The NCAA dropped a death penalty on Penn State’s football program earlier today due to the child molestation charges and the cover-up that the athletic staff partook in.
The sanctions include a $60 million fine where the money will go to external programs dedicated to preventing child abuse, a four-year bowl ban, and a vacancy of wins from 1998-2011. The athletic department was also placed on a five-year probationary period.
Are these sanctions justified?
Yes. In no way, shape, or form, should reputation and football go before the protection of a child. We are all familiar with the damaging ramifications that go along with abuse of a minor but what Penn State did is downright disrespectful to an even higher moral code. Probably the most disturbing part of this whole ordeal is the cover-up aspect. There were grown men who have children of their own, but decided that football was more important than the safety of a child.
The sanctions affects every aspect of the football program just as sexual abuse has disturbed the mental stability of all the minors involved in the case. There aren’t any winners in this case and that’s how it should be. The NCAA brought down the hammer so hard that it should make recruits seriously reconsider aligning themselves with a morally unjust program. That’s what the NCAA expects and it’s what should happen.