Article on sanctions from the Allentown Morning Call. (Link)
- Thread starter CattyGuy51
- Start date
Nice article. Reminds me that I really want to punch Mark Emmert in the face. Repeatedly.
"A good portion of our fans dug their heels in and fought when times got tough," Franklin said, "and there were some people that distanced themselves. What you hope is that, maybe, this is another example to pull those people back in and bring our family back together that's been fractured.
"Since we arrived, that's what we've been trying to do: Rebuild the family and bring the family back together."
"Since we arrived, that's what we've been trying to do: Rebuild the family and bring the family back together."
Too bad Franklin's all alone at Penn State in his endeavor. The guy gets it. You'll never see him giving a presentation to the board spewing a lie.
Mike Mauti, greatest PSU player ever (coming from a guy that's been a PSU die-hard since the days of Charlie Pittman and Chuck Burkhart.
Can someone clarify the statement from the article "The Lions never played a season with a 65-scholarship football team,"
I thought in the bowl game alone we played w/ only about 50 scholarship players. What was the breakdown of scholarship players on the roster in the last 2 seasons?
I thought in the bowl game alone we played w/ only about 50 scholarship players. What was the breakdown of scholarship players on the roster in the last 2 seasons?
I could be wrong but I thought the difference is that we were limited to 65 players on scholarship versus scholarship players that were actually playable (redshirt, injury, suspension, etc.).
So while we had ~ 65 players attending PSU on a scholarship, substantially less than that could play. For example, Zwinak and Keiser were on the 65 but not possible to play in the Pinstripe Bowl.
Here's what I took away from the article....
"In a 2013 survey of more than 14,000 members of the Penn State community, nearly 60 percent of the university's faculty agreed or "strongly agreed" with the statement that "the Penn State culture places too much emphasis on football." About 39 percent of staff members and 36.5 percent of undergraduate students responded similarly."
"In a 2013 survey of more than 14,000 members of the Penn State community, nearly 60 percent of the university's faculty agreed or "strongly agreed" with the statement that "the Penn State culture places too much emphasis on football." About 39 percent of staff members and 36.5 percent of undergraduate students responded similarly."
We never had a season where we were limited to 65 scholarships to hand out. The first set of sanction rollbacks in fall 2013 allowed for IIRC 70 scholarships for the 2014 season.
Thank God for the likes of all the people who dug in especially in the beginning with Franco way out in front of this. He hung everything out to dry. Not to mention Ray Blehar and Ryan Bagwell. Even Demlion fits into this arena. The leadership that evolved is mind boggling. The PS4R's and all the others to countless to mention by name. Last but not least all the no-names that endured and supported and not giving up until the truth be known where ever that takes us. Where would this program be without them?
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It's a long list of people who have made great contributions the past few years. DavidM played an important role early on with his Rally for Resignations effort. Of course, let's not forget Anthony Lubrano, Al Lord, Alice Pope, Barb Doran, and other alumni-elected trustees.
It's One Team, all right. But it's not the Team that the BOT envisioned. This One Team is going to lead to their hanging upside down from a light pole at a gas station, a la Mussolini, some day.
Figuratively speaking, of course.
Figuratively speaking, of course.
From the article:
"Still, some conflict remains. In a 2013 survey of more than 14,000 members of the Penn State community, nearly 60 percent of the university's faculty agreed or "strongly agreed" with the statement that "the Penn State culture places too much emphasis on football." About 39 percent of staff members and 36.5 percent of undergraduate students responded similarly."
This, of course, is misleading because Penn State is considered in a vacuum. Has such a survey ever been conducted within the community of another major football program? If so, I have never heard of it. If the same survey were conducted in Ann Arbor, Columbus, Tallahassee, Tuscaloosa, etc., what would the results be? Another issue is the very question itself. If 80% agree or strongly agree that their university culture places too much emphasis on football, it raises red flags. If only 30% agree or strongly agree, then one could interpret that as a real culture problem based on what the rest of the world sees (i.e., "It looks like a football-first culture in the media, but the community doesn't really care and just wants more football.")
"Still, some conflict remains. In a 2013 survey of more than 14,000 members of the Penn State community, nearly 60 percent of the university's faculty agreed or "strongly agreed" with the statement that "the Penn State culture places too much emphasis on football." About 39 percent of staff members and 36.5 percent of undergraduate students responded similarly."
