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| T-shirts displayed in the window of the Penn State Student Bookstore, Friday, Jan. 16, 2015, in State College, Pa., honor the 409 career coaching wins of former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno. The NCAA announced Friday a settlement with the univeristy that will give the school back 112 wins wiped out during the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal and restore Paterno as the winningest coach in major college football history |
STATE COLLEGE,
Pa. (AP) -- The NCAA agreed Friday to restore 112 football wins it
had stripped from Penn State and Joe Paterno in the Jerry Sandusky
child-molestation scandal and to reinstate the venerated late coach as
the winningest in major college football history.
The
agreement, swiftly approved by the boards of the NCAA and the
university after intermittent talks heated up this week, lifts the last
of the sanctions imposed in 2012 and wipes away the black marks that had
tainted one of the nation's most celebrated college athletics programs.
After
more than two years of criticism that the NCAA had overstepped its
authority, officials with college sports' governing body did not back
down. Instead, they said they were focused on ending litigation that had
held up distribution of the university's $60 million fine to fund child
abuse-prevention programs.
Before the deal,
the NCAA had agreed last year to eliminate some of the sanctions,
including reinstating Penn State's full complement of scholarships and
letting the team participate in post-season play.
Friday's
agreement threw out the rest of the sanctions, including eliminating a
five-year probation period and scholarship and transfer rules, and
restoring the wins that had been wiped out. It also bowed to
Pennsylvania officials' desire to see the $60 million fine spent in
Pennsylvania, not spread to abuse-prevention programs around the nation.
The
pact emerged just days after a federal judge declined to rule on the
constitutionality of the sanctions and weeks before a Pennsylvania court
was to hold a trial on the legality of the penalties.
"Hopefully,
today we'll begin to make right the damage that has been done," said
Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, who had sued the NCAA
with state Treasurer Rob McCord. "Today is a victory for due process,
which was unafforded in this case. Today is a victory for the people of
Pennsylvania. Today is a victory for Penn State nation. The NCAA has
surrendered."
The unprecedented scope of the
sanctions had drawn intense criticism from Penn State alumni and fans
who defended Paterno as innocent in the scandal and called the school's
athletics program a national model. They accused the NCAA of rushing to
judgment to assert its dominance, ultimately punishing people who had
nothing to do with Sandusky.
The family of
Paterno, who died as the scandal was unfolding, hailed the agreement,
while lawyers for Sandusky's victims worried that the NCAA's retreat
sent the wrong message. In State College, home to Penn State's sprawling
main campus nicknamed Happy Valley, the news was welcome, although not
everybody felt warmly toward the NCAA.
In the
agreement, Penn State acknowledged that the NCAA had acted in good faith
in the Sandusky matter, and university President Eric Barron said he
believed the agency had a legitimate concern about institutional
control.
NCAA officials said Friday that their motivation in the deal was to start funding abuse-prevention programs with the fine.
"The
victors are those of us who were advocating for the children," said
Harris Pastides, an NCAA board member and president of the University of
South Carolina.
They did not back off their right to take such action.
"The
board felt they had to quickly and decisively put forward a set of
sanctions. I hope we never have to do this again," said Kirk Schulz, an
NCAA board member and Kansas State's president.
The
penalties sprung from the scandal that erupted when Sandusky, a retired
assistant coach, was accused of sexually abusing boys, some of them on
campus.
Penn State's then-President, Rodney
Erickson, agreed to the sanctions in 2012, in the weeks after Sandusky
was convicted. Just days earlier, former FBI Director Louis Freeh
released a scathing report commissioned by Penn State's trustees, and
the school removed an iconic bronze statue of Paterno from the school's
Beaver Stadium.
Freeh's report accused Paterno
and other top Penn State officials of burying child sex-abuse
allegations against Sandusky to avoid bad publicity. The report
portrayed the Hall of Fame coach as more deeply involved in the scandal
than previously thought.
The alleged cover-up
by Paterno, then-university President Graham Spanier and two other Penn
State administrators allowed Sandusky to prey on other boys for years,
it said.
Paterno was never charged with a
crime, although Spanier and the two other former administrators continue
to fight charges in court.
Paterno's family
called Friday's announcement "a great victory for everyone who has
fought for the truth in the Sandusky tragedy."
"This
case should always have been about the pursuit of the truth, not the
unjust vilification of the culture of a great institution and the
scapegoating of coaches, players and administrators who were never given
a chance to defend themselves," they said.
Michael
Boni, a lawyer for one of the victims who testified at Sandusky's
trial, said he supported the restoration of Penn State's scholarships
and bowl eligibility last fall, but does not believe Paterno's victories
should be reinstated because they were "tarnished" by Sandusky.
He
also said he sensed a shift in Penn State's attitude after the criminal
case against Sandusky wrapped up and it concluded civil settlements
with victims.
"There was a movement away from
what I thought was a genuine mea culpa on the part of Penn State, having
accepted the NCAA sanctions, and one toward, `Why did we cave so
easily?' That was disappointing," Boni said.
The
sanctions eliminated all wins from 1998, when police investigated a
mother's complaint that Sandusky had showered with her son, through
2011, Paterno's final season as head coach after six decades with the
team and the year Sandusky was charged.
The
restored wins include 111 under Paterno and the final victory of 2011,
after trustees fired Paterno in the wake of the charges against Sandusky
and the team was coached by Tom Bradley. That returns Paterno's record
to 409-136-3. He died of lung cancer at 85 shortly after the season
ended.
Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts and is now serving a 30- to 60-year prison sentence.
