Around the Big Ten

[Tony G]

BTW in the matter of NCAA sanctions I think we need to rethink punishments. I would like to see personal suspensions assigned to coaches responsible for violations. You shouldn't be able to screw up a school, go hide as an NFL assistant and then come back unscathed.

Just my 2 cents

[Wild Hoss]

Talent,

This absolutely is an NCAA issue, you think Penn State didn't benefit by not reporting this? It was advantageous to not report it, whether they did that to protect Sandusky or protect the football program...

If Sandusky is caught in '98, that certainly affects Paterno's ability to recruit, doesn't it? It also affects his own job status. Yes, this is certainly an NCAA issue.

Down that road lies Pandora's Box.

[entropy]

Graham Spanier, disgraced ex-Penn State president, epitomized NCAA hypocrisy

There is one instance in the Freeh Commission report where Graham Spanier, the disgraced former Penn State president, said enough is enough. One instance when he slammed down his authoritative fist to protect the welfare of his charges and the reputation of his institution.

It wasn't against Jerry Sandusky, of course.Graham Spanier, left, allegedly hid Jerry Sandusky's sex crimes while enforcing arcane rules. (Reuters)

It was December 1997 and Spanier was soon to learn that the longtime Penn State defensive coordinator had been accused of molesting a young boy while showering with him in the Penn State locker room, according to the Freeh report. But Spanier wouldn't stand up to old Jer, because that wouldn't be the "humane" way of handling it. Or so he wrote in an email.

No, Sandusky got to keep fondling right under Spanier's nose for years to come.

That was a pardon not shared by star Penn State running back Curtis Enis and professional sports agent Jeff Nalley, who dared violate the document that directed Spanier's moral compass, the NCAA rulebook.

[Dan Wetzel: Joe Paterno ignored helpless boys, protecting Jerry Sandusky]

Enis was immediately declared ineligible, and cited as a stain on Penn State's so-called "grand experiment" of creating a healthy balance between academics and athletics. The agent, meanwhile, was reported to the NCAA and the local district attorney, banned from ever setting foot on Penn State's campus ("persona non grata" Spanier declared), charged with a crime and publicly shamed by the president himself so everyone understood the evil and danger he represented.

"He fooled around with the integrity of the university," Spanier said at the time, according to the Freeh report. "And I won't stand for that."

If fooling around with kids in the showers was something Graham Spanier could apparently stand for, then what was Enis and Nalley's crime against humanity?

They bought a suit.

It was a nice suit, $325 retail at a Harrisburg clothier. There was a $75 shirt too. Enis was slated to appear on an ESPN awards show and didn't have anything that nice to wear. The regular season was over and he was about to declare for the NFL. Nalley sprung for the outfit.

Spanier saw it differently. Since Penn State still had one game remaining, essentially an exhibition in the Citrus Bowl, he dropped the hammer. Victim No. 2 of Sandusky's crimes apparently wouldn't mean much to the Penn State president, but NCAA Bylaw 12.3 sure did. It's the rule that prohibits players from receiving "benefits" from agents.

Even if the so-called benefit was appropriate attire for a made-for-television show to celebrate the multibillion-dollar industry Enis helped drive. According to the rule book, though, he couldn't be provided a nice suit because, well, because people like Graham Spanier said so.

And continue to say so.

Spanier may still be indicted for his role in the Sandusky case, just as two of his lieutenants, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, already have been. He may wind up serving prison time.

In the interim, let him serve as the prime example of NCAA hypocrisy, arguably the single worst administrator to ever try to control, shape and domineer intercollegiate athletics.

Spanier was the ultimate NCAA busybody. He sat on and later chaired the organization's Board of Directors, a position arguably more powerful than NCAA president. He was on the high-level NCAA management council. He chaired the BCS Oversight Committee.

He was everywhere over the last decade and a half, the epitome of the faceless bureaucrat that churns out all those lopsided NCAA rules and bizarre statutes in an effort to exert an iron grip on the system.

The NCAA is often vilified. It isn't the workers at the Indianapolis headquarters who deserve scorn. It's the Spanier types, the presidents and commissioners who write the rules one committee meeting at a time (usually from a Florida beachfront hotel).

He was a model of self-interest, distorted ethics and misplaced authority, much of it derived from the false concept that Penn State football operated on a higher ethical level than the rest of the country.