This, of course, is misleading because Penn State is considered in a vacuum. Has such a survey ever been conducted within the community of another major football program? If so, I have never heard of it. If the same survey were conducted in Ann Arbor, Columbus, Tallahassee, Tuscaloosa, etc., what would the results be? Another issue is the very question itself. If 80% agree or strongly agree that their university culture places too much emphasis on football, it raises red flags. If only 30% agree or strongly agree, then one could interpret that as a real culture problem based on what the rest of the world sees (i.e., "It looks like a football-first culture in the media, but the community doesn't really care and just wants more football.")
When I was there in the late 70's just as PSU was becoming a national power, there was already backlash from the faculty and staff that there was too much "emphasis on football"; this crapola is nothing new! And there has always been part of the student body that looked down on the jock mentality! This had a lot to do with why I left the university before completing my PhD and was satisfied with an MS because the "Ivory Tower" mentality of many fellow graduate students was disgusting!
With all due respect, that is a strange reason for giving up on the Ph.D. There were a lot of nerds, blowhards, etc. when I was in graduate school at University of Illinois, but that wasn't going to deter me from completing my Ph.D. degree. For me, the most important things were the degree and the work I needed to complete to get it.
Hanging them upside down would be too good for them......they should be hung by the neck Columbian-style!
Yes. I think you'd find a similar result if you were to ask faculty at just about any school with a big-time athletic program. The result has less to do with a unique culture problem at Penn State and more to do, IMO, with the typical faculty member being resentful of the prominence of football/basketball on their campus. We unfortunately had one of these folks running the place after Spanier was fired.
You make a valid point. But, this survey was POST scandal. There's an implication here. And, close to 40% of undergraduates felt strongly about the emphasis on football.
I learned the hard way that getting a PhD isn't soley about smarts. If you have the time and money, most anyone can get a PhD. And, also, Professorship isn't what I once thought it was. Granted, I don't know what "system" would be perfect. But, I do know "Ivory Tower" needs an overhaul.
And the source of this survey is? I'd really like to check their methods before declaring this has any value whatsoever.
I am a faculty member and disagree with the statement about too much emphasis on football. I would say that in the US as a whole that may be true but PSU has always had an appropriate balance between student and athlete. That is one of the most galling things about Emmert and his ilk criticizing our "culture"
BTW what is your point? If you think there is too much emphasis on football why are you on a football board?
With this talk of what PSU faculty think of the football culture (at least in 2013 when the survey was done), I thought it would be good to remind everyone of the statement signed by 30 former Faculty Senate Chairs after the sanctions were handed down. Emphasis in the text is my own.
-------
Statement by a Group of Past Chairs
of The Pennsylvania State University Faculty Senate
Regarding the Freeh Report, the NCAA Consent Decree, and Their Academic Implications
August 28, 2012
As the world now knows, horrible crimes against vulnerable young boys were committed by a prominent member of the Penn State community. We, an ad hoc group of past chairs of the University Faculty Senate, share the widespread concern for the victims, are outraged and deeply saddened that this happened in our community, and support efforts to redress the wrongs and remedy their root causes.
We also are concerned that the broader circumstances around the Sandusky crimes have become distorted in the current hyperbolic media environment to the detriment of the entire Penn State community. Much of this has been fueled by the investigation of the Freeh Group and their report. Their investigation appears to have been reasonably thorough, given that it could not subpoena testimony. However, as a document in which evidence, facts, and logical argument are marshaled to support conclusions and recommendations, the Freeh Report fails badly. On a foundation of scant evidence, the report adds layers of conjecture and supposition to create a portrait of fault, complicity, and malfeasance that could well be at odds with the truth. We make no judgment of the culpability of those individuals directly surrounding the Sandusky crimes. We lack sufficient knowledge to do so, and we are content to wait until guilt or innocence is adjudicated by the courts. But as scientists and scholars, we can say with conviction that the Freeh Report fails on its own merits as the indictment of the University that some have taken it to be. Evidence that would compel such an indictment is simply not there.
More central to our concerns are the recent sanctions levied against Penn State by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and, more importantly, the rationale for those actions and their negative impact on the academic well‐being of the University. The NCAA did not conduct its own investigation of the Penn State situation, but rather drew its conclusions from the findings of the Freeh Report. The NCAA Consent Decree, which substantially embellishes the initial Freeh findings in both tone and substance, claimed no standard of proof for its conclusions but nonetheless required Penn State to accept the Freeh Group’s assertions as fact.
The NCAA actions were not predicated on any rulebook violations by members of the football team, the crimes committed by a former assistant coach, or even the alleged concealment of those crimes by University officials. Rather, the NCAA based its actions on the sweeping assertion that a culture permeating every level of the Penn State community places the football program “in higher esteem than the values of the institution, the values of the NCAA, the values of higher education, and most disturbingly the values of human decency.” The NCAA further alleges that “the culture exhibited at Penn State is an extraordinary affront to the values all members of the Association have pledged to uphold and calls for extraordinary action,” and it states that the sanctions are intended to change this culture.
