Around the Big Ten

[Jeff Buchanan]

Lining up at the trough ......

[iam416]

Down that road lies Pandora's Box.

Yep.

[Tony G]

Tough call. They could be victims or opportunists.

[CGVT]

or both...

[iam416]

Incidentally, that's part of why PSU can't just say, "we're so, so, so sorry." I suspect they'll aim for some sort of global settlement -- best as they can manage -- and then issue the apologies which they know they should have issued months ago.

[entropy]

NCAA president Mark Emmert has not ruled out drastically punishing Penn State football in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Emmert gave a candid interview Monday on PBS' "Tavis Smiley," claiming that he still is waiting for Penn State's official response to the Freeh report and acknowledging that the NCAA has not eliminated the possibility of imposing severe sanctions against the school's storied football program.

"I've never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university and hope never to see it again," Emmert said during the interview. "What the appropriate penalties are, if there are determinations of violations, we'll have to decide.

"We'll hold in abeyance all of those decisions until we've actually decided what we want to do with the actual charges should there be any. And I don't want to take anything off the table."

Emmert gave the interview four days after Penn State released the scathing internal report by former FBI director Louis Freeh. The report concluded that late football coach Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials concealed Sandusky's abuse of children to shield the university from bad publicity, exhibiting "callous and shocking" disregard for child victims.

Howard: Paternos' Misplaced Priorities

The decision to create their own investigation is an act of stubbornness and defiance by the Paterno family, not just desperation or spasm of understandable grief, writes Johnette Howard. Story

Still reeling from the content of the Freeh report, Emmert did not dismiss the notion of issuing the so-called "death penalty" against Penn State, asserting that the unprecedented nature of the Sandusky scandal could warrant extreme punishment.

"This is completely different than an impermissible benefits scandal like happened at SMU, or anything else we've dealt with," Emmert said. "This is as systemic a cultural problem as it is a football problem. There have been people that said this wasn't a football scandal.

"Well it was more than a 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 also said that he expects to hear back from Penn State "within weeks" regarding questions the NCAA has issued about the case, including the issue of institutional control. He consistently has maintained that the NCAA will not determine whether violations occurred until receiving the school's response.

"We're in active discussions with Penn State right now, and I need to get a response back from them soon, right away," Emmert said. "And then we're going to make that determination, and then we'll see where we go here."

Earlier Monday, Penn State president Rodney Erickson vowed cooperation with further investigations but also said decisions about the future "will take time."

Erickson wrote in a message to students, faculty and staff that the eight months since Sandusky was charged have been "heart-wrenching and difficult" and said his heart was heavy for the victims.

"We can never again allow this to happen," he said, adding that the university was committed to ensuring the safety of children on campus and increasing awareness of child sex abuse and mistreatment.

Penn State also has increased its on-campus efforts to drastically change the culture. The student group that manages the area outside Beaver Stadium named "Paternoville," where students camp out for prime football tickets, has changed the name of the tent city to "Nittanyville."

The also-renamed Nittanyville Coordination Committee said Monday that student officers decided the name change would "return the focus to the overall team and the thousands of students who support it."

On its website, the student organization that runs makeshift campgrounds said that "since it was unlikely another coach would stay as long as Coach Paterno had, changing the name for each new coach would be impractical."

"Now, it's a new era of Nittany Lion football," committee president Troy Weller said in a statement released Monday. "And by changing the name to Nittanyville, we want to return the focus to the overall team and the thousands of students who support it.

"We thank the Paterno family for their gracious assistance and support over the last several years."

Attorneys for the man Erickson replaced, former Penn State president Graham Spanier, say the Freeh report "contained numerous inaccuracies and reached conclusions that are not supported by the data."

"Mr. Freeh unfairly offered up Dr. Spanier and others to those insisting upon a finding of culpability at the highest level of the university," attorneys Elizabeth Ainslie and Peter Vaira said in a statement.

A spokesman for Freeh did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The attorneys say Spanier is looking forward to the opportunity to "set the record straight."

[Da Geezer]

If ever the "death penalty" were deserved for lack of institutional control, this is the case. The knowledge of this through state government and at Pitt is amazing. Everyone knew. There was even an ice cream store in State College that offered "the Sandusky": two scoops of walnut ice cream with a strategically placed banana.

