It's clearly a political move to garner support from a huge bloc of potential voters. Poll numbers are down. Despite everything else going on if one were to manage to get JoePa's wins reinstated so that the precious record would be recognized again, then all these blue and white idiots in this state will flip and throw their support behind that person. Look at comments from 6 months ago vs. today. They are totally opposite both from the person stating them and the people reacting to them. The villain 6 months ago is now the hero. And they tell you it "isn't about football".

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. The NCAA doesn't have a great track record when it comes to anti-trust lawsuits. However, PSU did agree to accept the sanctions so we get thrown into a possible settlement agreement situation. The possibility of sanctions being lifted exists but what if it blows up in their face and the dreaded "death penalty" they were trying to avoid in the first place is handed down as a result of this?

That is the best thing that could happen to "Happy Valley", hehe. I hope this pending lawsuit does blow up in the governor's face, especially since he failed in his job as attorney general to properly handle this case, along with all of the other prosecutors, university officials, etc. over the course of the long years of abuse by Sandusky. JoePa lost all credibility with me over that whole cover-up.

Only a friggin GOP moron would seize this opportunity to look like a complete and total idiot. I completely agree that Gov. Corky is afraid of things that have yet to come to light. Probably involves HIS boosters and deflecting is the only available strategy. For those of you who think the current team deserves no punishment then you're are completely clueless as to the meaning of team. You win and LOSE as one. As far as where that money is going,(yet another GOP attribute) who gives a crap! They were busted! It could have been wayyyyy worse. Can you say "death penalty"? No longer able to participate? Does that ring a damn bell? $60 mil would be a drop in the bucket in comparison! So the state of PA should be rewarded for and "keep" that money "in-state"? Are you freakin crazy? Its called punishment! Get a clue! If Sanpervert had been the only one to know, that's one thing. But a WHOLE lot of people knew and did nothing and should be charged with accessory during and after the fact. A full-scale investigation into who, inside and outside the school, who not only knew but may also have been involved would be incredibly embarrassing to the state and probably Gov. Corky as well. So just shut your mouth and take the punishment and be careful what you wish for. This ain't over yet.

So enter Kathleen Kane on the vow to find out who and what the holdup was in prosecuting this case. Ummm Look no further than Gov. Corky. He was in fact the AG who turned a blind eye and now whining along with Charles Dent(in the head) about the money sanctions. Buy a binky and get over it.

In my opinion, sex crimes against children and aggravated rape of a woman should bear the possibility of the death penalty, but that's just me.

Terry and John

Nice useless line spewing, how about look at all of the folks at the university from both sides of the fence. Oh, and Kane pandering to the hot topic to get elected in the first place. This is an example of the complete failure to keep hero worship in check.

John, I don't disagree with your last sentence. Even if it doesn't serve as a deterrent, it will be the last time that person commits that crime.

The problems here are manifold and will blow up in the face of Gov. Corbett:

1) This is all about money and not at all about kids or stopping child abuse. This is a wrong-headed approach that will, once again, clearly position the GOP on thge side of money and against families and kids.

2) This wil re-open the AG race's main talking point (and the reason the GOP lost the office.) Kent won simply because she proimised to find out why it took 12 YEARS to stop Sandusky. Her GOP opponent repeatedly stated that Sandusky was innocent until proven guilty and that there was no proof against Sandusky, Paterno, Spanier, Curley and Schultz. He even supported the BoT refusal to resign per the Freeh Report. The GOP does not wanbt this floating around again since it is a battle they have already lost once.

3) The university already agreed to the fine and had already paid the first installment. As a third-party, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will find it rough going to overturn the agreement. And, even if they are successful, the NCAA will likely impose the death penalty in retaliation. Remember the expression, "out of the frying pan into the fire"? Corbett could well do it.

4) The university and the staff so far has gotten off very lightly. Minimal NCAA penalty. Only one person in prison (so far). And the university is paying the legal expenses for Spanier, Curley, Schultz, and the Paterno family. So far the university has made settlement offers to 32 youngsters, but all to date have been refused as "insulting" since the largest offer was $8,000 in settlement (plus tuition, room and board at a later date.) There are still several investigations ongoing, but, as is proper, they are being kept quite. Too much activity by Corbett will cause leaks in these investigations and will seriously damage the university even further.

