Penn State Scandal
By Aaron Roberts
In 2011, the media was
notified of a scandal that had been occurring for quite some time in the Penn
State football organization. Jerry
Sandusky, an assistant coach for the Penn State football team was under investigation
for an alleged serial molestation of 8 boys on the Penn State campus.
According to “york daily
report” Mr. Sandusky was charged on 45 of 48 counts of sexual assault on a
series of 8 boys throughout a span of 15 years.
He was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in jail for his acts and gaining Penn
State with sanctions from the NCAA. [1] These sanctions according to Penn State
include vacation of all Penn State wins from 1998-2011, a $60 million payment
over a five-year period, which will be used to fund programs for child sexual
abuse prevention. The football program
is also banned for four years from any kind of post season or bowl games, with
a scholarship reduction. The school must
also enter an Athletic Integrity Agreement as well as remain on probation for
five years. [2]
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| Jerry Sandusky |
Personally I feel very bad
for former coach Joe Paterno, because he was such a phenomenal coach and was
put in the wrong spot, yes it is his fault for not speaking up about it, but a
situation like that is so very delicate as you can see since Coach Paterno and
University President Graham Spanier were both fired. Obviously sexual assault is a very serious
crime and must be dealt with properly, but some of the sanctions issued by the
NCAA I felt were unfair, including the vacation of 111 of coach Paternos
wins. I also do not believe it was
correct to fire Joe Paterno. Even though
Paterno knew about what was going on, I still do not think it was right to fire
Paterno because once Paterno gained light on the situation he called school
officials who said they would “look into it”.
It isn’t Paterno’s job to fire Sandusky; it is the University’s
job. While I do think the Universities
presidents firing was just, Joe Paterno did his part in reporting the incident
to the school, the schools officials are the ones who deserve to be fired
because they did not follow up with more investigations, they just left it
alone hoping it would go away.
Unfortunately for Coach Paterno he got the bad end of the stick, putting
him in the wrong place at the wrong time, which ultimately ended his career,
and associating him with this terrible incident. To me he will be remembered as a great coach
and person.
[2]. “Fact Sheet on Penn
State NCAA Sanctions PDF” http://progress.psu.edu/assets/content/120803_NCAA_Sanctions_Fact_Sheet_FINAL.pdf Accessed January 31st, 2014
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