"He'd always lean on the Penn State thing," said one administrator who served alongside Spanier on NCAA committees. "He always made the Penn State part known. Like, 'Well, we do it within the rules and still win at Penn State, at Penn State football. Why can't you? Why lower the bar? What's wrong with you?' "

It was a lie and Graham Spanier knew it. Not just in the case of Sandusky. There's plenty more in the Freeh report. Incidents of the athletic department not following its own policies, not reporting potential violations, allowing head coach Joe Paterno's outsized influence on discipline and other issues. For years the school didn't even adhere to the federal Clery Act, which requires reporting crimes committed on campus.

Not that it slowed down Spanier. He opposed an endless parade of reforms designed to assist athletes, provide additional support for athletes and even admit athletes to schools. Policies such as Proposition 48, which attempted to tighten eligibility standards for athletes were Spanier's baby (federal courts struck it down). His most recent push was again for stricter admissions standards that coaching and student advocacy groups say will hurt kids from disadvantaged programs and poor performing high schools.

Spanier shrugged and pointed to Penn State's "grand experiment." Meanwhile, he routinely railed about outside influences and corruption. He scolded the culture at some programs that didn't take violations seriously. He fought for more and more statutes. He was part of a NCAA movement to criminalize the behavior of agents. He looked to eradicate anyone trying to provide representation to high-value athletes, even arguing that an agent should be kept "away from current graduates or students whose eligibility has recently expired," a patently absurd stance.

The NCAA, and only the NCAA, should control everything.

The NCAA rulebook is deeper than that, of course. It also has considerable economic power. By creating a system that strictly polices amateurism, colleges are allowed to claim they operate amateur sports – just your average Pop Warner team – and thus avoid paying the players and taxes, a billion-dollar dodge.

"I think it opens up a window into the psyche of some of the people who run college sports," said Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Player's Association, a California-based advocacy group for student-athletes. "They use ethical arguments that create hardship for the people they are supposed to be protecting to actually mask unethical behavior."

Everything with Penn State is in question now. That sterling graduation rate? The culture of compliance? Is anyone still so na?ve they think a crew that would look the other way on Sandusky wouldn't ignore a little aggressive tutoring or a lost drug test or three?

Maybe it was the Miami Hurricanes who wore combat fatigues, in contrast with Penn State's coat and tie approach, before their famed 1987 Fiesta Bowl matchup, but you still want to believe that over the years the two schools were all that different when it came to breaking rules?

Do you still believe anyone is?

Spanier needed that illusion, though. He needed it desperately because that had become his identity. It was more important than for Paterno, who did far less moralizing. Paterno defended Barry Switzer and any number of supposed "outlaw coaches" through the years.

Not Spanier. He had to crush those guys. He didn't just want to run Penn State athletics. He wanted to determine how every other school ran its athletics.

"A lot of things have reached a boiling point," Spanier told ESPN last August after a string of rampant rule-breaking caused the NCAA to hold a summit to tighten the reins. Of course, if the scandals revealed anything, it was that so few coaches, administrators and players respect the rules Spanier helped draft in the first place that they think this stuff is absurd.

When Spanier didn't report Jerry Sandusky, he said it was the "humane" way to go. When Ohio State coach Jim Tressel didn't report that some of his players got free tattoos, Spanier believed a boiling point had been reached.

So as we await formal charges, let Graham Spanier forever be the poster boy for NCAA arrogance, hypocrisy and miscast power. Let him be the face of all the organization does wrong.

Perhaps we can use his mug shot.

[entropy]

Graham Spanier, disgraced ex-Penn State president, epitomized NCAA hypocrisy

There is one instance in the Freeh Commission report where Graham Spanier, the disgraced former Penn State president, said enough is enough. One instance when he slammed down his authoritative fist to protect the welfare of his charges and the reputation of his institution.

It wasn't against Jerry Sandusky, of course.Graham Spanier, left, allegedly hid Jerry Sandusky's sex crimes while enforcing arcane rules. (Reuters)

It was December 1997 and Spanier was soon to learn that the longtime Penn State defensive coordinator had been accused of molesting a young boy while showering with him in the Penn State locker room, according to the Freeh report. But Spanier wouldn't stand up to old Jer, because that wouldn't be the "humane" way of handling it. Or so he wrote in an email.

No, Sandusky got to keep fondling right under Spanier's nose for years to come.

That was a pardon not shared by star Penn State running back Curtis Enis and professional sports agent Jeff Nalley, who dared violate the document that directed Spanier's moral compass, the NCAA rulebook.