These assertions, from the middle of page four of the Consent Decree, are the sole predicate for the NCAA sanctions, yet the NCAA cites no document that proves their truth, as the Freeh Report certainly does not do so. Not only are these assertions about the Penn State culture unproven, but we declare them to be false. As faculty members with a cumulative tenure at Penn State in the hundreds of years, and as former Faculty Senate chairs with intimate knowledge of the University stretching back for decades, these assertions do not describe the culture with which we are so very familiar. None of us has ever been pressured or even asked to change a grade for an athlete, nor have we heard of any cases where that has occurred. We know that there are no phantom courses or bogus majors for athletes at Penn State. Some of us have privately witnessed swift and unyielding administrative actions against small transgressions, actions taken expressly to preserve academic and institutional integrity. We have performed our duties secure in the knowledge that academic funds do not subsidize the athletic program. We have been proud of the excellent academic record of our student‐ athletes, and of the fact that Penn State has never before had a major NCAA sanction. And we have taken pride in an institutional culture that values honesty, decency, integrity, and fairness. It is disturbing in the extreme to have that culture’s very existence denied by the NCAA.
The NCAA has used its assertion of collective guilt to justify its collective punishment of the entire University community, almost all of whom had absolutely no involvement in or knowledge of the underlying crimes or the administration’s allegedly insufficient response. The damaging rhetoric used by the NCAA to justify its sanctions has unjustly injured the academic reputation, financial health, and general well‐being of the University. These outcomes are in contradiction to the stated ideals of the NCAA, ideals for which Penn State has been an exemplar among universities.
Further, in reaching beyond its authority of regulating intercollegiate athletics and by sanctioning Penn State for non‐athletic matters, the NCAA has significantly eroded Penn State’s institutional autonomy and established a dangerous precedent. The NCAA Consent Decree “requires” the University to adopt all of the recommendations in the Freeh Report, recommendations with implications that permeate almost all aspects of institutional activity. Under normal circumstances, the merits of the report’s recommendations would have been carefully evaluated by the Administration, the Board, and the Faculty Senate and adopted or ignored as appropriate. Instead, what were suggested by the Freeh Group as possible corrective actions now are required by the NCAA. In our view, many of these seem to make good sense, but others misjudge the nature of academic institutions and may well be counterproductive. In any event, policy changes such as these should be made with careful deliberation and not by precipitous and heavy‐handed fiat.
We do not dismiss the need to examine and improve the way Penn State operates. The shock of the crimes that occurred here clearly underlines the need for greater vigilance and stronger policies. However, the sweeping and unsupported generalizations by the Freeh Group and the NCAA do not provide a satisfactory basis for productive change. The NCAA has departed from its own procedures in administering these sanctions, which are unprecedented in their rationale and severity. The sanctions are deeply unjust to the University and unfair to its students, and they should be regretted by all who care about the integrity of academic sports programs for which the NCAA is supposed to be the guardian.
-----------
The PDF is no longer up on the Senate website, so here's a link to it through the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2013082...da/2012-2013/aug2012/pastchairs_statement.pdf
-------
Statement by a Group of Past Chairs
of The Pennsylvania State University Faculty Senate
Regarding the Freeh Report, the NCAA Consent Decree, and Their Academic Implications
August 28, 2012
As the world now knows, horrible crimes against vulnerable young boys were committed by a prominent member of the Penn State community. We, an ad hoc group of past chairs of the University Faculty Senate, share the widespread concern for the victims, are outraged and deeply saddened that this happened in our community, and support efforts to redress the wrongs and remedy their root causes.
We also are concerned that the broader circumstances around the Sandusky crimes have become distorted in the current hyperbolic media environment to the detriment of the entire Penn State community. Much of this has been fueled by the investigation of the Freeh Group and their report. Their investigation appears to have been reasonably thorough, given that it could not subpoena testimony. However, as a document in which evidence, facts, and logical argument are marshaled to support conclusions and recommendations, the Freeh Report fails badly. On a foundation of scant evidence, the report adds layers of conjecture and supposition to create a portrait of fault, complicity, and malfeasance that could well be at odds with the truth. We make no judgment of the culpability of those individuals directly surrounding the Sandusky crimes. We lack sufficient knowledge to do so, and we are content to wait until guilt or innocence is adjudicated by the courts. But as scientists and scholars, we can say with conviction that the Freeh Report fails on its own merits as the indictment of the University that some have taken it to be. Evidence that would compel such an indictment is simply not there.
