The offense here is institutional. YES the alums DID do this. The foundation board did it. The boosters did it. The fans did it. The football program built and sustained the university to such a degree that they covered up child rape for over 10 years - with the full complicity of everyone from the president on down, literally, to the janitors that watched what was happening but were to afraid to report it.
What happened was indefensible, and that the entire organizational apparatus acted to cover it up cries out for a punishment that redefines what the NCAA believes is the death penalty.
3 years - no NCAA football. A fine equal to the football revenue generated since 1998 - the time ONE of the offenses was known by the ‘big 4’ at the university, but not reported - the proceeds of which go to a foundation that a) remunerates the victims, and 2) the rest of which funds research into the causes of pedophilia, and the quest for a cure.
If that kills the university, so be it. Never have I seen anything so like the atmosphere of 1940’s Germany in modern times. What must be done to merit universal opprobium any more? What must one do to be shunned?
This is like the LIBOR scandal. You can argue against conspiracies in general, until you realize that it required all 16 banks and at least two regulatory agencies (the Fed and the FSA) in two countries to perpetrate such a thing. The corruption was so culturally ingrained that when Barclay’s admitted to it, they figured the fine would do the trick and it would all blow over. After all, everyone was doing it.
As for the people who require justice being unaffected here, everyone still alive who knew and didn’t report can and should go to jail.
I will bet that were you to depose enough players, students, and alumni, there are others that knew, or witnessed actual crimes, that should have done something about it.
The irony is everyone, especially the NCAA, wants to move on, but not killing off Penn State is going to guarantee they can’t. Ohio State, by the way, is loving this. They should have had their asses handed to them, same as Auburn - including vacating a national title.
Now? “At least we didn’t anally deflower a ten year old. If you didn’t give them the death penalty, you can’t give us the death penalty either.”