The National Collegiate Athletic Association announced a $60 million fine against Penn State University on Monday and banned its football team from the postseason for four years.
The school will also forfeit all football wins from 1998, NCAA President Mark Emmert said. That decision strips the late Joe Paterno of the title of winningest coach in major football college history.
While the school’s football program will not face the so-called “death penalty” that would have prevented the team from playing in the fall, the school might have preferred a one-year suspension because of the severity of the scholarship losses, a four-year postseason sanctions and other penalties, a source familiar with the case told CNN on Sunday.
The punishment is part of the continued fallout from the child sex abuse scandal involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted in late June of 45 of the 48 counts he faced involving 10 young victims.
The NCAA’s punishments follow an independent investigation led by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose report held four top Penn State officials, including late football coach Joe Paterno, responsible for failing to stop the abuse.
Emmert wrote a letter to Penn State President Rodney Erickson in November that included four questions he wanted the university to answer.
The NCAA felt the questions were answered by the Freeh report and therefore it could act before the university responded, a source familiar with the case said.
Photos: Final tributes, Paterno statue removed
On Sunday, in State College, Pennsylvania, the 900-pound bronze statue of Paterno was removed from its place outside the 106,000-seat football stadium. Erickson said in a statement the statue is being stored in a “secure location.”
The statue was removed exactly six months after Paterno died of lung cancer. He died less than three months after he coached his last game, an October 29 victory over Illinois that gave him a major college record 409 wins, 111 of which came after 1998. Under Paterno’s 46-season tenure as head coach, the Nittany Lions won two national championships, went undefeated five times, and finished in the top 25 national rankings 35 times.
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article courtesy of CNN.com
