Free Republic

In yet another shocking development in the Penn State story, ousted president Graham Spanier will soon begin working with the federal government on projects related to national security, The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa., first reported. In an email written to the paper, Spanier said: “For the next several months, as I transition to my post-presidential plans, I will be working on a special project for the U.S. government relating (to) national security.

The man who was seen being sexually assaulted in the Penn State showers by Jerry Sandusky in 2001 has come forward and identified himself to attorneys, who say that he plans to sue the university. A man claiming to be Victim 2, whom assistant coach Mike McQueary saw being molested in the shower by Sandusky, is being represented by four attorneys, including Joel Feller and Matt Casey of Philadelphia and Justine Andronici and Andrew Shubin of State College, according to a statement released by the attorneys today. The man's name is not being released to the public, but his attorneys...

Victim 2, the boy who was, until now, known to exist only because Mike McQueary saw him being molested by Jerry Sandusky in a Penn State shower in 2001, has come forward to two State College lawyers. Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici, two lawyers who launched their own investigation into Sandusky's activities over the last four decades -- and the reactions of people around him -- say that Victim 2 has identified himself to them. As part of the investigation, they acquired voicemails from Sandusky to the man, and released those on www. rossfellercasey.com, the website of the Philadelphia law...

UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State football coach Bill O'Brien has started the process of keeping his 2012 roster together. In his first interview since Monday's NCAA ruling, O'Brien told Bonnie Bernstein on the Dan Patrick Show that the transfer waiver will be one of the most difficult sanctions to cope with. The waiver allows players to transfer to another Division I school without sitting out a season. "In my opinion, the one that's the hardest is that these kids can transfer without penalty," O'Brien said today. "But at the end of the day, this means we have to reiterate to...

INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA has removed one of the prestigious awards it bestowed on former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. NCAA general counsel and vice president of legal affairs Donald Remy confirmed after today's news conference announcing sanctions against Penn State that it rescinded the Gerald R. Ford Award it gave to Paterno at its convention on Jan. 13, 2011. "The Ford Award will be taken away," Remy said. The award is named in recognition of former president Gerald Ford and honors an individual who has provided significant leadership as an advocate for college athletics throughout their career. Former...

The Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal and aftermath could mean a drop in Penn State's bond ratings. Moody's Investors Service announced today that it has put Penn State's bond rating on review for a potential downgrade. The review affects the university's Aa1 rating and applies to about $1 billion in debt. According to an announcement from Moody's, the potential change stems from recent events including the Freeh report, the NCAA sanctions and the Big 10 action, along with uncertainty related to other investigations. The review is expected to be finished in 90 days. It will include assessing the affect...

While Mark Richt has perhaps been the most up-front about his interest in picking up some of the Penn State players who are free to leave the NCAA-hammered program and play immediately elsewhere, Georgia certainly isn’t the only SEC school looking at that possibility. In terms of players currently on the Nittany Lions roster, this is likely to play out rather quickly, as most schools will be starting preseason camp soon — UGA on Aug. 2 — and in order to have a realistic shot at anything close to immediate playing time a transfer would need to be on campus...

Calling all Philly area Freepers: we need to convince management of WNTP 990 AM to drop Penn State sports programming. After the Sandusky scandal, they won't be able to justify their continuing pre-emptions of regularly scheduled talk radio programs, as ratings for games and sports talk will no doubt collapse.

Sanctions handed down by the NCAA to Penn State and its football program. $60 MILLION FINE The NCAA imposed this because it is roughly equivalent to a year of gross revenue from the football program. It will be paid over a five-year period. The money will go to an endowment for "programs preventing child sexual abuse and/or assisting the victims of child sexual abuse." The NCAA specified that Penn State cannot cut other sports programs or scholarships to pay this penalty. LOSS OF BOWL REVENUE The Big Ten announced that Penn State's cut of the conference's shared bowl revenue -...

If the Obama administration can do it then Governor Corbett should opt out of the NCAA sanctions by reclassifying the Jerry Sandusky scandal as workplace violence. If Nidal Hassan is not a terrorist then Jerry Sandusky is not a child molester and Pennsylvania tax payers should not be liable for the NCAA $60 million fine.

What a fool I was. In 1986, I spent a week in State College, Pa., researching a 10-page Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year piece on Joe Paterno. It was supposed to be a secret, but one night the phone in my hotel room rang. It was a Penn State professor, calling out of the blue. "Are you here to take part in hagiography?" he said. "What's hagiography?" I asked. "The study of saints," he said. "You're going to be just like the rest, aren't you? You're going to make Paterno out to be a saint. You don't know him....

