NCAA Slams Penn State With Unprecedented Sanctions

NCAA hits Penn State football with $60 million fine and vacates all of Coach Joe Paterno's wins from 1998-2011.

Monday, July 23rd 2012, 9:29 am

By: News On 6


The NCAA imposed a harsh set of sanctions on Penn State Monday, less than two weeks after the university's internal investigation found that football coach Joe Paterno and other senior school leaders failed to stop former defensive coach Jerry Sandusky from sexually abusing children on campus.

NCAA President Mark Emmert announced that the association was banning the football team from all post-season play and bowl games for four years, reducing the program's scholarships from 25 to 15 and fining the program $60 million.

The association also vacated all of the program's bowl wins between 1998 and 2011.

Sandusky was convicted on 45 criminal counts last month at a trial that included gut-wrenching testimony from eight young men who said he abused them as boys during the course of a decade.

After an eight-month inquiry, a firm led by former federal judge and FBI director Louis Freeh produced a 267-page report finding that Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley, university vice president Gary Schultz, who oversaw the campus police department, and university president Graham Spanier "never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky's victims until after Sandusky's arrest."

Read Freeh's report.

Six months to the day after Paterno's death, the iconic statue of him was removed from the front of Penn State's football stadium Sunday. In addition to the statue being hauled away from Beaver Stadium, the Paterno memorial was covered up.

Everything is gone: every plaque, every word, every reminder of six decades at Penn State - erased memorials to a man who, in the end, said he wished he had done more.

CBS News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

logo

Get The Daily Update!

Be among the first to get breaking news, weather, and general news updates from News 9 delivered right to your inbox!

More Like This

July 23rd, 2012

March 22nd, 2024

March 14th, 2024

February 9th, 2024

Top Headlines

March 28th, 2024

March 28th, 2024

March 28th, 2024

March 28th, 2024