From August, 2012
NEWSLANC: Does NCAA have authority to “kill” Penn State football?
…We have downloaded and read NCAA Constitution, Operating Bylaws, Administrative Bylaws.
It is not clear to us that the NCAA had the power to “kill” any athletic program and, if it does, the process and safeguards would have made it extremely unlikely under the current circumstances. And even so, the penalties and fines levied seem to be a stretch of its powers and susceptible to successful appeal within the NCAA and, if necessary, in a court of law.
Furthermore, while it is possible that only Penn State University has standing to challenge most of the sanctions in court, we hypothesize that any major Penn State donor or group of donors may have standing to challenge the $60 million fine.
There must be a lot of Penn State lawyers who have concerns about the NCAA penalties. We invite them to review the NCAA Constitution, Operating Bylaws, Administrative Bylaws and share their thoughts with our readership and also with Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship , or PS4RS , a recently formed alumni group not affiliated with the University.
EDITOR: The above appeared in a news letter and referred back to an earlier posted NewsLanc article. Mike Gross of the LNP deserves credit for being an early challenger of the NCAA action. LNP was silent, as was the Pennsylvania and national media, on the question of jurisdiction and state wide media has remained silent almost to yesterday when, with the release of NCAA e-mails, they have experienced a “eureka” moment.
This is testamony to the low qualifications and shoddy workmkanship of most editors and reporters. All they had to do was what publisher Robert Field did immediately upon the announcement of the sanctions: download and read the NCAA by-laws and constitution. It was clear on the surface that the NCAA was exceeding its authority.
(Some excuse can be made in that the publisher underpays the reporters, and the editors and publisher are afraid of offending officials, portions of the establishment, and often advertisers.)
The Jerry Sandusky scandal had nothing to do with the Penn State sports program. Sandusky had not been a coach for years. He had the priviledge to use the field house as did all other faculty members. Moreover, the indident was reported to Coach Joe Paterno on a Friday evening and he passed on the information, somewhat vague as given to him, to the proper school administrator on the following Monday morning.
Through Bill Keisling’s reporting on the Penn State / Sandusky scandal and ongoing e-mail blasts of articles to the media throughout the state, NewsLanc both revealed and opined upon what had gone on behind the scenes.
So where do we pick up our Pulitzer Prize?