Below is a full video of the Centre Daily Times' nearly 30-minute interview with PSU president, Rodney Erickson, interim athletic director, Dave Joyner, and Board of Trustees chairwoman, Karen Peetz. Significant topics of interest are at the following approximate times on the video: NCAA sanctions, 1:10; Consent decree with the NCAA, 2:25; Paying the $60M fine, 5:25; Ticket refunds, 8:45; Players deciding to leave or stay, 9:25; Reactions from donors, 11:15; Fairness of sanctions, 12:45; Paterno's legacy, 17:20; Statue removal process, 19:45; Freeh report, 22:10; Board member resignations, 24:25; Hiring of senior administration positions, 24:50; Penn State football culture, 25:55.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Jay Paterno, then the Penn State quarterbacks coach, worked for Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign before the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania in 2008. Paterno helped organize a campus rally and introduced Obama to a big crowd on the sloping lawn in front of Old Main, the university administration building. Obama lost the primary to Sen. Hilary Clinton but won Centre County. Nearly a year ago, on Feb. 2, 2011, President Obama came to Penn State and met Jay’s parents, Nittany Lion head coach Joe Paterno and his wife Sue. On Monday, the day after Joe Paterno succumbed...

. . . [Duke President Richard] Brodhead’s initial public statement said that people must uphold the presumption of innocence. But at a private meeting that included faculty members who signed the ad, he was excoriated for that statement . . . In a subsequent open letter to the Duke community, Mr. Brodhead canceled the lacrosse season, accepted the coach's resignation, and added several sentences about the evils of rape and the legacy of racism and misogyny. It made no reference to the lacrosse players' presumption of innocence. . . . In the end, justice was done, to some extent. North...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Penn State football was all but leveled Monday by an NCAA ruling that wiped away 14 years of coach Joe Paterno's victories and imposed a mountain of fines and penalties, crippling a program whose pedophile assistant coach spent uncounted years molesting children, sometimes on university property. The sanctions by the governing body of college sports, which capped eight months of turmoil on the central Pennsylvania campus, stopped short of delivering the "death penalty" of shutting down the sport. But the NCAA hit Penn State with $60 million in fines, ordered it out of the postseason for four years,...

College sports' governing body today suspended Penn State's football team from postseason bowl play for four years and fined the university $60 million for its handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. The team also must vacate all wins from 1998 through 2011. "The career record of former head football coach Joe Paterno will reflect these vacated records," the NCAA said in a statement. "Penn State must also reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period. In addition, the NCAA reserves the right to impose additional sanctions on involved individuals at the conclusion...

Don't think there is a story yet, but here is the sanctions: 60 Million Fine Loss of ten schollies per year with current schollies able to transfer immediately 4 year post season ban

UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State’s 2013 recruiting class lost one of its commitments on Saturday. New Jersey defensive lineman Greg Webb withdrew his oral pledge to attend Penn State in favor of North Carolina. UNC recruiting sites reported Friday that Webb had reopened his recruiting and planned to visit the Tar Heels’ Chapel Hill campus on Saturday. Webb — a 6-foot-1, 295-pound defensive tackle at Timber Creek High School in Sicklerville, N.J. — indeed visited UNC and committed when his high school teammate Dajuan Drennon also committed to the Tar Heels. A four-star recruit by Rivals.com standards, Webb was one...

The NCAA will fine Penn State at least $30 million and perhaps as much as $60 million for its involvement in the Jerry Sandusky scandal, industry sources told CBSSports.com's Brett McMurphy. The record fine will go toward an endowment for children's causes, sources said. "This is a fine like no fine before," an industry source told CBSSports.com. CBSSports.com's Dennis Dodd has reported Penn State will face "significant penalties that could severely damage the football program's ability to compete" when the NCAA announces sanctions against the football program at a 9 a.m. news conference Monday. To put the fine in perspective,...

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The famed statue of Joe Paterno was taken down from outside the Penn State football stadium Sunday as the NCAA announced it would be issuing sanctions against the university whose top officials were accused in a scathing report of burying child sex abuse allegations against a now-convicted retired assistant. Workers lifted the 7-foot-tall statue off its base and used a forklift to move it into Beaver Stadium as the 100 to 150 students watched, some chanting, "We are Penn State."