Penn State Goings-On

[grumbler]

Bonus marks Grumbler.  Glad you agree with me they can mean the same thing.  Too bad you dont understand what the words mean in this context.

The funny thing here is that you say this, and yet don't have a clue yourself what you are talking about.

No one has jurisdiction over the violation of NCAA rules but the NCAA.  To argue that the courts have somehow secretly and successfully usurped that jurisdiction is absurd, and yet that is precisely what you must argue to claim that the NCAA is "usurping" them back.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Hey here's where that statue used to be:

[grumbler]

I think we have been over this more than once.

I don't think you have been over it even once.

Tell you what you show me where in the wall of text it says a member university is responsible for people in the university who commit criminal acts.  Because if you think that is what it means then Universities just took on a whole bunch of liability they did not have before.

Reading comprehension fail! 

First, member insitutions are responsible for the actions of people like Curley, JoPa, and maybe the President:

The institution's responsibility for the conduct of its intercollegiate athletics program includes responsibility for the actions of its staff members and for the actions of any other individual or organization engaged in activities promoting the athletics interests of the institution.

Jurisdiction over individuals established.

student-athletes, coaches, and all others associated with these athletics programs and events should adhere to such fundamental values as respect, fairness, civility, honesty and responsibility

Jurisdiction over violations of the values of respect, honesty, and responsibility established.

These values should be manifest not only in athletics participation, but also in the broad spectrum of activities affecting the athletics program

Jurisdiction over actions not directly related to athletics participation established.

Unethical conduct by a prospective or enrolled student-athlete or a current or former institutional staff member, which includes any individual who performs work for the institution or the athletics department even if he or she does not receive compensation for such work, may include, but is not limited to, the following:

Elasticity clause established, so reasonable jurisdictional claim also established.

Individuals employed by or associated with member institutions for the administration, the conduct or the coaching of intercollegiate athletics are, in the final analysis, teachers of young people. Their responsibility is an affirmative one, and they must do more than avoid improper conduct or questionable acts.

Jurisdiction over failure to act according to the rules, as well as acting contrary to the other rules, established.

Show me where the commission of crimes in association with the commission of NCAA violations precludes NCAA jurisdiction over its own rules.

[sbr]

Where did you come to the conclusion that the NCAA did not have jurisdiction?

I think we have been over this more than once.

Tell you what you show me where in the wall of text it says a member university is responsible for people in the university who commit criminal acts.  Because if you think that is what it means then Universities just took on a whole bunch of liability they did not have before.

But the sanctions weren't necessarily about criminal acts by people in the University.

http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2012-07-23/ncaa-imposes-sanctions-penn-st

By perpetuating a "football first" culture that ultimately enabled serial child sexual abuse to occur, the Pennsylvania State University leadership failed to value and uphold institutional integrity, resulting in a breach of the NCAA constitution and rules. The NCAA Division I Board of Directors and NCAA Executive Committee directed Association President Mark Emmert to examine the circumstances and determine appropriate action in consultation with these presidential bodies.

"As we evaluated the situation, the victims affected by Jerry Sandusky and the efforts by many to conceal his crimes informed our actions," said Emmert. "At our core, we are educators. Penn State leadership lost sight of that."

According to the NCAA conclusions and sanctions, the Freeh Report "presents an unprecedented failure of institutional integrity leading to a culture in which a football program was held in higher esteem than the values of the institution, the values of the NCAA, the values of higher education, and most disturbingly the values of human decency."

No mention of any specific person or action in there.

[Martinus]

This has probably been said here before, but I just found out that Sandusky's co-authored autobiography is titled "Touched". 

[The Minsky Moment]

That's exactly the situation that existed before the Sandusky incident came to light! 

The NCAA siad that member institutions and their leaders will behave honestly: . . .
Penn State officials and coaches willfully acted dishonestly.  I agree that it was up to them to comply or not.  Your primary way failed, and the hammer came down as the secondary way to get people to pay attention to the rules, just as you recommended.   

