Penn State Goings-On

[crazy canuck]

I suggest you go back through the thread and re-read the posts by PLJ and I.

Also re-read the posts by JR who has come around to the view, after reading the NCAA rules, that there was punishment is for something which is not a violation of the rules but a punishment for violation of criminal laws which the NCAA finds abhorent.

In short the NCAA has decided it can find its member institutions guilty of offences outside its jurisdiction and impose penalties based on those findings.

JR also seems to be of the view that it would be acceptable to remove Penn State football from the NCAA, a more draconian attack than what was imposed.

At least a penalty that fits much better within the confines of the jurisdiction of the NCAA and so from that point of view less draconian.

Glad to see we aren't letting the process eclipse the result.

Your meaning is rather obscure.

[Malthus]

Expressing moral outrage is fine of course, but expressing moral outrage in a way that harms innocent parties is generally a bad idea, right?

In this case, the "harm" is that a school sports team is going to not be very good for a few years.

People are freaking out because they buy into the culture that led to rioting when the school fired the football coach while firing the school president was a footnote. Who cares.

I already said I care not a jot for college football. Personally, I think US universities are football-crazy and they would all be better off without it ... but that's totally besides the point.

A foolish decision is a foolish decision even if you don't care about the traget.

[grumbler]

Only if PSU doesn't comply.  And if they don't comply then it's an issue between the Trustees and the stakeholders as to why not.

Stricken as non-responsive.  Inocents would suffer, which is what you have against the NCAA's existing sanctions to begin with.  If sanctions against "the program" are to be avoided, then you can't logically propose to avoid them by threatening to impose them.  The threat has no weight if not carried out, and, if carried out, imposes the very evil that you oppose.

What leadership?  And accomplishments of theire are being vacated? 
Personally, I don't think this action means anything at all, but if anything is being "vacated" it is achievements that were "accomplished" more by the actual athletes than by some unidentified "program leadership." 

No athlete establishes a winning program nor claims to be conducting a "grand experiment."  Players block, tackle, run, kick, etc.  No throws, tackles, interceptions, etc are vacated.

The "leadership" is the collective of "the leaders:" coaches, athletic directors, school presidents, and the like.  They, not the students, were the ones claiming those 113 wins and their "grand experiment."  These are the people who failed, and it is their legacy which is being symbolically vacated.  The symbolism seems apt, to me, though I personally wouldn't have argued for it if I was on the NCAA sanctions committee, simply because it is silly to try to re-write the past in such a fashion.

[katmai]

There are lots of rumours that Rodriguez is going after several PSU players pretty hard...

I think almost everyone is, though none of them will admit it of course. 

The big to-do out here on the west coast is that  USC, who is on probation and had scholarship reductions, is going after some PSU players.  A lot of Pac -12 fans are very upset about that.

Probation ended, silly Duck fan.

[alfred russel]

I already said I care not a jot for college football. Personally, I think US universities are football-crazy and they would all be better off without it ... but that's totally besides the point.

A foolish decision is a foolish decision even if you don't care about the traget.

Fair enough, but in this case the NCAA said that college football needs to be knocked down a few pegs and shouldn't overshadow the university. The sanctions were designed to knock Penn State football down a few pegs, and the "harm" seems to be mostly to those invested in keeping its stature where it is.

[The Minsky Moment]

. You might as well blame the judge for my kid not having a place to live when he throws me in jail for killing someone. It is not the judges fault, it is the perpetrators fault.

I don't think it is quite the same thing.
The judge puts you in jail to protect the public from killers like you, and to punish you for an act that you deliberately committed.
The NCAA fine or ex post disapperance of wins and losses doesn't protect anyone and doesn't punish any of the intentional actors.

[sbr]

The usc scholarship penalties are still in effect.

[Berkut]

. You might as well blame the judge for my kid not having a place to live when he throws me in jail for killing someone. It is not the judges fault, it is the perpetrators fault.

