NCAA Half Measure on Sanctions Falls Short

The NCAA's decision to roll back some of the sanctions as a result of "progress" with the Freeh Report's recommendations on Athletics is yet another smokescreen by Emmert and the BOT.

By
Ray Blehar

While I welcome the decision by the NCAA to restore some of the scholarship to the football program, it's reasoning for doing so is nothing less than farcical.

As most Penn Staters - and college football fans in general - know, Penn State had a sterling reputation for its ability to perform at high levels on the field and in the classroom.  All this done with not a single NCAA violation.   

In  the years prior to the Sandusky Scandal, Penn State's 89 percent graduation rate and 85 percent Graduation Success Rate were tops among all teams in the Associated Press' final 2009 Top 25 poll, according to NCAA data. The Nittany Lions' GSR and four-year federal graduation rate were second only to Northwestern among Big Ten Conference teams, according to the NCAA's 2010 graduation report.

For the late Coach Paterno's career, the Nittany Lions have counted 16 National Football Foundation Scholar-Athletes, 37 first-team Capital One/CoSIDA All-Americans® (47 overall) and 18 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship winners. 

And in 2010, NCAA President Mark Emmert, called Joe Paterno “the definitive role model of what it means to be a college coach.” 

PSU needed the Athletic Integrity Agreement like a fish needed a bicycle.

However, less than one year later, Mark Emmert would levy unprecedented sanctions on PSU, based on some obscure rules buried in the NCAA By-Laws which were buttressed by slim evidence provided  in the now discredited Freeh Report.

Today's decision to reduce the NCAA Sanctions is little more than a Hail Mary pass by Emmert and the BOT with the hopes of appeasing their opponents who they incorrectly accused of being part of a non-existent "football culture" at PSU.   

The opposition is not going away.  Not until all the wrongs are righted -- more on that later.

But what of this fallacious reasoning for the reduction of the NCAA Sanctions?

NCAA and Penn State's Revised Consent Decree

The revised Consent Decree, below, states that the NCAA has reduced the sanctions because of the compliance and efforts toward implementation of the....Athletics Integrity Agreement.




























What is truly amazing about the "progress" that PSU made since last August is that it's ability to meet the Freeh Report recommendations for Athletics, on which the AIA is based, required them to do very little.

While the AIA is about a dozen pages long and filled with a lot of language, the bottom line is that addresses a dozen (12) recommendations in the Freeh Report that were mostly unnecessary and unsupported by evidence.  And when you read how PSU addressed the recommendations on the PSU Progress Web-site, released in July 2013,  you will see what an "outlaw" program PSU must have been to take such drastic changes (sarcasm).

A brief summary of the  recommendations and commentary follows.

5. Athletics
5.1  Recommendation:  Intercollegiate Athletics Organization Structure:  Revise structure to define lines of authority and responsibility.   Action:  Changes made to number of senior members responsible for football operations, compliance and human resources.  

Comment:  As usual, in the aftermath of a crisis or scandal, recommend redrawing the organization chart.  Consulting 101.

5.2  Recommendation:  Athletic Facilities Access:  Evaluate security protocols for athletic, recreational, and camp facilities.  Action:  PSU originated Policy AD 72 regarding facilities access and improved video surveillance/card access procedures.

Comment:  Sandusky committed no crimes on PSU's campus after 2001 and the majority of his crimes occurred off campus.  No crimes were ever reported as occurring at a PSU sports camp.  There was little need for this recommendation.

5.3  Recommendation:  Intercollegiate Athletics National Searches:  Conduct national searches for key positions including head coaches and Associate Athletic Directors and above.  Action:  PSU crafted policy HR-101 to require national searches and national searches are underway for the baseball, softball, and swimming/diving programs.

Comment:  Recommendation should be implemented retro-actively back to 11-9-11 and a national search for a qualified Athletic Director should commence immediately.  Oh, and we need to find a new fencing coach.

