The NCAA opts not to give the Death Penalty, More Like A Life Sentence

I go back to a time in 2002, a 20 year old kid in a new city having a college football conversation with new friends. The subject was the NCAA and sanctions (being from Alabama in the state of GA, I was asked about the probation of Alabama). I jokingly said "Other institutions would have to molest a child to get the NCAA to send a message". Almost ten years later and turning 30 in 5 weeks, I look back on my 20 year old self and wished I could take those words back. Little did we know, that it was actually going on in a deceptful cloak of secrecy in State College, PA.

The NCAA unmercifully hammered on the Penn State program for their cover-up of the sick actions of a sick man. A legacy that spanned over a half a decade was brought crumbling down in a mere 8 months and it seems there is no end in sight.....until now. Penn State football as we've known will no longer exist. No more trips to the Rose Bowl and the white outs in Happy Valley will no longer have the same effect. No postseason for 4 years, and an estimated $73 Million will not see the pockets of Penn State University, but to organizations that help with the cause (child abuse) that the previous administration had an opportunity to stand against.

As we found out in the Freeh Report, the glory of a football program built by a man who was god-like to most young people, is now painted as an egomaniac who turned a blind eye for the sake of his legacy. Joe Paterno can't tell his side of the story, but would we believe it at this point? The man who had the power to stop traffic at State College with a word or a snap of a finger, chose not to stop the monster that scarred the lives of innocent young children. 

The NCAA could have given Penn State the Death Penalty, but they may have given them something worse. They gave State College a life sentence. The $60 Million fine tacked on with civil lawsuits to come, the The Big Ten taking away their cut of the bowl money, bowl bans, and the scholarships are more harmful than just shutting down the program. SMU had to shut down football for one year, which really saved them one year of embarrassment. Penn St has to step out on that field and fans have to watch their once prestige program die a slow and painful death that may take years, if not decades, to recover from.

Bobby Bowden is now the All-Time winningest coach in major college football now that Joe Paterno has 111 wins stricken from the record books. Joe Paterno's legacy may become stricken from record books, but erasing 111 wins doesn't erase what happened to the victims of Jerry Sandusky. It also doesn't erase that Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, and Tim Curley all turned their back on the people who desperately needed help. 

Is it beyond the NCAA's jurisdiction to rule on Penn State? Could be? Will anyone argue against them doing it? I'm not. They didn't really send a message to USC for Reggie Bush's sins. They didn't really send a message to Ohio State for the sins of tattoo crazed outlaws and a outlaw coach hiding under the deception of a sweatervest. However, the NCAA did send a message to Penn State, and we all heard it loud and clear. My 20 year old self may have been right to say it would take molesting a child for the NCAA to send a message. However, he didn't know that a very crude and juvenile statement would actually be a reality 10 years later.