… are they reasonable?

$60,000,000 fine, no bowl games for four years, loss of 10 scholarships, vacated all wins since 1998….

I’m fine with the fine, in fact I think it could have been more. That figure amounts to one year’s worth of revenue that Penn State receives from their football program. I knew football was a college cash cow, but $60,000,000 a year? Geez!

No bowl games for four years is also potentially a light penalty, but I’m OK with it.

The loss of 10 scholarships sounds OK until you see that the NCAA is allowing football players to transfer out and compete immediately. I’m not sure how NCAA rules work, but to me that makes me wonder how that will “trickle down”. Penn State is one of the nation’s top recruiting schools, so those ten football players are very likely to find a home in another school. Does that mean ten other current athletes under scholarship will lose their scholarship at a different school because Penn State lost them, but the athletes can transfer? If so then I think this part of the ruling stinks.

Finally, the vacating of all the wins since 1998… What does that mean for the players involved? Does that mean players’ records are also changed? I just don’t know how that works. Does that mean that schools who played against Penn State suddenly have their wins increased? I don’t think so, but I dunno. What I do know is that this is likely to be the part of the penalty that angers Penn State fans the most, especially those who still revere “Joe Pa” since this means he drops about 100 wins down the list of “winningest college coaches”, which probably drops him off the radar. I think he may have been the winningest coach of all time before this.

In terms of the severity of the punishment, I certainly don’t think it’s TOO severe. Is it severe enough? Well, it’s hard to say. I suspect there will be massive civil lawsuits against Penn State that will likely take years to settle. As far as I’m concerned the penalties should not be restricted to the football program. This thing was covered up all the way to the top. Penn State allowed a man to continue to prey on young boys for over a decade because they didn’t want a public “stain” on their precious football program. That’s pretty close to pure evil in my book.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this is the same university whose “investigation” of Michael Mann’s obvious scientific fraud in the “hockey stick” fabrication was also a whitewash. My only question is how many major universities would have done (or are currently doing) the same thing Penn State did.

Sick, sad world…