Except . . . the NCAA is not actually purporting to police honesty generally; nor is "honesty" the matter at issue here.  The specific list of dishonest actions may be illustrative and not exhaustive, but it is still exemplary.  And what it makes clear is that the honesty the NCAA is policing is dishonesty used to get around the NCAA-specific rules about eligibility, recruitment, etc.  It's not some kind of general, free-form ethical inquiry.  If Joe Paterno committed adultery and lied about it that would may be unethical and horribly dishonest, but not a valid subject of NCAA sanctions.  The Sandusky conduct is far more extreme, but it doesn't the fact that is not the kind of conduct that the NCAA is setting itself up to police.  That's for the police to police.  Also, the conduct at issue here is not even about dishonesty in the first place.  It's about failure to report a crime.  The NCAA is trying to bang the square peg of this conduct into the round hole of its rules.

Certainly the NCAA didn't act in way I recommend.  IMO - you don't get people to "pay attention to rules" by invoking a set of rules that isn't really applicable, and then applying a set of punishments that isn't logically related either to the rules, the actions targeted or the individuals responsible, as a "secondary way" of getting their attention.   What I might recommend instead is simply telling the institution who you expect to be punished and how.

Football games are won and lost o the field by teams of football players, 

Right - they are won and lost by players, not by university bureaucrats and other "leaders"

My understanding of the purpose of the NCAA vacating 112 games (I got the number wrong above, since Bradley didn't win two games, just one) is to make it impossible for anyone to take credit for any PSU wins from 1998-2011.  No coaches can recruit boasting of two Big Ten championships invite players to be part of the team that wins the school's 750th game, for instance.

Of course it doesn't make it impossible - its a free country and anyone can claim credit for anything or boast about anything.  Although the only coach who could have boasted about Big Ten Championships is dead anyway.  And why is it a useful purpose to prevent some future coach from making some future boast to future potential students about some past event that actually happened?

[crazy canuck]

But the sanctions weren't necessarily about criminal acts by people in the University.

They may not have mentioned the criminal acts themselves.  But you dont content that the penalty was not related to the criminal do you?  In other words absent the criminal acts do you really think this penalty would have been imposed?

[The Brain]

Why would anyone who isn't NCAA or Penn State give a fuck about what NCAA does to Penn State?

[dps]

In a sense, this is almost the same thing that PSU officials did with Sandusky--try to handle the problem internally, instead of letting the courts do their job.

Uhhh, no. Not the same in any way. PSU covered up Sandusky's crime in order to protect their schools reputation and the person and myth of Joe Paterno. That is a direct and clear violation of the NCAA rules.

The NCAA is not motivated by any such thing. The courts will do their job dealing with the *individuals* who have committed crimes, and the NCAA will do its job dealing with the *institution* that violated the rules they agreed to upon joining the NCAA.

Both are motivated by PR concerns.  Penn State officials covered up for Sandusky because they feared the PR fallout (at least, that's the only reasonable explanation I can see--it certainly wasn't so that Sandusky could keep coaching there), and the NCAA is just doing something because some people were whining that they should do something.

Except . . . the NCAA is not actually purporting to police honesty generally; nor is "honesty" the matter at issue here.  The specific list of dishonest actions may be illustrative and not exhaustive, but it is still exemplary.  And what it makes clear is that the honesty the NCAA is policing is dishonesty used to get around the NCAA-specific rules about eligibility, recruitment, etc.  It's not some kind of general, free-form ethical inquiry.  If Joe Paterno committed adultery and lied about it that would may be unethical and horribly dishonest, but not a valid subject of NCAA sanctions.  The Sandusky conduct is far more extreme, but it doesn't the fact that is not the kind of conduct that the NCAA is setting itself up to police.  That's for the police to police.  Also, the conduct at issue here is not even about dishonesty in the first place.  It's about failure to report a crime.  The NCAA is trying to bang the square peg of this conduct into the round hole of its rules.

Bingo.  Said better than I had put it.

[sbr]

But the sanctions weren't necessarily about criminal acts by people in the University.

They may not have mentioned the criminal acts themselves.  But you dont content that the penalty was not related to the criminal do you?  In other words absent the criminal acts do you really think this penalty would have been imposed?

No.  I also don't think without criminal acts Jerry Sandusky would be in jail.