[*JD*]

I'm beginning to sway to thinking that a ban for a year would be the best thing. The only downside is the vendors losing a job. Maybe there should be a mandate that PSU still has to pay those employed their lost wages as well.

I'd also like to see it that the Student Athletes can transfer if they want or stay under scholarship and not lose a year of eligibility. They can still use the facilities and train under the new coaching staff.

I don't know how that effects the BIG schedule or the CCG. Maybe all games against PSU are considered forfeits? I know that would hurt those that don't have Penn State on their schedule this year but maybe one year of inconvenience is a worthy sacrifice of money and victories. Michigan would be one of those teams that wouldn't get the bonus win.

What's happened over in Happy Valley is bigger than a football season, without question.

[*JD*]

I really wouldn't be against them getting booted from the B1G either.

[Ghengis Jon]

Agreed. This is LOIC and is deserving of an SMU style punishment. At the very least, I'm sad to say. The rest of the Big Ten is going to suffer a lot of collateral damage just from the inevitable ugly smack that will be forthcoming. That in itself is going hurt all the conference schools from endowments to recruiting.

[entropy]

So what do schools do in the BIG if PSU is banned?

I think the NCAA can only go after the issue of players getting special treatments/privileges not afforded to the general students. If the NCAA punishes them for criminal activity, what does the NCAA do if a Michigan football player robs someone at gun point? it's a slippery slope.. Scholarship reductions and bowl bans. Make them irrelevant for 10 years

[entropy]

Paternoville changes name to Nittanyville
July, 17, 2012
Jul 17
10:10
AM ET
By Adam Rittenberg | ESPN.com


Paternoville is no more.

Days after the Freeh report implicated the late Joe Paterno in the cover-up surrounding the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal at Penn State, the student organization that runs the tent village set up outside Gate A at Beaver Stadium before home games announced it has changed its name. Paternoville has become Nittanyville.

The organization, renamed the Nittanyville Coordinating Committee, released a statement Monday night announcing the change.

It reads in part:

Since Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1993, Penn State students have camped out at Beaver Stadium in order to guarantee themselves a rail-side seat -- though students hardly ever sit -- for a home football game. In 2005, a student termed the encampment "Paternoville," and the name stuck through the 2011 season.

"Now, it's a new era of Nittany Lion football," committee president Troy Weller said. "And by changing the name to Nittanyville we want to return the focus to the overall team and the thousands of students who support it. We thank the Paterno family for their gracious assistance and support over the last several years."


The group added that it will donate a portion of its fundraising proceeds to the newly established Center for the Protection of Children based at Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital. Kudos to them for doing so.

The Paternoville name change already is sparking debate among the Penn State community. Some point out that it was set up to represent the good things Paterno did during his many decades at the school. "If anything related to Joe Paterno should be allowed to keep its name or place [excluding the library for which he built with his own donations], Paternoville should have been it," Black Shoe Diaries' Dan Vecellio writes. A Paternoville Facebook page has been set up, describing itself as a group that upholds the "memory of the Penn State student tradition of Paternoville which was disgraced by its student officers who cowardly changed names post Freeh report."

Can't say I'm surprised the Paternoville group changed its name, but I also expected some backlash from those who still support the late Penn State coach.

Big Ten Blog

[Rob F]

I'm leaning towards some kind of shutdown, too, but it would be much more preferable for it to be self-imposed, with PSU cooperating fully with both the B1G and NCAA in all matters, including minimizing (as much as possible) collateral damage. No doubt much of the collateral damage will be unavoidable as close as we are to the start of the season, but it's time for the rest of the conference to accept that some "biting the bullet" must be done in the name of sending a clear message to not only PSU, but also to the rest of CFB and College Athletics that never again should any program or school allow themselves to careen so far out of control.

The more I learn about how the so-called "leadership" did things at PSU, the more I am convinced that PSU must pay dearly, both in criminal and civil court, and most of all, in being completely cleansed of the awful stain left by Paterno, Schultz, Spannier, and Curley. If they are allowed to field a football team this year, it says to me that $$$ is more important that justice.

[entropy]

Personally, I think we'll know if PSU "get's it" based upon what they do with Joe Pa's statue.

[hack]

what does the NCAA do if a Michigan football player robs someone at gun point?

Make the logical assumption that an Akron State player forced the Michigan player to do it, and then close down forever that repulsive aberration of humanity masquerading as an institution of higher learning.