5) Pennsylvania went overwhelmingly Obama even though it was supposed to be a "battleground state." Corbett completely lost the base there and is obviopusly looking for issues to energize PA GOP voters. He would do better to forget the NCAA and just blame it all on Obama. That's what the GOP does withg everything else.

BTW Roll Tide!

The gov needs to leave the board of trustees for Penn State, as it puts him in a bad place to be gov, trustee, and part of the lawsuit. Its going to get ugly and rooting for the NCAA on this one.

Too bad the NCAA did not just throw Penn State out in the first place.

Hey Terry, didn't Governor Rendell, a DEMOCRAT, hear about the sex scandal first? I'm sure he did, but of course you wouldn't mention that because you ARE a Democrat.

Maybe if he would have investigated complaints about Sandusky when he was the State's Attoroney General there would have been no need of the NCAA fine.

As always, the NCAA is a day late monitoring and getting to the party - insert KNEE JERK reaction here!

My opinion: the NCAA has been "politically grand standing" this entire travesty since its beginning.... so it doesn't get any "political shi....fallout" on its goodie two shoes! AND I think there's certainly enough shi....fallout in this case to go around!

I guess I'd really like to know the NCAA's rules on these camps? Why weren't NCAA's compliance officers on site and monitoring the goings on's - I believe they rake in more than enough from TV contracts and other "fund rasisers" to afford that? Don't they?

@sdpaulson;

NCAA Compliance Officers are hired by the school in this case Penn State. their compliance officer resigned over improprieties from the football coaching staff in not allowing her to do her job.

The problem is with the school not the NCAA, what you're asking for would be similar to having the police department show up to arrest a perpetrator prior to his committing a crime. It doesn't work that way in the real world even if as much as you so badly want to blame anyone other than Penn State. they own it. Deal with it.

Please just get off your soap box!!! Believe it or not alot of the money made in college sports goes into academics. I go to a small college in Tennessee, and due to our recent success in basketball, they have built a new building for our computer science department and our engineering department. Big FBS schools,such as Alabama and Tennessee, can rake in revenues close to a 100 million a year. A considerable amount goes back to the University, its academics, and non-athletic scholarships. I also don't agree with the sanctions because:

1. It's matter best left to the hands of the justice system.

2. They are hurting the innocent more than they are punishing the guilty. By taking away scholarships, the NCAA has put some of the players in a tough position. Not every one is an All-American or sought after transfer, some guys need those scholarships to be able to get their degree.

Yes, but if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, them baffle them with ..... a whole lotta paper pointing the finger in a different direction.

For decades PSU has looked down their noses from their ivory tower and condemned other schools for their transgressions with an attitude of "it can't happen here". Well....it "happened here" and it "happened here" in the worst possible way. Ever since news of this scandal broke they have been trying to downplay it with the lamest excuses possible to salvage their "Success with Honor" motto. They swear up and down that there isn't a "football culture" yet they fall over themselves at every opportunity to try to protect the football program. When you put yourself on such a high pedestal, it only serves to make your fall that much farther when those touting your perceived morals are exposed as hypocrites. USC and OSU are great examples of the disconnect of PSU fans to reality. Innocent players have suffered for others' actions that weren't even in remotely in the same category as the horrors that took place at Penn State.

The athletes are being punished because they are members of the team under the coaches who did the cover-up. Please don't try to tell me that these same athletes were totally innocent of what was going on.

The athletes aren't being punished. The institution is being punished. If you choose to associate yourself with the institution, you very well may be affected by the consequences of any punishments dealt to the institution. That's life. Innocent people suffer the ramifications of others' actions all the time. Those within the program at the time had the opportunity to transfer out without penalty while future athletes have the choice of not joining the program if they don't want to suffer the consequences of the sanctions.

anti-trust, the athletes who are getting the punishment weren't even at the school while the crimes were taking place. most of them weren't even in kindergarden yet.

You're punishing students NOW who weren't around when Sandusky was working there. Several athletes saw their scholarship money disappear if they didn't pick up their life and move to a different school. A more reasonable response would be to let the students keep their scholarships but the school looses a certain number that haven't been given to anyone.