5.4 Recommendation:  Academic Support for Athletes.  Action: Already fully implemented in June 2012 (in other words, no action taken because none was needed).

Comment:  Recommendation was unnecessary as evidenced by PSU's already outstanding academic record for its athletes.


5.5 Recommendation:  Athletic Compliance:  Hire additional compliance staff.  Action:  Two positions added and an upgrade of an existing positon.

Comment:  Not needed.

5.5.1 Recommendation: Benchmark Athletics Compliance:  Benchmark peer institutions.  Action: PSU completed benchmarking with Big Ten schools and is considering hiring an additional compliance staff member.

Comment:  PSU's only peer in the Big Ten is Northwestern.  Most other conference schools have had NCAA violations, including Michigan (NCAA Final Four banners removed from Crisler Arena) and  Ohio State (on probation, 2010 wins vacated). Prior to 2011, eight Big Ten schools had been hit with major violations since 2000.  This recommendation was/is ludicrous.

5.5.2 Recommendation:  Compliance Reporting Relationship.  Establish and effective reporting relationship with the University Compliance Officer.   Action:  Associate AD for Compliance and Athletic Integrity Officer will report to the Director of University Ethics and Compliance.

Comment:  Sounds good in theory, however, a legitimate conflict of interest policy is the key to an effective Ethics program.  PSU doesn't have the former, thus it cannot accomplish the latter.

5.5.3 Recommendation:  Intercollegiate Athletics Compliance Registration.  Realign to ensure the AD staff members is overseen by the Athletics Compliance Officer.  Action:  Some new duties assigned to compliance staff.

Comment:  Nothing to see here.

5.5.4 Recommendation:  Compliance Education.  Ensure personnel have knowledge of NCAA, Big Ten, and University rules.  Action:  Compliance staff conducted training and will emphasize following rules in employee performance evaluations.

Comment:  Quite a novel recommendation.  Employees should follow rules.  Remember, PSU paid $8M dollars for this nonsense.


5.6: Recommendation: Compliance Training. 

E

nsure that Athletic Department employees
comply with University-wide training mandates.

Comment:  The Freeh Report did not cite any specific instances in which athletic department employees alone were not complying with training mandates.  Freeh's report cited University wide lack of compliance.


5.6.1: Recommendation: Track Compliance: Training 

Provide and track initial and on-going training for 

athletic staff in matters of leadership, ethics, the 

Penn State Principles and standards of conduct, 

abuse awareness, and reporting misconduct 

pursuant to the Clery Act and University policy.

Comment:  Same as above. This recommendation/correction applies to PSU as a whole, based on the evidence presented in the Freeh Report.


5.6.2: Recommendation: Management Training 

Opportunities 

Include Athletic Department employees in 

management training programs provided to other 

University managers.

Comment:  There was no evidence in the Freeh Report that indicated Athletic Department employees weren't already participating in management training offered by the University.

Conclusion

It's evident that most of the recommendations regarding improvements to PSU's Academic Integrity were not needed and the only one that most people agree was needed is a national search for a new Athletic Director, which of course, PSU is not considering.  Also, rumor has it that PSU is looking to extend Director of Athletic "Affairs," Dave Joyner's tenure by seven years.  The bottom line is that PSU did next to nothing to "fix" the non-existent integrity issues in the athletic department and the BOT and Emmert are patting themselves on the back for this nonsense.

Recommendations

This half measure by the NCAA (and the BOT) is, as BOT member Anthony Lubrano put it, a "baby step" in righting the wrongs that were an outgrowth of the BOT's mishandling of the Sandusky Scandal.

PSU alumni, students, fans, and supporters should not be satisfied until the NCAA:
1)  Rescinds all of the sanctions (scholarships and wins fully restored).
2)  Refunds the money PSU paid in fines.
3)  Refunds the money wasted by PSU to hire and pay George Mitchell/DLA Piper.

