At the risk of putting words in your mouth I think the two points we disagree on are whether or not Penn State had an advantage as a result of the cover up, I believe they did, clearly you believe they didn’t and that leads us too the question of does the NCAA have authority to act? I think they do and you believe that it is strictly a criminal matter that is so far removed from normal NCAA matters that they should not be part of the process.
Presuming this is a fair summation and setting aside the matter of gain for a moment I would suggest that the crux of the matter is the question of the authority of the NCAA. I would suggest that the criminal actions at Penn State violated the NCAA Principle of Institutional Control and Responsibility. Clearly the football program was completely and totally out of control. There are only two organizations that can discipline the program, Penn State and the NCAA. Penn State is unwilling to do anything thing to alter football is king attitude. To be honest I wish Penn State would do the right thing: tear down Paterno’s statue, rip his name off the library and give his estate back the money he donated, forfeit all the games they won after the cover up, suspend their program for a couple of years themselves and ask that their players be allowed to transfer freely to other schools, pay the untainted coaches until they find other work, take all the money the team earned in the 14 years they covered things up and put that money in a fund to give to the abused boys. But they have show they won’t even take a tiny step like tearing down Paterno’s statue. Somebody has to send the message to schools that if they cover up serious crimes to benefit their cash cows, there are going to be terrible repercussions down the road. It seems the only organization that can fill that role is the NCAA. Will they actually step in and gore the gold cow that is Penn State football? I don’t know, but I really think somebody has to, and if it isn’t the NCAA who will it be? The next time a situation like this comes up I want the coach, president, vice presidents, and board to think, “We have to report this… we don’t want to end up like Penn State.” The punishment has to be that terrible. Not pay out one or two years of football earnings to the victims and act like nothing ever happened.
I agree with some of what you said (most except for the idea that Penn State is not already suffering terrible repercussions), and rather than add something new, I’ll just agree to disagree about the rest.