Penn State Gets Worse than Death Penalty?

Jamie Sabau/Getty Images

The NCAA has come down on Penn State and it wasn't with the death penalty.  Penn State has received a $60 million sanction, 4 year football postseason ban, vacation of all wins dating from 1998 and they must reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for four years.

 "In the Penn State case, the results were perverse and unconscionable.  No price the NCAA can levy will repair the grievous damage inflicted by Jerry Sandusky." -NCAA President Mark Emmert

The $60 million is equivalent to the average annual revenue of the football program.  Penn State must pay this $60 million penalty fund into an endowment for external programs preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims and may not be used to fund programs that take place at the university.

The wins from 1998 to 2011 that have been vacated drops Paterno's win record from 409 to 298 making him the 12th overall coach with the most wins in NCAA Football instead of 1st.  Penn State was also forced to vacate 6 bowl wins and 2 conference championships.

"We had our back to the wall on this.  We did what we thought was necessary to save the program" -Penn State President Rodney Erickson

Any current or incoming football players of the Penn State program are free to immediately transfer and compete at other schools.  Penn State is also ineligible for the Big Ten Championship game for four years and their proceeds from Big Ten Bowl revenues from the four years, approximately $13 million, will be donated to established charitable organizations in Big Ten communities dedicated to the protection of children.

The sanctions on Penn State were announced a day after Paterno's statue was removed from outside Beaver Stadium, Sunday July 22nd.  The punishment for Penn State has brought a lot on debates where a lot of people felt that the program should have been giving the death penalty, in which the football program would have been suspended for at least a year.  With the current punishments I like the way that the NCAA decided that the school's proceeds from the program would go to charities but it will be interesting to see if the program will be able to bounce back from these sanctions.  It makes you wonder if the punishment is actually worse than the death penalty.