In addition the remaining 11/9/11 PSU BOT members, including Erickson, must:
1)  Issue apologies to the Paterno family, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, and Gary Schultz.
2)  Resign

The Pennsylvania Legislature must:
1)  Reorganize the BOT and install interim trustees and a new President.
2)  Continue to press reforms in Pennsylvania's Child Protection system.

We are not moving forward until the full truth is known, the NCAA sanctions are removed, PSU is properly governed, and Pennsylvania's children get the protection they deserve.

BOT's Version Of "Openness and Transparency" Extends to Joyner and Athletic Department

Information about season ticket renewals, ticket packaging, and Nittany Lion Club membership have been anything but "open and transparent."

By
Ray Blehar

While many people predicted dire consequences for the PSU football program as a consequence of the Sandusky scandal, last year's successful season proved that the majority Penn State fans stayed loyal to Dear Old State.  

Of course, the problem with using last year as a measuring stick is that most fans had renewed their Nittany Lion Club membership and season tickets before any on the following disasters that occurred last July 2012:
-- the BOT's tacit acceptance of (the fraudulent) Freeh Report;
-- the University's removal of Paterno's statue and criticisms of Paterno;
-- the BOT's roll-over to the NCAA in accepting sanctions;
-- the BOT's effort to get the alumni and fans to "move forward," and;
-- the overall disrespect shown by the BOT to PSU alumni and fans.



Given all this ill-will by the PSU BOT towards the alumni, who only want to know the truth, the consequences of the BOT's actions would be exposed by  indicators beginning in February 2013.  Those markers were, in chronological order:  Nittany Lion Club (NLC) dues (February); Club Seat and Suite licenses (March); and season ticket renewals (May).

Now that we are just weeks away from the 2013 season kicking off, little to no information about the  indicators has been provided by PSU.   To find out that information, you have to dig around to figure out what is happening.

Read more here: http://www.centredaily.com/2012/11/05/3392273/local-economy-steady-in-light.html#storylink=cpy

Nittany Lion Club Renewals

This information appears to be guarded better than Fort Knox.  Typically, the NLC posts a spreadsheet of the priority point standings in the spring after the dues are collected -- but the 2013 point standings have not been posted.  More openness and transparency?

However, years 2008 to 2012 were posted  and the figures show a decline of nearly 1,500 members in the NLC from 2011 to 2012.  Also, note that 2011, the first year of STEP, shows a spike in lower level contributors.  That is exactly what STEP was supposed to encourage - bringing new fans to Beaver Stadium using the lure of premium seating.  But it appears that 2011 was a fleeting success, as the new fans appear to have departed as quickly as they came.

Season Ticket Renewals and Attendance

The fog continues around the number of season ticket renewals.  While this number should have been known in May, it has become apparent that renewals are down.  In a letter dated August 9th, 2013, the AD Joyner offered current season ticket holders the opportunity to purchase additional season tickets for just the price of the tickets, with no additional donation (of course, other terms apply).  Current season ticket holders can only purchase up to the quantity of their 2013 donation level, so this offer is nothing more than the University asking the donor to purchase tickets for which he or she is already eligible.

The seats offered are in the red, yellow, and blue zones and are bench seats (based on the pricing of $385 per seat).  Chair back seats are not part of the deal, thus the offer is likely aimed at filling the nosebleed seats right below the suites and press box.  To obtain the seats, you must call the ticket office and cannot use Ticketmaster's virtual venue option.

While the actual number of renewals has yet to be released, Ben Jones of statecollege.com received this statement from the Athletic Department:

"Ticket numbers at this time of year continue to be active and a bit of a moving target," Associate Athletic Director Greg Myford told StateCollege.com. "But as it pertains to current season sales, total 2013 season tickets sold and paid in full to date is 89% of the season tickets purchased last year.  As a point of reference, in recent years, the renewal rate has hovered between 91-95%.  Obviously, that 89% will only increase as fans continue to purchase season tickets between now and the start of the season."