[Dan Wetzel: Joe Paterno ignored helpless boys, protecting Jerry Sandusky]

Enis was immediately declared ineligible, and cited as a stain on Penn State's so-called "grand experiment" of creating a healthy balance between academics and athletics. The agent, meanwhile, was reported to the NCAA and the local district attorney, banned from ever setting foot on Penn State's campus ("persona non grata" Spanier declared), charged with a crime and publicly shamed by the president himself so everyone understood the evil and danger he represented.

"He fooled around with the integrity of the university," Spanier said at the time, according to the Freeh report. "And I won't stand for that."

If fooling around with kids in the showers was something Graham Spanier could apparently stand for, then what was Enis and Nalley's crime against humanity?

They bought a suit.

It was a nice suit, $325 retail at a Harrisburg clothier. There was a $75 shirt too. Enis was slated to appear on an ESPN awards show and didn't have anything that nice to wear. The regular season was over and he was about to declare for the NFL. Nalley sprung for the outfit.

Spanier saw it differently. Since Penn State still had one game remaining, essentially an exhibition in the Citrus Bowl, he dropped the hammer. Victim No. 2 of Sandusky's crimes apparently wouldn't mean much to the Penn State president, but NCAA Bylaw 12.3 sure did. It's the rule that prohibits players from receiving "benefits" from agents.

Even if the so-called benefit was appropriate attire for a made-for-television show to celebrate the multibillion-dollar industry Enis helped drive. According to the rule book, though, he couldn't be provided a nice suit because, well, because people like Graham Spanier said so.

And continue to say so.

Spanier may still be indicted for his role in the Sandusky case, just as two of his lieutenants, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, already have been. He may wind up serving prison time.

In the interim, let him serve as the prime example of NCAA hypocrisy, arguably the single worst administrator to ever try to control, shape and domineer intercollegiate athletics.

Spanier was the ultimate NCAA busybody. He sat on and later chaired the organization's Board of Directors, a position arguably more powerful than NCAA president. He was on the high-level NCAA management council. He chaired the BCS Oversight Committee.

He was everywhere over the last decade and a half, the epitome of the faceless bureaucrat that churns out all those lopsided NCAA rules and bizarre statutes in an effort to exert an iron grip on the system.

The NCAA is often vilified. It isn't the workers at the Indianapolis headquarters who deserve scorn. It's the Spanier types, the presidents and commissioners who write the rules one committee meeting at a time (usually from a Florida beachfront hotel).

He was a model of self-interest, distorted ethics and misplaced authority, much of it derived from the false concept that Penn State football operated on a higher ethical level than the rest of the country.

"He'd always lean on the Penn State thing," said one administrator who served alongside Spanier on NCAA committees. "He always made the Penn State part known. Like, 'Well, we do it within the rules and still win at Penn State, at Penn State football. Why can't you? Why lower the bar? What's wrong with you?' "

It was a lie and Graham Spanier knew it. Not just in the case of Sandusky. There's plenty more in the Freeh report. Incidents of the athletic department not following its own policies, not reporting potential violations, allowing head coach Joe Paterno's outsized influence on discipline and other issues. For years the school didn't even adhere to the federal Clery Act, which requires reporting crimes committed on campus.

Not that it slowed down Spanier. He opposed an endless parade of reforms designed to assist athletes, provide additional support for athletes and even admit athletes to schools. Policies such as Proposition 48, which attempted to tighten eligibility standards for athletes were Spanier's baby (federal courts struck it down). His most recent push was again for stricter admissions standards that coaching and student advocacy groups say will hurt kids from disadvantaged programs and poor performing high schools.

Spanier shrugged and pointed to Penn State's "grand experiment." Meanwhile, he routinely railed about outside influences and corruption. He scolded the culture at some programs that didn't take violations seriously. He fought for more and more statutes. He was part of a NCAA movement to criminalize the behavior of agents. He looked to eradicate anyone trying to provide representation to high-value athletes, even arguing that an agent should be kept "away from current graduates or students whose eligibility has recently expired," a patently absurd stance.

The NCAA, and only the NCAA, should control everything.

The NCAA rulebook is deeper than that, of course. It also has considerable economic power. By creating a system that strictly polices amateurism, colleges are allowed to claim they operate amateur sports ? just your average Pop Warner team ? and thus avoid paying the players and taxes, a billion-dollar dodge.

"I think it opens up a window into the psyche of some of the people who run college sports," said Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Player's Association, a California-based advocacy group for student-athletes. "They use ethical arguments that create hardship for the people they are supposed to be protecting to actually mask unethical behavior."