I don't think it is quite the same thing.
The judge puts you in jail to protect the public from killers like you, and to punish you for an act that you deliberately committed.
The NCAA fine or ex post disapperance of wins and losses doesn't protect anyone and doesn't punish any of the intentional actors.

I disagree, it protects the NCAA member institutions from others allowing their football programs to eclipse basic integrity, and punishes PSU and the people who run their university and athletic program for their failure to exercise a reasonable level of institutional control over the athletic department and the football program.

[The Minsky Moment]

Only if PSU doesn't comply.  And if they don't comply then it's an issue between the Trustees and the stakeholders as to why not.

Stricken as non-responsive.  Inocents would suffer, which is what you have against the NCAA's existing sanctions to begin with.  If sanctions against "the program" are to be avoided, then you can't logically propose to avoid them by threatening to impose them.  The threat has no weight if not carried out, and, if carried out, imposes the very evil that you oppose.

If the NCAA makes the threat, it is then the decision of PSU's governing body to decide what to do.

If it does the right thing and complies, then no innocents suffer and the onus falls entirely on those responsible.  That is the only way I can think of to achieve that outcome, although I welcome other suggestions.

If the PSU governing body elects not to comply and accept the resulting sanction, that the harm caused to others results from that decision.  But there is an easy remedy for the harmed stakeholders - they can remove the PSU governors and replace them.

No athlete establishes a winning program nor claims to be conducting a "grand experiment."  Players block, tackle, run, kick, etc.  No throws, tackles, interceptions, etc are vacated.

Football games are won and lost on the field by the atheletes who play the games, and by no one and nothing else.   "Programs" don't win football games.  The ony  program that I can think of of relevance is a booklet that is sold at some games that contains information about the players, coaches, schedule etc. and that booklet certainly ins't involved in winning or losing games.

The "leadership" is the collective of "the leaders:" coaches, athletic directors, school presidents, and the like.  They, not the students, were the ones claiming those 113 wins and their "grand experiment."  These are the people who failed, and it is their legacy which is being symbolically vacated.  The symbolism seems apt, to me, though I personally wouldn't have argued for it if I was on the NCAA sanctions committee, simply because it is silly to try to re-write the past in such a fashion.

I am not aware of any amorphous leadership collective claiming anything, nor would I know what such a claim would look like or how a collective would make it. 

Let's make this concrete.  Robert Pangborn is a professor of engineering mechanics who also serves as Acting Executive Vice President of PSU.  Is he claiming 113 wins? Or some subset?  How about his predecessor, whoever the that person may be?  Is is your understanding that a purpose of the NCAA sanction is to stop Dr. Pangborn, from claiming 113 wins in order to symbolicly vacate his legacy.

Perhaps I am just being dense, but I don't get it.

[ulmont]

I've read the applicable rules here and don't entirely agree with the view that the rules clearly permit the sanctions that issues in this case.  It is at the very least a big stretch to claim that the "ethics" rules were intended to capture this specific kind of conduct, and it looks to me like 10.4 says that consequence of violation is disciplinary action against the offending "Institutional staff members" not the whole institution.

I don't think 10.4 is limiting, but showing that they'll punish regardless as to if the staff members have moved on.  2.1 seems to show that the institution is ultimately on the hook for everything.

[dps]

. You might as well blame the judge for my kid not having a place to live when he throws me in jail for killing someone. It is not the judges fault, it is the perpetrators fault.

I don't think it is quite the same thing.
The judge puts you in jail to protect the public from killers like you, and to punish you for an act that you deliberately committed.
The NCAA fine or ex post disapperance of wins and losses doesn't protect anyone and doesn't punish any of the intentional actors.

I disagree, it protects the NCAA member institutions from others allowing their football programs to eclipse basic integrity, and punishes PSU and the people who run their university and athletic program for their failure to exercise a reasonable level of institutional control over the athletic department and the football program.

The people who screwed up, for the most part, are no longer the same ones who are still there.  Paterno is dead, and the rest of them have mostly been fired (or otherwise forced out).  Some of them are definately going to face criminal charges and end up going to prison.  They, and the school, are going to get their pants sued off.  Those are the appropriate penalties in this situation.  Laws were broken, not NCAA regulations. 