Based on press reports, PSU sold approximately 68,000 season tickets in 2012.  If the renewal rate for 2013 ends up at 90%, the number translates to 61,200 season tickets.

Attendance
Looking at the 2013 season, the average attendance for the games should be in the neighborhood of 91,000 or at 85% capacity.   I arrived at this figure by adding projected season tickets (61,200) to student tickets (21,000) to other sales (8,000).  The latter figure assumes that game day and outside sales will be at the same rate as 2012, which is probably optimistic.

Trends in attendance have been declining since 2007. The 2012 season was the fifth straight year of attendance declines at Beaver Stadium, but the bottom really did drop out last year.  Attendance figures are as follows:

2007:  108,917 
2008:  108,254 
2009:  107,008 
2010:   104,234 
2011:   101,427 
2012:     96,700

Average attendance in 2012 stood at 96,700, however, 2012 was notable as it notched six (6) of the ten smallest crowds in Beaver Stadium history since the 2001 expansion.

Rank	Attendance	Date	Game result
1	90,358	Nov. 18, 2012	Penn State 45, Indiana 22
2	93,505	Nov. 24, 2012	Penn State 24, Wisconsin 21
3	93,680	Sep. 22, 2012	Penn State 24, Temple 13
4	95,636	Sep. 24, 2011	Penn State 34, Eastern Michigan 6
5	95,769	Oct. 6, 2012	Penn State 39, Northwestern 28
6	96,461	Sep. 3, 2011	Penn State 41, Indiana State 7
7	97,186	Sep. 1, 2012	Ohio 24, Penn State 14
8	97,828	Oct. 29, 2011	Penn State 10, Illinois 7
9	98,727	Sep. 10, 2005	Penn State 42, Cincinnati 24
10	98,792	Sep. 15, 2012	Penn State 34, Navy 7

The declines in attendance were certainly not attributable to the exciting brand of football being played by O'Brien's Lions, but part of an overall declining trend in attendance exacerbated by the fallout of the Sandusky scandal (and by fall-out, I mean the actions of the BOT).

It's clear that PSU needs to figure out a way to get more fans in the seats in 2013, however, the ticket packaging option for the Michigan and Nebraska games being put forth by Joyner is more likely to drive fans away than bring fans in.

Ticket Packaging

When I heard of the ticket bundling "offer" that requires  the purchase of an Eastern Michigan ticket with the purchase of a single game Michigan ticket and the purchase of a Kent State ticket required for a purchase of a single game ticket with Nebraska, my mind immediately went to Pitt.

For the final PSU-Pitt game of the mini-series that ended in 2000, Pitt required the purchase of a Temple single game ticket with the purchase of a PSU ticket.  Pitt usually deploys this tactic once a year when they get a marquee opponent on the schedule, such as Notre Dame or Ohio State.  Essentially, at Pitt, it's a tactic aimed at visiting fans who will not attend the lesser game and take the loss on the ticket (or attempt to sell it on the secondary market).

Joyner Described the new packaging this way:


“The thought process was, ‘How do we stimulate continued interest in our football games? How do we stimulate people to want to come to the stadium?’ ” Joyner said. “It’s just a new way of looking at it. How we’re going to market those games and get people in the stands.”


Let me go out on a limb here and say a much more honest and effective approach to market those games with Eastern Michigan and Kent State and to get people in the stands would be to REDUCE the prices of tickets.

Dr. Joyner's rationale behind ticket packaging - much like the EMU and KSU tickets themselves - isn't going to be bought by many.

And it's this kind of dishonesty by Joyner and his former cohorts on the BOT that is contributing mightily to turning fans away from Beaver Stadium.


Full disclosure: I kept my season tickets and attended all but one game in 2012 (missed Wisconsin due to deer hunting) and have kept my season tickets for this year.  

