Penn State sanctions: NCAA aims to end 'mindset' that led to tragedy

It’s a “version” of the death penalty because, for the NCAA, the penalty is not a term of art – it’s something schools must qualify for with sustained malpractice.

Known in NCAA terminology as “the repeat-violator legislation,” it can be applied if two major violations occur within a university’s athletics department in a five-year window. The infractions don’t have to be within the same sport.

When this happens, the NCAA can lower the boom with some combination of the following, according to the NCAA’s page on the subject:

• The prohibition of some or all outside competition in the sport involved in the latest major violation for one or two sport seasons and the prohibition of all coaching staff members in that sport from involvement (directly or indirectly) in any coaching activities at the institution during that period.

• The elimination of all initial grants-in-aid and recruiting activities in the sport involved in the latest major violation in question for a two-year period.

• The requirement that all institutional staff member serving on the NCAA Board of Directors; Leadership, Legislative, Presidents or Management Councils; Executive Committee or other Association governance bodies resign their positions. All institutional representatives shall be ineligible to serve on any NCAA committee for a period of four years.

• The requirement that the institution relinquish its NCAA voting privileges for a four-year period.

In SMU’s case, football was the sole malefactor. Their 1987 football season was cancelled by NCAA fiat, and the 1988 season was also later called off because the team could not safely field a squad after existing players transferred or left the team. A ban on bowl games and live television was extended through 1989, and the team’s head coach and five assistant coaches (cut down from a usual nine aides) saw their recruiting abilities severely curtailed until the start of the 1988 school year. While all existing players were allowed to transfer and play at their new schools immediately just as in the Penn State case, the university lost more scholarships (at 55) over the next 4 years.

These sanctions all but killed what was then not only a mighty football power but the scandal-plagued Southwestern Conference, which dissolved shortly thereafter. SMU did not win a bowl game until 2009.

That bodes ill for Penn State’s football prospects, even though the Nittany Lions far outshone SMU, even at the Mustang’s zenith.

And that’s because, in the NCAA’s view, what happened at Penn State necessitated an even graver response than the death penalty.

“Imposing the death penalty does not address the cultural, systemic, and leadership failures at Penn State. Instead, our approach demands that they become an exemplary NCAA member by eradicating the mindset that led to this tragedy,” the NCAA says on a page devoted to the Penn State sanctions.

The main difference between the two sets of penalties, then, is in terms of the “corrective” levies required by the NCAA on Monday. Penn State’s sanctions do not only extract their pound of flesh from the athletic program – they take aim at the concept of the football program within the university.

In fact, the Penn State case revealed an awareness by Emmert and the NCAA about a problem with the role of sports on college campuses in general.

“One of the grave dangers stemming from our love of sports,” he said, “can be the sports can become too big to fail – indeed, too big to challenge.”

And that culture is something the death penalty simply can’t fix. 

Previous

1 | 2