More central to our concerns are the recent sanctions levied against Penn State by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and, more importantly, the rationale for those actions and their negative impact on the academic well‐being of the University. The NCAA did not conduct its own investigation of the Penn State situation, but rather drew its conclusions from the findings of the Freeh Report. The NCAA Consent Decree, which substantially embellishes the initial Freeh findings in both tone and substance, claimed no standard of proof for its conclusions but nonetheless required Penn State to accept the Freeh Group’s assertions as fact.
The NCAA actions were not predicated on any rulebook violations by members of the football team, the crimes committed by a former assistant coach, or even the alleged concealment of those crimes by University officials. Rather, the NCAA based its actions on the sweeping assertion that a culture permeating every level of the Penn State community places the football program “in higher esteem than the values of the institution, the values of the NCAA, the values of higher education, and most disturbingly the values of human decency.” The NCAA further alleges that “the culture exhibited at Penn State is an extraordinary affront to the values all members of the Association have pledged to uphold and calls for extraordinary action,” and it states that the sanctions are intended to change this culture.
These assertions, from the middle of page four of the Consent Decree, are the sole predicate for the NCAA sanctions, yet the NCAA cites no document that proves their truth, as the Freeh Report certainly does not do so. Not only are these assertions about the Penn State culture unproven, but we declare them to be false. As faculty members with a cumulative tenure at Penn State in the hundreds of years, and as former Faculty Senate chairs with intimate knowledge of the University stretching back for decades, these assertions do not describe the culture with which we are so very familiar. None of us has ever been pressured or even asked to change a grade for an athlete, nor have we heard of any cases where that has occurred. We know that there are no phantom courses or bogus majors for athletes at Penn State. Some of us have privately witnessed swift and unyielding administrative actions against small transgressions, actions taken expressly to preserve academic and institutional integrity. We have performed our duties secure in the knowledge that academic funds do not subsidize the athletic program. We have been proud of the excellent academic record of our student‐ athletes, and of the fact that Penn State has never before had a major NCAA sanction. And we have taken pride in an institutional culture that values honesty, decency, integrity, and fairness. It is disturbing in the extreme to have that culture’s very existence denied by the NCAA.
The NCAA has used its assertion of collective guilt to justify its collective punishment of the entire University community, almost all of whom had absolutely no involvement in or knowledge of the underlying crimes or the administration’s allegedly insufficient response. The damaging rhetoric used by the NCAA to justify its sanctions has unjustly injured the academic reputation, financial health, and general well‐being of the University. These outcomes are in contradiction to the stated ideals of the NCAA, ideals for which Penn State has been an exemplar among universities.
Further, in reaching beyond its authority of regulating intercollegiate athletics and by sanctioning Penn State for non‐athletic matters, the NCAA has significantly eroded Penn State’s institutional autonomy and established a dangerous precedent. The NCAA Consent Decree “requires” the University to adopt all of the recommendations in the Freeh Report, recommendations with implications that permeate almost all aspects of institutional activity. Under normal circumstances, the merits of the report’s recommendations would have been carefully evaluated by the Administration, the Board, and the Faculty Senate and adopted or ignored as appropriate. Instead, what were suggested by the Freeh Group as possible corrective actions now are required by the NCAA. In our view, many of these seem to make good sense, but others misjudge the nature of academic institutions and may well be counterproductive. In any event, policy changes such as these should be made with careful deliberation and not by precipitous and heavy‐handed fiat.
We do not dismiss the need to examine and improve the way Penn State operates. The shock of the crimes that occurred here clearly underlines the need for greater vigilance and stronger policies. However, the sweeping and unsupported generalizations by the Freeh Group and the NCAA do not provide a satisfactory basis for productive change. The NCAA has departed from its own procedures in administering these sanctions, which are unprecedented in their rationale and severity. The sanctions are deeply unjust to the University and unfair to its students, and they should be regretted by all who care about the integrity of academic sports programs for which the NCAA is supposed to be the guardian.
-----------
The PDF is no longer up on the Senate website, so here's a link to it through the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2013082...da/2012-2013/aug2012/pastchairs_statement.pdf
Yeah the guy gets it like the coach before him got it. Our last 5 head football coaches have been quality. Engle, Paterno, Bradley, O' Brien and Franklin. We have been lucky.
Mauti was good and great as a leader. Not the greatest PSU player but maybe the most important due to his role in helping Bill O'Brien keep the team together after sanctions were handed down.
And yet I have been ridiculed when I have pointed out that there were indeed faculty members who were hankering to take Penn State football down a peg or two.
Much of the damage was self-inflicted. The truth will out.
