NCAA Hits Penn State With Severe Punsihment For Years To Come

Chastising Penn State for “hero worship” and a warped athletic culture, NCAAPresident Mark Emmert issued a landmark ruling Monday morning, levying unprecedented penalties against the Penn State football program that will cripple its ability to remain competitive on the field for years.

According to USA Today, Emmert banned Penn State from bowl games for four years, imposed massive scholarship reductions (a total of 40 initial scholarships lost over four years) and fined the school $60 million.

Emmert also vacated all of Penn State’s victories between 1998 and 2011, meaning former coach Joe Paterno  loses 111 wins from what had been a total of 409 victories, the most all time in major college football.

The NCAA, which placed Penn State on five years’ probation, is reserving the right to investigate and punish individuals implicated in child sex-abuse case until after criminal proceedings.

Regarding the $60 million fine, Erickson said Penn State will pay $12 million a year for the next five years into a special endowment created to fund programs for the detection, prevention and treatment of child abuse.

Because Penn State will be ineligible for bowl games — or the Big Ten title game — for the next four years, it will not be eligible to receive its share of the conference’s bowl revenues. Estimated to be $13 million, the money will be donated to establish charitable organizations in the Big Ten communities dedicated to the protection of children.

The NCAA will also permit current or incoming Penn State football players to transfer without sitting out a season, which is likely to further impede the on-field rebuilding process.