NCAA Hits Penn State With Heavy Fine, Loss of Bowl Games

By Newsroom America Staff at 23 Jul 2012

(Newsroom America) -- The NCAA levied a $60 million sanction against Penn State on Monday, banned the university from appearing in post-season play for four years and vacated all of the school's wins dating back to 1998.

The career of former and late football head coach Joe Paterno will reflect those vacated records, the NCAA said.

The university must also reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period, ESPN.com reported.

The organization disclosed the sanctions as NCAA president Mark Emmert and Ed Ray, the chairman of the NCAA's executive committee and Oregon State's president, spoke to reporters in Indianapolis this morning at the NCAA's headquarters.

The sanctions come on the heels of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. An independent investigation last week, headed by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, found that Paterno and some of his staff were complicit in the case by failing to act decisively once they knew Sandusky was abusing young boys in the football program's locker room showers.

"In the Penn State case, the results were perverse and unconscionable," said Emmert.

"No price the NCAA can levy with repair the damage inflicted by Jerry Sandusky on his victims," he added.

Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator, was convicted on 45 counts child sex abuse last month.

The NCAA said the $60 million was equivalent to the average annual revenue of the football program.

The organization ordered Penn State to pay the funds into an endowment for "external programs preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims and may not be used to fund such programs at the university."

With the wins from 1998-2011 vacated, Paterno drops from 409 wins to 298, dropping him from first to 12th on the winningest NCAA football coach list, ESPN.com reported.

Also vacated were six bowl wins and two conference championships.

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