Breaking down the sanctions

The Penn State Nittany Lions American football team takes the field (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The NCAA has spoken – Penn State will play a $60 million fine – they will face a four-year postseason ban – lose a total of 10 scholarships for four years. Lastly, all of Joe Paterno’s team’s victories from 1998 to 2011 have been vacated and he loses 111 career wins. So by deducting the  111 career wins from Joe Paterno's win total he is no longer the all-time winningest coach in NCAA football history.

Penn State has signed off on the agreement with the NCAA to accept these harsh penalties.

With the correction, Paterno goes from number one all-times winningest coach to eighth on the all-time wins list. Paterno is fifth among FBS coaches.

Here is a breakdown of the NCAA Penalties – while it’s not the death penalty the sanctions are harsh.

$60 million fine. The NCAA imposes a $60 million fine, equivalent to the approximate average of one year's gross revenues from the Penn State football program, to be paid over a five-year period beginning in 2012 into an endowment for programs preventing child sexual abuse and/or assisting the victims of child sexual abuse. The minimum annual payment will be $12 million until the $60 million is paid. The proceeds of this fine may not be used to fund programs at the University. No current sponsored athletic team may be reduced or eliminated in order to fund this fine.

Four-year postseason ban. The NCAA imposes a four-year postseason ban on participation in postseason play in the sport of football, beginning with the 2012-2013 academic year and expiring at the conclusion of the 2015-2016 academic year. Therefore, the University's football team shall end its 2012 season and each season through 2015 with the playing if its last regularly scheduled, in-season contest and shall not be eligible to participate in any postseason competition, including a conference championship, any bowl game, or any postseason playoff competition.

Four-year reduction of grants-in-aid. For a period of four years commencing with the 2013-2014 academic year and expiring at the conclusion of the 2016-2017 academic year, the NCAA imposes a limit of 15 initial grants-in-aid (from a maximum of 25 allowed) and for a period of four years commencing with the 2014-2015 academic year and expiring at the conclusion of the 2017-2018 academic year a limit of 65 total grants-in-aid (from a maximum of 85 allowed) for football during each of those specified years. In the event the total number of grants-in-aid drops below 65, the University may award grants-in-aid to non-scholarship student-athletes who have been members of the football program as allowed under Bylaw 15.5.6.3.6.

Five years of probation. The NCAA imposes this period of probation, which will include the appointment of an on-campus, independent Integrity Monitor and periodic reporting as detailed in the Corrective Component of this Consent Decree. Failure to comply with the Consent Decree during this probationary period may result in additional, more severe sanctions.

Vacation of wins since 1998. The NCAA vacates all wins of the Penn State football team from 1998 to 2011. The career record of Coach “Joe” Paterno will reflect the vacated records.

Waiver of transfer rules and grant-in-aid retention. Any entering or returning football student-athlete will be allowed to immediately transfer and will be eligible to immediately compete at the transfer institution, provided he is otherwise eligible. Any football student-athlete who wants to remain at the University may retain his athletic grant-in-aid, as long as he meets and maintains applicable academic requirements, regardless of whether he competes on the football team.

There is no doubt that the NCAA hammered Penn State – hard - to quote Brandon Noble a former PSU football player that was on ESPN the morning and he said, “The NCAA has opened up a can of worms.”

There are many that have asked the question, why act now? Why not wait for the investigations to finish before the NCAA acted against Penn State University.

Ed Ray, the president of Oregon State and chairman of the N.C.A.A.'s executive committee, said the case, and the sanctions imposed, represented a declaration by university presidents and chancellors that “this has to stop.” By that he meant a win at all costs mentality with respect to intercollegiate sports.

“We’ve had enough,” he said. [New York Times]

Penn State is also not done being punished – they still have to face the Big Ten who is also set to announced that they are going to take away their share of the bowl revenue for the next four seasons and they won’t be able to play in the Big Ten Conference championship for the next four season that means Penn State will suffer about a 13 million dollar hit – that’s a huge loss for PSU.