[grumbler]

Except . . . the NCAA is not actually purporting to police honesty generally; nor is "honesty" the matter at issue here.  The specific list of dishonest actions may be illustrative and not exhaustive, but it is still exemplary.  And what it makes clear is that the honesty the NCAA is policing is dishonesty used to get around the NCAA-specific rules about eligibility, recruitment, etc.  It's not some kind of general, free-form ethical inquiry.  If Joe Paterno committed adultery and lied about it that would may be unethical and horribly dishonest, but not a valid subject of NCAA sanctions.  The Sandusky conduct is far more extreme, but it doesn't the fact that is not the kind of conduct that the NCAA is setting itself up to police.  That's for the police to police.  Also, the conduct at issue here is not even about dishonesty in the first place.  It's about failure to report a crime.  The NCAA is trying to bang the square peg of this conduct into the round hole of its rules.

I'd certainly argue that the PSU officials behaved dishonestly.  If "well, it technically wasn't dishonesty" is your argument, that's a pretty feeble reed, especially when the express purpose fo the honest behavior is to "represent the honor and dignity of fair play and the generally recognized high standards associated with wholesome competitive sports."  Ignoring Dandusky's behavior is pretty much the opposite of that.

If Jope Paterno had been using his position coerce the wives and/or girlfriends of his players into committing adultery with him, that would be an NCAA issue as well as a police issue.  Not all adultery would necessarily be an NCAA issue, though.

Certainly the NCAA didn't act in way I recommend.  IMO - you don't get people to "pay attention to rules" by invoking a set of rules that isn't really applicable, and then applying a set of punishments that isn't logically related either to the rules, the actions targeted or the individuals responsible, as a "secondary way" of getting their attention.   What I might recommend instead is simply telling the institution who you expect to be punished and how.

Again, the argument that the NCAA's rules aren't "really applicable" is just argument by assertion.  The NCAA says they apply.  Penn State says they apply.  Coaches, lawyers, and college presidents across the country say that they apply.  They may not, but the burden is on those who say that they don't to provide some evidence.  Otherwise, your argument boils down to an unsupported opinion that runs contrary to what the better-informed principals say.

And the issue isn't failure to report a crime.  The issue is that "by perpetuating a "football first" culture that ultimately enabled serial child sexual abuse to occur, the Pennsylvania State University leadership failed to value and uphold institutional integrity, resulting in a breach of the NCAA constitution and rules."

Right - they are won and lost by players, not by university bureaucrats and other "leaders"

Right.  They are won and lost by teams, not individual players, and those teams are organized by, directed by, financed by, and represent the program and hence the institution.

Of course it doesn't make it impossible - its a free country and anyone can claim credit for anything or boast about anything.

Although the only coach who could have boasted about Big Ten Championships is dead anyway.

Nope.  There are still coaches there.

And why is it a useful purpose to prevent some future coach from making some future boast to future potential students about some past event that actually happened?

They no longer have those championships.  You can't boast about something you no longer have.

[grumbler]

They may not have mentioned the criminal acts themselves.  But you dont content that the penalty was not related to the criminal do you?  In other words absent the criminal acts do you really think this penalty would have been imposed?

Penalties are imposed on schools all the time for non-criminal acts.  Michigan got put on probation for not documenting properly the amount of time the football team spent stretching!

[grumbler]

Both are motivated by PR concerns.  Penn State officials covered up for Sandusky because they feared the PR fallout (at least, that's the only reasonable explanation I can see--it certainly wasn't so that Sandusky could keep coaching there), and the NCAA is just doing something because some people were whining that they should do something.

Link?  This seems an absurd allegation on the face of it, but, if you have evidence, I might find it credible.

[crazy canuck]

But the sanctions weren't necessarily about criminal acts by people in the University.

They may not have mentioned the criminal acts themselves.  But you dont content that the penalty was not related to the criminal do you?  In other words absent the criminal acts do you really think this penalty would have been imposed?

No.  I also don't think without criminal acts Jerry Sandusky would be in jail.

I didnt think so.

Which at least makes you brighter than Grumbler.

[dps]

And the issue isn't failure to report a crime.  The issue is that "by perpetuating a “football first” culture that ultimately enabled serial child sexual abuse to occur, the Pennsylvania State University leadership failed to value and uphold institutional integrity, resulting in a breach of the NCAA constitution and rules."

If the issue if perpetuating a football-first culture, then probably the same penalties should be levied against about 100 of the other Division 1A schools.