The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is about to do what the Southeastern Conference (the “SEC” that actually takes down its targets) does every week on the recruiting trail: tell the NCAA to get bent.
Yesterday, Governor Tom Corbett filed a federal antitrust suit in Harrisburg alleging that the NCAA overstepped its authority in dropping the hammer on Penn State’s football program in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal.
Apparently the NCAA may not have quasi-governmental authority to take millions in direct fines from public institutions in an effort to protect its brand name.
Pennsylvanian officials are understandably miffed because Penn State is directly paying millions in fines and missing out on millions more in bowl revenue. Taxpayer dollars intended for the public education of students that had nothing to do with the scandal are being siphoned away from the state to finance programs at the sole discretion of the NCAA leadership and the majority is spent outside Pennsylvania.
The NCAA counters that the criminal activity at Penn State was enabled by a culture of winning-at-all-costs and only the NCAA can appropriately discipline the school for that mindset.
But really this lawsuit comes down to two parties, the NCAA and Corbett, making desperate PR moves to cover their own asses. Is that in poor taste? Sure. Is it in even worse taste that the NCAA and Corbett are using this tragedy for their own purposes? Well let’s look at what they’ve been up to….
For those who were living under a rock last year, Jerry Sandusky served as an assistant football coach for Penn State University. In this role, he coached great linebackers and sexually abused kids. He’s in jail now.
There’s also a good deal of evidence that university officials, including University President Graham Spanier and athletic director Tim Curley, probably knew that Sandusky was a criminal and decided to cover it up. They’ve been indicted. Football coaching legend Joe Paterno may have had some idea too… but he’s dead, so he’s not facing prosecution.
And this is where the embarrassing stories of the NCAA and Governor Corbett come in:
1) The NCAA got in way over its head hoping no one would notice.
This lawsuit was a long time coming. The NCAA has nebulous authority to do much of anything, and the idea that a loose, voluntary association of colleges possessed the authority to rob a state institution for anything other than a violation of the NCAA’s own rules always seemed suspect. Once the organization decided to take a bite out of a public university, repercussions became inevitable.
Lest you have an inaccurate impression of the NCAA’s power and wise leadership role, this is an organization that banned bagels and cream cheese as recently as last year. Whether a school can serve cream cheese with bagels is actually a topic that requires meetings for the NCAA.
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