The House of Blue

BOOM

from the link

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A source told CBS News correspondent Armen Keteyian that Penn State will face "unprecedented" penalties when the NCAA announces what it called "corrective and punitive measures for The Pennsylvania State University" at a press event at 9 a.m. Monday.
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What does "unprecedented" encompass since the death penalty has a precedent?

From what i have read and heard, The death penalty will be too easy for PSU but the NCAA is thinking of a long term bowl ban and heavy schloarship reduction.

Looks like you're right on the button. ESPN reporting that there will not be a death penalty sanctioned on PSU but it could actually be worse:

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8188629/penn-state-nittany-lions-not-facing-death-penalty-monday-ncaa-source-says

Just speculation on my part, but I think by the time all the investigations and trials are over (probably over a 2-3 year span), anything that the NCAA has done at that point will be a spec of dirt on the floor compared to what may happen. It's going to be interesting to see how far this sordid mess reaches.

I will disagree on this point to the extent that PSU is an institution that the NCAA has allowed to play sports under its organization.The NCAA has absolute authority to decide how a school can field teams for officially sanctioned NCAA seasons and events as long as that school wants to be a part of the NCAA. Since the NCAA doesn't really have any competition (NAIA hardly counts) they can set the rules anyway they want.

In this instance, the coverup of the PSU mess by it's coaches and athletic department does not directly relate to football. However, the NCAA can say (and I absolutely agree with this): If you're going to field a football team as a member of the NCAA, we will not condone illegal or harmful actions perpetrated by your athletic department and it's total lack of institutional control by allowing you to participate in our athletic association. If you don't want to follow our sanctions, you're welcome to leave.

Unfortunately, the NCAA has been totally inconsistent in this respect. It pick's and chooses when it cares about 'student-athletes' and university communities enough to punish the wrongdoers. The PSU case is an easy one. It can lay down the hammer in the guise of caring because it is such a horrendous situation. Accordingly, it continue this charade of saying it cares about the education and care of young men and women because they are laying down the law.

Not to make light of the PSU situation, but it just seems like there are so many times where the NCAA has slapped a school on the wrist for the failure of maintaining the amateurism of its athletes. Yet these schools keep breaking the rules because, IMHO, there are too many millions at stake. If the NCAA actually believed in its student-athlete mantra, it and its member schools wouldn't be making millions upon millions on the back of free labor or punishing kids like Jeremy Jarmon or Enes Kanter or retroactively punishing a school like Memphis for playing a kid that the NCAA itself cleared to play.

Further, PSU and Paterno didn't have so million at stake, do you really think they would have covered up this mess. I believe not. College football has become more than just wins and losses, its also about making lots and lots and lots of money.

Rant over. This post started as one thing and ended up another. I've got the bar exam in two days and my anxiety has clearly overtaken me, haha.

TL;DR
I believe that
- NCAA has every right to punish PSU
- The PSU situation is symptomatic of the bloated money making machine that the NCAA has become

Based on what NCAA rules and or by-laws?

I have not seen one explanation what legal right the NCAA has.

Someone enlighten me and show the written rules that covers a situation like this.

Can't wait to be underwhelmed by "unprecedented."

Just a guess on my part, but I would say they are looking at huge scholarship losses (maybe only able to sign 10-15 players a year) over a period of several years, television ban/bowl ban for the same time period. Recruiting visit restrictions, fines. I'm guessing by the time it is off sanctions, Washington & Jefferson will have a higher Saragin rating than Penn St.

If its anywhere close to what I've been hearing - 5 year bowl ban, severe scholarship reductions and limits on TV/Bowl monies - what SMU got will look like a walk in the park. Any time a school is placed on probabtion for a certain period, any player who's remaining years would be affected by the ban would be allowed to transfwe to other schools w/o having to sit out a year. A five year ban would encompass every player in the program (including in-coming freshmen). It would be near-impossible to atteact top players for several years (especially on a national basis).

I believe what is considered "unprecedented" is the use of NCAA powers to sanction PSU for a something outside its purview: level playing field between members, i.e the absence of recruiting violations and performance enhancing drugs as well as things along those lines.

As a second note, I think the reasoning behind the NCAA's justification of skipping the typical procedure is that normally the NCAA does an investigation but allows the university to respond before judgment/leveling sanctions. In this case, the NCAA didn't perform an investigation but used the university's own report as the basis for the sanctions. IOW, the NCAA skipped their opening part of the process and is using the Freeh (sp?) report as the university's response.

Thirdly, Emmert making the full decision on sanctions isn't something I see as some sort of grab for power. As I understand it, the board voted to give him power to do so in this case. This has given a quick and unified response. I think the reason the individual member schools (as of now) have not thrown a protest is that although they may in principle wish to protect their own interest down the line (as in protect not having this used as a precedent to level sanctions against schools in the future for typical charges where the system normally runs its course) is because they recognize this is so far outside the "box" that the bureaucracy involved makes it inadequate for dealing with the situation.

There's my two cents in three points.

The reason they aren't allowing PSU to defend itself from the NCAA's investigation is that rather than investigating itself, the NCAA used PSU's own official investigative results. PSU has made its official case for what happened and the NCAA is taking them at their word and using it as the basis for sanctions. The above is suggesting this is unfair because the university is not being given the opportunity to treat the official published results of its own official investigation as something other than its official version of what happened.

What has or has not happened in Miami's case is immaterial. A case regarding these type of actions (a case regarding a massive scale cover-up of pedophilia) is unprecedented. Trying to relate other cases to one that is unprecedented, and on an enormous scale, is pointless.