Media: Penn Live's David Jones, Others, Duped by Rumors, Dubious Reports

On Sunday, January 4th, 2013, David Jones hinted at structural changes that could be forthcoming in the football program.  The source of his information -- football message boards via Facebook.  Other journalists guilty of using rumors as facts.

By
Ray Blehar

On the night of January 3rd, I had a discussion with a person who is a substantial donor to Penn State athletics.  The donor told me that they had heard O'Brien was staying but, despite the good news,  they were shutting off their donations to PSU Athletics until Dave Joyner was removed as AD. 

Then the donor wished that someone would make Joyner's life miserable, just like he was doing to the fine people who worked for him on the AD staff.

I was still on the phone with the donor and said, "You're not going to believe this, but a rumor about Joyner leaving is already on the message boards.  Someone just posted a link on Facebook  to a post on BWI and I checked it out.  There is a lot of chatter and a lot of people happy about the prospect of Joyner no longer being AD."

The donor laughed and said, "Good, I hope the rumor comes true."

O'Brien Staying

At 9:55PM, the Patriot News' David Jones had released an article about O'Brien being retained as PSU's coach (see below)

Bill O'Brien tells PennLive he is staying at Penn State

By David Jones | djones@pennlive.com The Patriot-News
on January 03, 2013 at 9:55 PM, updated January 04, 2013 at 8:45 AM

Penn State's long holiday nightmare is over. Bill O'Brien is staying at Penn State.
In an exclusive conversation, the second-year head coach confirmed that he was contacted by and entertained overtures from multiple NFL clubs through his agent Joe Linta. But he has decided to remain at PSU for at least the 2013 season.

Numerous media were on the story of O'Brien after Jones....

• Dan Wetzel, at Yahoo sports at 10:28 PM
• The Pittsburgh Post Gazette chimed in at 11:13 PM
• Statecollege.com followed at 2:09AM on the 4th, linking to Jones' article

Structural Changes

However, it wasn't until the Sunday morning update that came out that Jones reported about "structural changes" in the Athletic Department.....

In addition to a clear testing of the pro head coaching waters, this was a strategic mission of sorts by O'Brien. By having Linta throw his name open to NFL openings and having the agent field offers, he was able to gain additional leverage that allowed him a chance to accomplish structural and personnel changes in the Penn State athletic department that may be forthcoming. O'Brien declined to be specific about those changes when asked but he did not deny those aims.

Jones' column on Sunday morning lead to more writers picking up the structural change idea....specifically, that there was a strained relationship between Joyner and O'Brien.

• The Post Gazette mentioned that "Joyner and O'Brien's relationship was called into question." 
• The Collegian questioned Joyner about the relationship.
• PennLive's Audrey Snyder also pushed Joyner about the relationship (there was a survey attached about Joyner's performance - the vote was 80% no confidence)
• Mark Brennan of Scout.com questioned Joyner about the relationship.  

To Brennan's credit he mentioned that rumors were rampant, but most others didn't mention where they heard of this "relationship" issue.

Most of us have been disgusted by the media's performance in the Sandusky scandal.  It's a fact that the media will jump onto a story with no factual basis and repeat it over and  over again.

Facts Don't Matter When You Have Rumors

However, when it came to tearing down a icon like Paterno, the media used a dubious account to paint Paterno as a liar just a week before the release of the Freeh Report.

Many stories  ran on July 6th, trumpeting the headlines "Joe Paterno used e-mail."  The real story was that Joe's assistant, Sandy Segursky, typed out the e-mail on Joe's behalf in 2007 - after the Meridian fight.  But the article reads:

 "Paterno wrote to Spanier and Curley using an email account used by the coach’s assistant, Sandi Segursky."

The assumption made was absolutely ludicrous.  Joe Paterno, who doesn't want people to know that he uses e-mail, typed an e-mail on his assistant's computer?    

The source of this trash was Vicky Triponey, who also accused Paterno of sending text messages.  Septaugenerian Paterno texting?  As Joe once said, "I can't download a jar of peanut butter."

