An opinion piece by Mark Schlabach on ESPN.com on why Penn State should be hit with NCAA sanctions.

Penn State deserves NCAA wrath

Some excerpts…

The article ends with this.

(Bolding mine)

I guess the question is, does sanctioning the entire team of student athletes who had nothing to do with this solve this problem or make it less likely that it would happen again? It certainly doesn't hurt Paterno, Spanier or the other bozo who I won't bother looking to Google to find his wortless name. It hurts the athletes. I'm no fan of Penn State Football, but I think a little creativity is needed to make the punishment fit the crime.

I agree. In the other situations, the players also broke the rules. In this situation, they did not.

But 99.999% of the time, the players who broke the rules are NOT the ones punished by the NCAA actions ... so I'm not sure it's really all that different.

That is to say, when USC/Oregon/OSU/Miami/etc. are punished, it's often years later, and the offenders are already gone. How is this different for those kids?

This situation didn't involve the players period, though.

Exactly. This won't teach them anything either.

I don't necessarily agree with it then either. But if it doesn't involve any players at all, then I see a difference.

I admit - kinda agree with what the article is saying. It's the school that reaps most of the benefits of postseason play, and if the school breaks the rules, then it shouldn't be eligible for those benefits. If the NCAA wants to punish the school, I think that's consistent with past sanctions they've doled out.

Personally, I'd like to see the sanctions be limited to either (1) prohibiting Penn State from receiving financial benefits of postseason play, or (2) allowing Penn State athletes to transfer to another school without penalty, or both (1) and (2).

So, if Penn State performs well enough to be eligible for a bowl, then let the players have the fun of playing in the bowl. But, all the money the school would ordinarily take in from that appearance should be divided among all the other bowl participants. Or, have the school identify a cause to have the money donated to (but not in their name).

I guess I see it like this: If the purpose behind having NCAA sanctions is to punish schools that allow or condone improper behavior (cheating, accepting illegal gifts or funds, etc...), then Penn State is deserving of sanctions. I guess that's why I'd like to see the Penn State players have the option to transfer without penalty.

To me, sanctioning the team sounds like shutting down a Greek system because the Student Affairs Director was involved in a drug ring in his spare time.

That would be roughly comparable only if the school received millions of dollars as a result of covering up said drug ring.

This is much worse than what got SMU the death penalty. Allow the students to transfer and shut down Penn State football for at least a couple years'd be my solution to this. A strong message needs to be sent that bad publicity is a lot better than covering up child molestation.

How did the school receive millions because of what Sandusky did?

The message needs to be sent to the administration, not the students and athletes who had no part in this.

The school didn't receive millions because of what Sandusky did - they received millions as a result of covering up what he did.

I doubt that replacing him would have caused the players to immediately forget what he taught and start losing games.

I doubt that, too. The issue, though, is that the administration knew what he had done and instead of doing the right thing in response, they chose to sweep it under the rug for the sake of their football program. Again, just based on the comparisons presented in the article (schools acting in a way that promoted/condoned improper behavior), sanctions against Penn State seem warranted.

I completely agree that it's unfair for the student athletes to be punished for the actions of their administrators. But that's also consistent with NCAA sanctions. Not all of the Buckeye players got free tattoos, but all of them were punished. Not all the USC players were illegally compensated, but all of them were punished. If the NCAA sanctions were appropriately applied because of those relatively minor infractions, I truly do see how sanctions would be appropriate for such a heinous offense.

But again, in this case, none of the players were involved.