Everything with Penn State is in question now. That sterling graduation rate? The culture of compliance? Is anyone still so na?ve they think a crew that would look the other way on Sandusky wouldn't ignore a little aggressive tutoring or a lost drug test or three?

Maybe it was the Miami Hurricanes who wore combat fatigues, in contrast with Penn State's coat and tie approach, before their famed 1987 Fiesta Bowl matchup, but you still want to believe that over the years the two schools were all that different when it came to breaking rules?

Do you still believe anyone is?

Spanier needed that illusion, though. He needed it desperately because that had become his identity. It was more important than for Paterno, who did far less moralizing. Paterno defended Barry Switzer and any number of supposed "outlaw coaches" through the years.

Not Spanier. He had to crush those guys. He didn't just want to run Penn State athletics. He wanted to determine how every other school ran its athletics.

"A lot of things have reached a boiling point," Spanier told ESPN last August after a string of rampant rule-breaking caused the NCAA to hold a summit to tighten the reins. Of course, if the scandals revealed anything, it was that so few coaches, administrators and players respect the rules Spanier helped draft in the first place that they think this stuff is absurd.

When Spanier didn't report Jerry Sandusky, he said it was the "humane" way to go. When Ohio State coach Jim Tressel didn't report that some of his players got free tattoos, Spanier believed a boiling point had been reached.

So as we await formal charges, let Graham Spanier forever be the poster boy for NCAA arrogance, hypocrisy and miscast power. Let him be the face of all the organization does wrong.

Perhaps we can use his mug shot.

[DennisT]

Paterno got off easy by dying when he did.

His statue needs to be replaced by the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys.

[drok]

I keep changing my mind on how/if the NCAA should involve themselves. There are compelling arguments on both sides. Yes, it is a slippery slope and the NCAA has never shown that they can effectively wield the power they hold and administer. Many people have also suggested that there is no precedent for the NCAA to get involved in this situation. I might suggest that we're dealing with a pretty unprecedented situation. It's pretty difficult to determine what the NCAA should or can do.

[Wild Hoss]

I don?t think its difficult at all.

Yes, the particulars of the case are unprecedented...but this is far from the first time individuals related to college athletics have been charged for criminal offenses. Once you cut through all the emotion, that is really what it comes down to.

It is not the NCAA?s purview to punish institutions for moral or legal offenses; its role is to uphold the agreed-upon rules of college athletics. Period. We have the court system to handle the moral and legal stuff, and it is.

[Hannibal]

I'm kind of in agreement that the NCAA should stay out of it.

[Tony G]

yeah me too.

[lineygoblue]

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120716/NATION/207160360/Paterno-family-vows-own-Sandusky-probe-denies-investigator-s-findings?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p

In other news, OJ Simpson continues his meticulous search for the murderer of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson ....

.... wait, he's in prison .... oh well ...

[Tony G]

I heard that on the way home. Remember when I was talking about managing perception in a crisis? This is how NOT to do it.

[Wild Hoss]

They might be laying groundwork for their defense in the epic rounds of civil suits soon to begin.

[Dr. Strangelove]

ESPN to pay $80 million a year for the Rose Bowl

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/19595437/espn-to-pay-80-million-annually-for-rose-bowl-rights

[Tony G]

And the grandaddy of them all just got bought by k-mart

[entropy]

USAToday

Three more men have come forward to tell police that they too were abused by Jerry Sandusky from as far back as the 1970s, the Patriot-News reports, quoting unidentified sources close to the case.

The 68-year-old former Penn State assistant football coach was convicted in June of 45 counts of child sexual abuse involving 10 victims. He is in jail awaiting sentencing.

The newspaper's Sara Ganim, who won a Pulitzer at the Harrisburg newspaper for her coverage of the scandal, says two sources with knowledge of the Sandusky investigation say that police are aware of the latest allegations.

The newspaper says the three are alleging sexual abuse by Sandusky in the 1970s or 1980s, from when he was in his late 20s.

Ganim writes that if the latest allegations are proved to be true, it would undercut the Sandusky defense argument that a person doesn't become a pedophile in his or her 50s.

A grand jury is still meeting in the Sandusky case and could bring more charges if warranted.

Former FBI director Louis Freeh, who issued an independent report at the behest of Penn State on the Sandusky case, was asked last week if his probe looked for alleged victims before 1998. He said yes, but did not indicate whether they found any, the newspaper reports.


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