and coaches and a state learning institution.
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At least we take our licks one soggy noodle at a time from weak sisters like Schultz and Bradley vs going yrs being sacrosanct and then getting defenestrated. Joe deserves this for tellimg his bosses whn he would leave in happy valley ( which sounds like a holler in west virginia based om reporters ‘ getting after the powers that be”- vs sucking up for vip tix ). I dont think coach dooley got to tell folks when he woyld be retiring. Way to go for the aggressive independent press up there-how many ’emerging from an alley’ citations did you miss while standing on joepas lawn while he ate spaghetti from a box
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Jdjrip: after the report on the enablers at PSU are you still a dbag?
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