The NCAA is a private organization that is, in this case, attempting to usurp the functions of the legal system.  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.

[grumbler]

If the NCAA makes the threat, it is then the decision of PSU's governing body to decide what to do.

If it does the right thing and complies, then no innocents suffer and the onus falls entirely on those responsible.  That is the only way I can think of to achieve that outcome, although I welcome other suggestions.

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:

10.01.1 Honesty and Sportsmanship. Individuals employed by (or associated with) a member institution
to administer, conduct or coach intercollegiate athletics and all participating student-athletes shall act with
honesty and sportsmanship at all times so that intercollegiate athletics as a whole, their institutions and they, as
individuals, shall represent the honor and dignity of fair play and the generally recognized high standards associated
with wholesome competitive sports.

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.   

If the PSU governing body elects not to comply and accept the resulting sanction, that the harm caused to others results from that decision.  But there is an easy remedy for the harmed stakeholders - they can remove the PSU governors and replace them. 

Indeed.  And we can see what happens when the PSU governing body elects not to comply, and then accepts the resulting sanctions:  innocents pay a price, and people say that the sanctions are thus unfair.  The onus was on PSU all along, and they fucked it up.

Football games are won and lost on the field by the atheletes who play the games, and by no one and nothing else.   "Programs" don't win football games.  The ony  program that I can think of of relevance is a booklet that is sold at some games that contains information about the players, coaches, schedule etc. and that booklet certainly ins't involved in winning or losing games.

Football games are won and lost o the field by teams of football players, not by individuals.  "Individuals" don't win games or accumulate wins, "programs" do.  The only individual athletes I know of who win events are those engaged in individual sports, and they certainly aren't involved in winning football games.

I am not aware of any amorphous leadership collective claiming anything, nor would I know what such a claim would look like or how a collective would make it. 

Okay, but I am not sure what your awareness has to do with anything.

Let's make this concrete.  Robert Pangborn is a professor of engineering mechanics who also serves as Acting Executive Vice President of PSU.  Is he claiming 113 wins? Or some subset?  How about his predecessor, whoever the that person may be?  Is is your understanding that a purpose of the NCAA sanction is to stop Dr. Pangborn, from claiming 113 wins in order to symbolicly vacate his legacy.

Yours is a question for Dr. Pangborn.  I have no idea what he claims. 

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.

Perhaps I am just being dense, but I don't get it.

Perhaps, but I think the denseness is intentional.

[sbr]

But no one had stopped the courts from doing their job.  That is why I had a problem with cc saying "take over".

[grumbler]

The people who screwed up, for the most part, are no longer the same ones who are still there. 

I disagree.  The ones who deliberately broke the law are gone, but those who fostered the culture that had janitors scared to report violations of the law because they knew that Paterno was tolerating those violations aren't gone.  Those people screwed up as well.  The students who rioted when Paterno was fired aren't all gone.  They screwed up as well.  The boosters and alums who pressured PSU officials to rescind the firing and re-instate Joe Paterno aren't gone, and they share part of the blame, too.  They, and their counterparts at other universities, are the targets of the NCAA snactions.  The law gets to handle the ones that broke the law, as opposed to the NCAA bylaws.

The NCAA is a private organization that is, in this case, attempting to usurp the functions of the legal system.  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.

I have seen this claim made any number of times in this thread and others, and always it is presented as nakedly as it is here.   Maybe you have thought it through more than the other people I have seen saying this and never backing it up.   What functions of the legal system is the NCAA "attempting to usurp?"  How does sanctioning an NCAA member program equate to engaging in a criminal conspiracy?

[grumbler]

But no one had stopped the courts from doing their job.  That is why I had a problem with cc saying "take over".

I don't have a problem with CC saying what he said, because he frequently says silly things, and you know you will never get anything but a weasel response if you challenge him.

Maybe some of the others making this kind of claim will have intellectually honest responses.  I guess I could be convinced, if the arguments were more than naked assertions.