First and most importantly my thoughts and prayers continue to be with the victims and their families. However, bashing an entire University and punishing its current students for the heinous crimes commited before their time is simply ludicrous. Anti-Trust for you to even suggest that the athletes knew what was going on is disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. On that note, I'd like to applaud every member of the 2012 PSU Football Team for putting their hearts and souls into every game they played this season - they played with pride and they played with respect for their team, themselves and their school. Taking the field that first game was probably the hardest thing they had to face - and they did it together, as a team!! Those boys showed more courage, heart, respect and honor than any of you who hide behind your fake screen names. I can understand the anger, especially as parent - but as that same parent I ask you to step back and realize that punishing current and future athletes/students for crimes they did not commit is not the answer. As it is said "We Are...Penn State". And that is what angers people the most - they haven't been able to break that spirit and that's the one thing none of you will ever take from them.

Oh yeah. He knows. He knows a whole lot more than has been released to the public. He also knows he screwed up and turned a blind eye. In my opinion he should be impeached and disbarred. What a total jerk.

Corbett was not governor of Pennsylvania or a member of the Penn State board of trusties while this was going on. The Scandal broke open in the first half of 2011.

this was going on since 1994 Starting with Governors Robert Casey, Tom Ridge, Mark Schweiker, and Ed Rendell.

I totally agree. The issue is a criminal issue and the sicko perpetrator is in jail. If other members of the administration committed illegal acts, they should be prosecuted too, or at least subject to civil lawsuits. It is not a NCAA unfair competition issue, i.e. how did coaches covering up child molestation give the team any sort of illegal competitive advantage, as in comparison to payments to players and their families to get them to play at your school. I personally can't stand Penn State, but fail to see the NCAAs standing as judge, jury, and executioner in our justice system...

How does giving players free tattoos give the team an illegal competitive advantage? Since tattoos don't increase athletic ability it would have to be because of the potential for unfairly attracting players with freebies, correct? In other words, an advantage in recruiting, right? One could argue that the potential to attract players might take a significant hit if a school was involved in a sex scandal of the worst possible kind. If the high brass connected to the football program initiates and carries out a cover up in order to protect the program's reputation, they are essentially saving recruits that might have gone elsewhere had the scandal been public. How many players transferred when given the chance? Would those players have committed to Penn State in the first place had the scandal not been covered up for years and hit the news immediately upon being discovered way back when? There's no way to know the answer to that now but if sanctions can be handed out for things that could positively affect recruiting, it wouldn't be too far fetched to accept that they could be handed out for covering up things that could negatively affect recruiting.

the tattoos are a form of payment, players aren't allowed to be paid. they were allowed to take school property to pay, and they were also given "jobs", arranged by the coach, to cover up payments. these type of things get good players to stay or go to a school. Tressel had history of the same ativities at other schools. Or like paying for vehicles and mom's house ala Bush and USC. personally, i think the players should get a small living stipend, like students on academic scholarships get, would reduce some of the silliness. and i highy doubt many student athletes would have forgone a free-ride college scholarship to a renown school based on a scandal from acts a decade earlier, competition is fierce for those slots.

a former coach molesting children, or members of staff and administration covering up these criminal acts, has nothing to do with athletics. if these acts were committed by other university officials and professors, instead of the deep pockets of the sports program, would some college accrediting agency fine the school? or would they just let the courts and justice system do its job in punishing the actual offenders?

A college accrediting agency did investigate Penn State and had them on probation (not sure if the probation has been lifted yet or not) based on the handling of this incident. If they got involved based on the handling of a football incident (or wasn't it? I can't keep it straight anymore because it keeps changing from a sports issue to an administrative issue to a criminal/civil issue involving the individuals but not the school, etc. depending on the argument) who is to say an accrediting agency wouldn't step in if it involved other officials and professors. They would probably be more interested in rescinding accreditation as opposed to a fine, though.

At this point, it's easy to say that a scandal from a decade ago wouldn't affect recruiting today because we don't know how things would have been different. Nothing could have changed. Or people could have been fired back then changing the course of the next 10 years in any number of ways that could have affected recruiting. I still maintain that payments to players being illegal on the basis of positive recruiting effects isn't much different from going to great lengths to cover up something that might negatively affect recruiting. With everything out in the open in the present day and punishments being handed out to those directly involved, I would bet that there are recruits out there right now that won't even consider PSU based solely on the scandal not even considering the sanctions. I'll go as far as saying that I believe there are non-athletes who won't consider PSU as a result of this.

I think the NCAA acted too quickly and that it was odd that they totally circumvented the standard procedure for an investigation. Just as odd was PSU agreeing to it. That just makes me think that PSU didn't want to go through the normal procedure for fear that the outcome would have been even worse.

