Penn State football receives severe sanctions from NCAA, Big Ten

Following the biggest scandal in the history of collegiate athletics, both the NCAA and the Big… Following the biggest scandal in the history of collegiate athletics, both the NCAA and the Big Ten Conference announced a series of sanctions — the majority unprecedented — on the Penn State football program Monday morning as a result of the school’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky situation.

NCAA President Mark Emmert said that based on information uncovered in the Sandusky child sex abuse trial and the Freeh Report, the NCAA will fine Penn State $60 million, impose a four-year postseason ban on the school’s football team and take away 10 scholarships per year from the football program for the next four years.

The $60 million fine is derived from the average annual gross revenue of the football program. Penn State will pay $12 each year for five years, which will be placed into an endowment to fund programs that work to prevent child sexual abuse and assist victims.

Penn State will also be forced to vacate all football wins from 1998 to 2011, meaning former head coach Joe Paterno is now no longer the NCAA’s all-time leader in wins, and the school will be placed on NCAA probation for the next five years.

Penn State accepted the consent agreement imposed by the NCAA to act on the sanctions handed down on it, said Penn State President Rodney Erickson.

“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,” Erickson said in a statement shortly following the NCAA’s announcement.

Later in the morning, the Big Ten Conference issued its own sanctions on the university. In addition to censure and agreement with the NCAA’s assignment of probation, the conference declared that Penn State will not be allowed to play in Big Ten Conference championship games for the next four years. The school will also pay approximately $13 million in additional fines, with that money being donated to established charitable organizations in Big Ten communities dedicated to the protection of children.

The penalties come slightly more than a week after the release of the Freeh Report, an independent, in-depth investigation by Judge and former FBI director Louis Freeh into the actions of Penn State officials and administrators regarding the child sex abuses committed by former assistant football coach Sandusky between 1994 and 2009. The report, released on July 12, concluded that senior leaders at the university had exhibited a “consistent disregard … for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims” by concealing Sandusky’s actions and failing to inquire further into the abuses.

The NCAA stated in its report that unprecedented sanctions were called for because the situation was “unlike any matter encountered by the NCAA in the past.”

“The NCAA has determined that the University’s sanctions be designed to not only penalize the University for contravention of the NCAA Constitution and Bylaws, but also to change the culture that allowed this activity to occur and realign it in a sustainable fashion with the expected norms and values of intercollegiate athletics,” the report said.

The NCAA decision also waived the organization’s usual transfer rules for current Penn State football players, who will be allowed to transfer to another school and be eligible to play immediately upon relocation. Players who choose to remain at Penn State can retain any current athletic grants whether or not they choose to continue competing on the football team.

Monday’s punishments will make it extremely difficult for the Nittany Lions’ new head coach, Bill O’Brien, to field a successful football team for the next few years.

O’Brien, who took over as the head coach following Paterno’s dismissal, said that he is still committed to the university.

“I knew when I accepted the position that there would be tough times ahead. But I am committed for the long term to Penn State and our student athletes,” O’Brien said in a release on Penn State’s athletics website.

The week has been especially tumultuous for Penn State students. On Sunday, six months following the death of popular former head coach Paterno, Erickson had the iconic bronze statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium removed and placed in storage. The former head coach was implicated by the Freeh Report as having been complicit the concealment of Sandusky’s activities.

“I now believe that, contrary to its original intention, Coach Paterno’s statue has become a source of division and an obstacle to healing in our University and beyond,” Erickson said in a statement.