NCAA Gives Penn State $60 Million Fine, 4-Year Bowl Suspension

The NCAA has hit Penn State with a $60 million fine and has suspended the school’s football team from post-season bowl play for four years. The team also has to vacate all of its wins from 1998 to 2011.

The NCAA has also been tweeting the sanctions they’ve handed down to the school, which include a reduction of 10 scholarships each year for 4 years in football and a maximum of 65 scholarships per year, and a five year probation for all sports. Penn State must also adopt all recommendations from Section 10 of the Freeh Report, and the university will be required to appoint an NCAA-selected, independent Athletics Integrity Monitor for five years.

The $60 million fine will be “paid to external endowment for sex abuse prevention and victim assistance programs,” and no current sport may be reduced or eliminated to pay the fine.

The NCAA’s website states,

“Penn State’s sanctions are both punitive – intended to punish – and corrective, intended to remediate the ‘sports is king’ culture that led to failures in leadership.”

The website also says that the the association knows the sanctions will “impact both current and incoming football student-athletes” and that they will “provide appropriate and immediate relief of some NCAA rules for all eligible football student-athletes.”

To that end, football student-athletes who transfer from Penn State will not have to sit out a year of competition, and any incoming or currently enrolled football student-athlete will be immediately eligible upon transfer or initial enrollment at an NCAA institution. The school will also release incoming student-athletes from the National Letter of Intent.

The sanctions come just one day after the statue of Joe Paterno was removed from outside Penn State’s football stadium.

The president of the NCAA, Mark Emmert, said about Penn State,

What do you think about the NCAA’s sanctions on Penn State? Are they too harsh or not harsh enough?