By Kevin Zwick
Staff Reporter
Capitolwire
The NCAA has lifted the post-season bowl ban on Penn State’s football program and is allowing the team to offer the maximum number of athletic scholarships next season, further paring down punishing sanctions against the school.
The reductions come two years after the NCAA hit the university with penalties in response to the school’s “failure” to appropriately respond to the Jerry Sandusky molestation claims. The NCAA’s executive committee on Monday said the school has made “significant progress toward ensuring its athletics department functions with integrity,” according to a statement.
The recommended reductions were made in a report by George Mitchell, the university’s athletics oversight monitor. Next year, he said he would consider recommending his oversight end earlier than planned as a result of the school’s progress.
“My recommendations, both in 2013 and in this report, relate to elements of the sanctions that most directly affect Penn State’s student-athletes, who bear no personal responsibility for the underlying reasons for the sanctions. Many of these student-athletes chose to remain at Penn State in spite of the sanctions and the opportunity to transfer to another school without penalty,” Mitchell wrote in his 58-page, second-annual report.
The football program will be able to offer 85 grants-in-aid, the maximum number allowed by the NCAA.
The bowl ban and scholarship reductions were part of the Consent Decree sanctions, agreed to between the NCAA and Penn State in 2012, that included a $60 million fine and an elimination from the record books of over a dozen years-worth of victories under late football coach Joe Paterno.
The NCAA also said in court filings Friday that Pennsylvania could control the $60 million portion of the sanctions, backing off of state and federal court challenges over control of the money. Penn State has agreed to pay the sum in full to the state Treasury, according to the NCAA filing. A judge’s ruling is still pending. CLICK HERE for a Capitolwire story for more on that.
The reduction in sanctions were discussed during recent settlement talks over two lawsuits between the NCAA and various state officials in both state and federal courts. However, the talks between lawyers for Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman, R-Centre, State Treasurer Rob McCord, the NCAA and Penn State dissolved recently. Penn State’s position had been more in favor of a reduction in sanctions as a result of the university’s compliance record, not through a litigation settlement, a source said.
The NCAA based the penalties on the findings of a controversial report conducted by former FBI Director Louis Freeh. The NCAA said the report found that an “unprecedented failure of institutional integrity” allowed Sandusky to prey on children.
“It was fear of or deference to the omnipotent football program that enabled a sexual predator to attract and abuse his victims,” the Consent Decree states. Sandusky is currently serving a lengthy prison term.
The university’s swift approval of the Consent Decree sanctions, with recommendation of the board’s legal committee, revealed divisions among trustees, alumni, fans and public policy makers.
Corman and McCord, in a court filing Friday, said the NCAA “lacked authority to impose fines, it did not follow its own bylaws, and the Decree is a contract of adhesion entered into under duress.” Last month when settlement talks were getting underway, a majority of the Penn State Board of Trustees voted on a resolution favoring “full compliance” with the Consent Decree, despite a push by a minority faction to rescind the university’s obligations under the agreement.
Last week, Penn State’s new president, Eric Barron, in a letter said the sanctions affected many with ties to Penn State: “The alumnus who says he lost his best friend over his opinion of the Freeh report; the alumni trustee candidate that faced dozens of unkind comments; the long time donor of time and treasure who no longer feels welcome.”
Barron asked for “civility” when discussing the Sandusky-related issues. He didn’t specifically mention Sandusky in his letter.
NEWSLANC EDITOR: The NCCA is running scared. It doesn’t want its sanctions against Penn State to obtain judicial review because it recognizes how baseless was its actions.