The NCAA is the only game in town, hence the anti-trust lawsuit. I'm sure people would be screaming bloody murder if this was some corporation imposing its will on you without much other choice (schools arent going to just drop out of college athletics, nor should they have to, an assinine and absolutely ridiculous argument). The appropriate punishment for violating the law is to be punished by the legal system, i.e. our courts. The NCAA should only be involved if the infractions somehow unfairly affect fair competition among the schools, and I fail to see how some scumbag former coach molesting children, or the school hiding it, gave the Penn State football team an unfair competitive edge. Sandusky went to jail, others should have been proscuted if they broke the laws, and the university is open to civil lawsuits by the victims and their families. When its all said and done, the students and athletes who weren't involved are the ones who actually get punished via increased tuitions and fees to pay the penalties.

BD-540164:

So what if they are the only game in town, you don't like the terms of an organization that was joined VOLUNTARILY then you leave. Nothing asinine about it, it's called free will. Colleges are a place of learning, not professional sports training grounds. The NCAA has guidelines and rules pertaining to the protection of our children and they violated those rules. The NCAA has a valid reason to punish Penn State and they should. The courts should also be involved as this was a criminal matter also...which Penn State also failed to notify the proper authorities...another violation of NCAA rules. They tried to hide it, got caught with their hands in the cookie jar and now want to bitch......suck it up and drive on. So what if the football program suffers...colleges are for ACADEMICS.

Jack76, it is an assinine argument, there is no alternative other than not participate, and that is no alternative at all, not much free will or choice. that's why it is called anti-trust, why it is illegal, monopolies aren't allowed in business nor sports, and when allowed, are strictly monitored. you wouldn't even think about the same argument if it regarded consumer goods. and the NCAA does not have rules regarding the protection of your children, state and federal laws cover that, and punishments come from the real legal system. based in your argument, i.e. the school is for academics, why haven't they're academic credentials and accredidation been taken away or fined? is it because the pockets aren't as deep, or is there just not an extra-judicial organization to "enforce"?

It's kinda plain and simple and you just don't get it BD....the coverup was to protect the money and the football team, so the punishment should involve the money and the football team. Like i said....colleges are not supposed to be used as a training ground for the pro sports. If the NFL wants a training ground then let them set up a feeder league and train players there. Colleges survived for many years without the money that athletics provides. You send your kids to college to learn...not playground games.

Jack, i totally get it, and obviously you are just anti-college athletics. the large majority of student athletes do not go to the pros, so calling the schools training grounds is a complete over exaggeration. and these successful athletic programs, particularly football and basketball, fund all the other athletic programs for many of these schools, including the scholarships that go along with them, allowing many students who could otherwise not afford it to get an education out of the deal. students also chose to go to a universtiy based on the overall experience they get at the school, which includes the entertainment of athletics.

its just the mentality of punishing anyone and everyone who they can possibly reach out to, particularly the ones with the deepest pockets. punish the criminals through the judicial system. the school, which is ultimately responsbile, has and will be sued for restitution by the victims and their families. so how much "punishment" is enough for you? who do you think ultimately pays for it? the current students, whether student-athletes or not...

Rich from Roscoe,

I agree, this is an issue between PSU and the NCAA. Must be nice having all that extra cash laying around to sue somebody that did nothing to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Maybe you should all petition for a tax reduction if the coffers have that much in them.

Hey, I couldn't care less about PSU athletics. I am happy to see that parties involved were taken to criminal court, and think some others should have been. Civil suits that may be pending are alright with me.

However, the University is a Pennsylvania PUBLIC institution and relies on taxpayer money. I question how the NCAA has the right to take Pennsylvanians money and spend it where and as they see fit as part of the sanctions imposed.

The PA legislature and governor should be questioning the outflow of taxpayer dollars.

well, the NCAA fines aren't going to the victims as restitution either...

'Ol Joe Pa knew it was going on, too...

OF COURSE college football players have a graduation rate like that, with their softball courses, professors pressured not to fail them, free tutoring, etc., etc. Makes me wonder just how hopelessly @!$%#ed up that remaining 3% must have been.

Angry guy -

I expect that 3% was probably injury related.

(Underwater basket weaving course, anyone?)

More like Republicans: the party of soulless and brain dead excrement.