NCAA president Mark Emmert appeared on Tavis Smiley's PBS show on Monday night/Tuesday morning. He indicated that the NCAA definitely can sanction Penn State for allowing Jerry Sandusky to molest children more or less unchecked for at least 14 years. Watch it here:
Well, like so many people, I read originally the grand jury indictments, I listened to the testimony of victims through that trial, I’ve read the Freeh report a couple-three times now, I’ve paid attention to all the other data that’s coming out around that, and I’m a dad, I’ve got a grandbaby now, and you look at all that and it’s just such a despicable set of acts that were enabled, it appears, by an organization culture.
You just come away from it thinking how in the world can this happen at a great university like Penn State or any other university? And so we’re looking at it, as you know, trying to ascertain what role in all of this NCAA has to play. We don’t want to get involved in any of the criminal investigations or any of the civil or other investigations or cases that might be going on.
But it’s pretty hard to read that report and not conclude that there were systemic failures across the institution, including and in some cases especially within the athletic department that strikes at the heart of what education is all about and what athletics is supposed to be about.
This is about what I expected. While what happened here definitely runs counter to everything college athletics is supposed to be, if I'm hearing Emmert right the NCAA may not take any action until the federal criminal probe and the Department of Education's investigation into Clery Act violations wrap up.
That doesn't mean Penn State can drag its feet, though. Back in November, Emmert personally wrote Penn State president Rodney Erickson and demanded some answers about what Penn State is doing to address potential issues of institutional control and ethical conduct. Erickson asked for and received time to review the Freeh report. Now that the report is out, Emmert says, Penn State has "weeks, not months" to deliver a response.
Emmert hedged somewhat on what penalties might be in store, though he did say that he hasn't ruled out anything--including the death penalty.
I don’t want to take anything off the table. The fact is this is completely different than an impermissible benefits scandal like happened at SMU or anything else that we’ve dealt with. This is as systemic a cultural problem as it is a football problem.
There’ve been people that said, “Well, this wasn’t a football scandal.” Well, it was more than football scandal. Much more than a football scandal. It was that, but much more, and we’ll have to figure out exactly what the right penalties are. I don’t know that past precedent makes particularly good sense in this case, because it’s really an unprecedented problem.
Emmert went on to say that the NCAA has shown a lot of "political courage" of late. As I've said several times, I believe the NCAA can be courageous without issuing a death penalty, as many--including several on this board--have suggested. Unless there is evidence that players knew about this and didn't come forward--or worse, were browbeaten into not coming forward--there is no justification for punishing the current roster for the crimes of Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz and Joe Paterno. To my mind, the appropriate penalties would be a lifetime
show-cause penalty for Curley (which would likely have the effect of blackballing Curley from the collegiate ranks for life) and ordering Penn State to permanently disassociate itself from Curley and Spanier. Neither of these penalties have ever been imposed on an athletic director or school president/chancellor before, and that fact alone would send the message loud and clear without the overkill that a death penalty would represent.