INDIANAPOLIS (The Blaze/AP) -- The NCAA slammed Penn State with an unprecedented series of penalties Monday, including a $60 million fine and the loss of all coach Joe Paterno's victories from 1998-2011, in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
Other sanctions include a four-year ban on bowl games, the loss of 20 scholarships per year over four years and five years' probation. The NCAA also said that any current or incoming football players are free to immediately transfer and compete at another school.
With the wins being stripped from the program, Paterno loses his title of the winningest coach in Division I NCAA football history. Until today, he had 409 official wins, bypassing legendary Grambling State coach Eddie Robinson by one win just weeks before the scandal reached full steam last fall.
Not anymore.
It's a move that was encouraged by the city of Grambling, LA, last week:
City attorney Pamela Breedlove sent a three-page letter to the NCAA on Wednesday explaining its case."Even though it was done by outside counsel, the Freeh Report was the university's report," Breedlove said, according to the Shreveport paper. "It said what their employees, including coach Paterno, did wrong. We're hoping the end result of this is coach Robinson will get his record back so everyone will think a great man holds this record."
The letter, written along with Grambling mayor Edward Jones, claims the cover-up involving the Jerry Sandusky child-abuse case violates NCAA constitutional articles 2.4 and 6.4 as well as operating bylaws articles 2.4, 11.1.1 and 11.2.1.
Paterno is now 12th on the wins list after being stripped of 111 wins. The university also took down the coach's iconic statue outside the football stadium over the weekend.
NCAA President Mark Emmert announced the staggering sanctions at a news conference in Indianapolis. Though the NCAA stopped short of imposing the "death penalty" - shutting down the Nittany Lions' program completely - the punishment is still crippling for a team that is trying to start over with a new coach and a new outlook.
Sandusky, a former Penn State defensive coordinator, was found guilty in June of sexually abusing young boys, sometimes on campus. An investigation commissioned by the school and released July 12 found that Paterno, who died in January, and several other top officials at Penn State stayed quiet for years about accusations against Sandusky. He resigned from coaching after the 1998-1999 season.
Emmert fast-tracked penalties rather than go through the usual circuitous series of investigations and hearings. The NCAA said the $60 million is equivalent to the annual gross revenue of the football program. The money must be paid into an endowment for external programs preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims and may not be used to fund such programs at Penn State.
"Football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people," Emmert said.
Emmert had earlier said he had "never seen anything as egregious" as the horrific crimes of Sandusky and the cover-up by Paterno and others at the university, including former Penn State President Graham Spanier and athletic director Tim Curley.
The investigation headed by former FBI Director Louis Freeh said that Penn State officials kept what they knew from police and other authorities for years, enabling the abuse to go on.
There had been calls across the nation for Penn State to receive the "death penalty," and Emmert had not ruled out that possibility as late as last week - though Penn State did not fit the criteria for it. That punishment is for teams that commit a major violation while already being sanctioned.
This story has been updated.
