Penn State University should act before the NCAA...

Tomorrow morning the NCAA will announce its decision on penalties and sanctions against the football program at Penn State University.  Some will argue that the NCAA has no right to penalize the university because it didn't violate any NCAA rules.  Those who do need to re-read the rulebook and pay particular attention to the rules involving conduct and ethics.

But the University should tell the NCAA to delay the announcement and do the following:

1.  Ask the NCAA to allow all football players to transfer to other universities without having to sit out a season, which would normally be the case for scholarship athletes.

2.  Once that is approved, PSU should voluntarily terminate its football program for at least a five year period.

3.  Anyone even remotely connected with the cover-up should be fired if they won't resign.

Why?

Because this is an issue the University should deal with on its own rather than waiting to be penalized.  Let's look at the facts.

Jerry Sandusky was convicted of dozens of counts of child molestation.  He may appeal, but his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt has been established.  Two former Penn State officials, athletic director Tim Curley and the school's vice president Gary Schultz will go to trial and face perjury charges for lying to a grand jury about what they did and didn't know about the Sandusky case.  Emails have been uncovered, revealing that the legendary PSU football coach Joe Paterno was involved in the cover-up. 

Vickie Triponey, former PSU standards and conduct officer was fought tooth and nail by Paterno over who was going to discipline football players for infractions throughout her tenure at the University.  She finally resigned her position after an argument with Paterno in a meeting, although she has never officially confirmed this, saying instead she resigned over "philosophical differences".

Clearly PSU became the home of a personality cult surrounding its head football coach.  They deified him, erecting a statute of him while he was still alive.  Aside from Rocky Balboa, who is a fictional character, and the late Kim Jong Il, I can't think of anyone who had a statute of themselves erected while they were still alive (although there may well be other examples).  That JoePa felt he, his coaches, staff, former coaches and players were "above the law" seems evident.

Shutting down the program allows healing.  It allows the players, guilty of nothing more than being members of a dirty program, to go on with their careers without penalty.  It indicates that PSU realizes it needs to change, to try to live up to the ideals it preached and failed to abide by.  It will resolve the situation once and for all.  There will be plenty of discussions before the program is reinstated, if ever.

A new broom sweeps clean.  Penn State University has swept enough under the table.  Time to clean house and start over.