Max
Member
Sunday began with the statue of Joe Paterno removed from outside Beaver Stadium. And that was the least controversial moment of the day.
Stand back, everyone. The NCAA is on the case.
While Penn State was busy addressing the bronze statue, CBS News reported that the NCAA had reached a decision on penalties in the case of the university hiding Jerry Sandusky's sins.Words like unprecedented. Punitive. Death penalty.
Here's a few more words for you: disingenuous. Grandstanding. Blowhard.
Excuse me if I can't get excited about an organization that saw Ohio State players accept cash in envelopes after coach Jim Tressel's lies and illegal benefits for players were exposed, but said lack of institutional control wasn't an issue.
If I can't get excited about an organization that knew Cecil Newton was shopping his son, Cam, to Mississippi State — yet let him continue to play at Auburn (and eventually win a national championship) — because it had no rule prohibiting parents from shopping their offspring to the highest bidder.
If I can't get excited about an organization that knows street agent Willie Lyles was paid $25,000 by Oregon for useless recruiting information; that knows Lyles was the "mentor" for five-star recruit Lache Seastrunk; that knows Oregon coach Chip Kelly lied when asked by a newspaper if he knew Lyles (Kelly later said, we call him 'Will'); that knows Kelly told Lyles he needed more recruiting information from Lyles after the fact, yet we're more than a year into the Oregon investigation with no end in sight.
If I can't get excited about an organization that looked at quite possibly the worst case of NCAA infractions in the history of the sport at North Carolina — in its depth and breadth of clear, indisputable illegal benefits and academic fraud issues — and decided it wasn't as destructive as a Southern Cal assistant coach who the NCAA claimed "knew or should have known" Reggie Bush was getting illegal benefits.
What happened at Penn State is the single greatest tragedy in sports history. Whatever penalties the university receives from the NCAA — whether or not the sport's governing body and Penn State agreed on them — isn't the point. If it were up to me, I'd shut down the program for the exact number of years the university hid the child abuse.
But this isn't about the penalties; it's about NCAA process.
We have to step away from the raw emotions of a horrific moment in college football, and look at the bigger picture. You can't make a quick decision on one case because it's unthinkable in its impact and destruction on so many lives, and then drag your feet on others (Southern Cal, North Carolina, Oregon, Ohio State, Miami of Florida) that cut to the very core of amateur athletics.
You can't claim lack of subpoena power in exposing issues at rogue schools, and then use the Freeh Report as the framework of your sanctions against Penn State — the same Freeh Commission that also had no subpoena power.
You can't admit there is no bylaw against shopping your son for $180,000 in that vast catalog of dos and don'ts you call a rulebook, and then proclaim you've been given "special jurisdiction" to rule on a case that isn't within a country mile of said rulebook.
And we wonder why programs continue to cheat? We wonder why, despite NCAA president Mark Emmert's public stand on getting serious about dealing with major offenders, coaches and their staffs and other members of athletic departments have come to the learned — key word there, learned — conclusion that the reward is worth the risk.
By using "special jurisdiction," the NCAA has essentially opened every future case to that precedent. It has set up itself and its member universities for multiple lawsuits based on sanctions resulting from "special jurisdiction" for years to come.
Imagine that, a governing body with no subpoena power now has "special jurisdiction" power.
When news broke Sunday about the Penn State sanctions, a BCS coach texted me and said, "Even if NCAA has no authority, they have to seem like they do."
Early Sunday, workers in State College, Pa., threw up a fence and blue tarp around the shrine to Joe Paterno at Beaver Stadium, and removed coach's 900-pound bronze likeness.
How fitting. There's still a 900-pound gorilla in the room called the NCAA: toothless enforcement, pick and choose sanctions, different rules for different fools.
And zero credibility.
Stand back, everyone. The NCAA is on the case.
While Penn State was busy addressing the bronze statue, CBS News reported that the NCAA had reached a decision on penalties in the case of the university hiding Jerry Sandusky's sins.Words like unprecedented. Punitive. Death penalty.
Here's a few more words for you: disingenuous. Grandstanding. Blowhard.
Excuse me if I can't get excited about an organization that saw Ohio State players accept cash in envelopes after coach Jim Tressel's lies and illegal benefits for players were exposed, but said lack of institutional control wasn't an issue.
If I can't get excited about an organization that knew Cecil Newton was shopping his son, Cam, to Mississippi State — yet let him continue to play at Auburn (and eventually win a national championship) — because it had no rule prohibiting parents from shopping their offspring to the highest bidder.
If I can't get excited about an organization that knows street agent Willie Lyles was paid $25,000 by Oregon for useless recruiting information; that knows Lyles was the "mentor" for five-star recruit Lache Seastrunk; that knows Oregon coach Chip Kelly lied when asked by a newspaper if he knew Lyles (Kelly later said, we call him 'Will'); that knows Kelly told Lyles he needed more recruiting information from Lyles after the fact, yet we're more than a year into the Oregon investigation with no end in sight.
If I can't get excited about an organization that looked at quite possibly the worst case of NCAA infractions in the history of the sport at North Carolina — in its depth and breadth of clear, indisputable illegal benefits and academic fraud issues — and decided it wasn't as destructive as a Southern Cal assistant coach who the NCAA claimed "knew or should have known" Reggie Bush was getting illegal benefits.
What happened at Penn State is the single greatest tragedy in sports history. Whatever penalties the university receives from the NCAA — whether or not the sport's governing body and Penn State agreed on them — isn't the point. If it were up to me, I'd shut down the program for the exact number of years the university hid the child abuse.
But this isn't about the penalties; it's about NCAA process.
We have to step away from the raw emotions of a horrific moment in college football, and look at the bigger picture. You can't make a quick decision on one case because it's unthinkable in its impact and destruction on so many lives, and then drag your feet on others (Southern Cal, North Carolina, Oregon, Ohio State, Miami of Florida) that cut to the very core of amateur athletics.
You can't claim lack of subpoena power in exposing issues at rogue schools, and then use the Freeh Report as the framework of your sanctions against Penn State — the same Freeh Commission that also had no subpoena power.
You can't admit there is no bylaw against shopping your son for $180,000 in that vast catalog of dos and don'ts you call a rulebook, and then proclaim you've been given "special jurisdiction" to rule on a case that isn't within a country mile of said rulebook.
And we wonder why programs continue to cheat? We wonder why, despite NCAA president Mark Emmert's public stand on getting serious about dealing with major offenders, coaches and their staffs and other members of athletic departments have come to the learned — key word there, learned — conclusion that the reward is worth the risk.
By using "special jurisdiction," the NCAA has essentially opened every future case to that precedent. It has set up itself and its member universities for multiple lawsuits based on sanctions resulting from "special jurisdiction" for years to come.
Imagine that, a governing body with no subpoena power now has "special jurisdiction" power.
When news broke Sunday about the Penn State sanctions, a BCS coach texted me and said, "Even if NCAA has no authority, they have to seem like they do."
Early Sunday, workers in State College, Pa., threw up a fence and blue tarp around the shrine to Joe Paterno at Beaver Stadium, and removed coach's 900-pound bronze likeness.
How fitting. There's still a 900-pound gorilla in the room called the NCAA: toothless enforcement, pick and choose sanctions, different rules for different fools.
And zero credibility.