At one point, Triponey says, witnesses—most of whom were footballers—were ordered to appear at a judicial hearing, as was school policy. But Paterno sent a text message to the whole team, saying, “If you show up for this, you’re off.”

However, as crazy as these allegations were, the media had a new heroine in Vicky Triponey.  

Did Tripony ever produce this text message?  Not that I've ever seen.

But she was lauded in the press as the woman who exposed Joe Paterno as a fraud.  And although not named in the Freeh Report, there is little doubt that she was the source for the unsubstantiated finding of "a culture of reverence to the football program" at Penn State.

Repeating A Story Appears to Make It True

Apparently, using message boards to get the latest news is standard practice among today's "journalists."

Here's Glamour magazine on Sara Ganim:

Ganim, a Penn State grad and a football fan herself, knew her way around the university's online message boards. There she quickly found gossip about Sandusky getting too friendly with young boys. So she started asking around. "I'd say, 'Hey, have you heard anything strange about Jerry Sandusky?'" And though people knew about the rumors, Ganim says, "almost no one believed they were true."

Here's The New York Times' Jo Becker:

Wild rumors, of course, get thrown around on college sports message boards all the time. (We would know; we’re on them constantly. We can’t get enough of them.) More often than not, there’s nothing to them. Clearly, though, that wasn’t the case this time. And while we would stop short of saying this is an endorsement for throwing every crazy thing you’ve heard up on the internet and seeing if it leads anywhere, when something of this magnitude turns out to be on point…well, it goes a long way toward justifying the sea of inanity.

Of course, that a message board "tip" or anonymous e-mail tip helped break the Sandusky case is anything but a fact.  Like many of the so-called facts in the case, it provides an explanation of how something might have occurred, but for all we know, it too could be a fabrication to cover up how the McQueary incident was really discovered. 

It very well could be that at an early stage of the investigation, the OAG investigators asked CYS to check their logs and they found the PSU complaint.  Rather than admitting that CYS had this complaint in its records, the AG simply concocted a story that they knew an uniformed hoard would buy.  

And in the Sandusky case, the public and the media bought into every story that Nils Frederickson threw out there.  

• That McQueary witnessed a rape and told PSU officials all the details.
• That Ray Gricar and the police let Sandusky off the hook in 1998 (hardly a mention of the CYS/DPW investigation)
• That Central Mountain HS did everything right in reporting Sandusky (it was Mike Gillum at Clinton County CYS that told the school they had to ban Sandusky)
• That the investigators, despite obstruction by PSU officials, linked the abuse to Sandusky's relationship to The Second Mile (I'm speechless) 

Once these fabrications were made public, the story was seemingly set.  The phenomenon is called "anchoring" in psychological terms (some SSMSS contributors will write more about this soon).  Once people's beliefs are anchored, it's very difficult to change their minds, no matter how much evidence is presented that refutes the story.

We saw this with the Duke Lacrossse Case (privileged white students raped a black woman), the Exxon Valdez (the captain was drunk), George W. Bush National Guard service (Bush was AWOL), and with the Olympic Park bombing (Richard Jewell was the bomber - according to then FBI Director Freeh and the media).

Unchaining the Anchor

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to "unchain the anchor."  In the cases above, all were eventually refuted when new facts surfaced.

• Duke Lacrosse - the DA Nifong hid exculpatory DNA evidence
• Exxon Valdez - the NTSB found it was faulty navigation equipment
• Bush - the Thornburg Commission confirmed CBS was overzealous 
• Jewell - Eric Robert Rudolph was the bomber

And so, it will be the same in the Sandusky case and the alleged cover-up by PSU officials.  

New evidence will surface that will prove that the entire narrative of a PSU cover-up was false.  Whether that comes from information surfacing from AG Kane's investigation or other sources remains to be seen.

But it's coming. 

And that's not a rumor.