In an Interview with PBS, Mark Emmert, President of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), told interviewer Tavis Smiley that the organization has not yet decided whether the 'death penalty,' is the correct punishment for the Penn State University cover-up scandal in the Jerry Sandusky, former football coach convicted of child sex-abuse, case. However, Emmert says that the option is not "off the table," according to the PBS interview.
"This is as systemic a cultural problem as it is a football problem...There have been people that have said, 'Well, this isn't a football scandal.' Well, it was more than a football scandal, much more than a football scandal. We'll have to figure out exactly what the right penalties are. I don't know that past precedent makes particularly good sense in this case because it's really an unprecedented problem," as reported by the Central Daily.
The NCAA is currently reviewing former FBI Director Louis Freeh's report showing PSU top officials involved in covering up incidents of child sex abuse involving Sandusky.
The report released last week implicated PSU Head Coach Joe Paterno, Athletic Director Tim Curly, the University President Graham Spanier, and Vice President Gary Schultz in a cover-up of a 1998 shower incident in which the 68-year-old Sandusky was accused of showering with a boy and touching him inappropriately.
Now, there is talk about the measures NCAA will take on the university's prestigious football team, there is much speculation whether the team will be slapped with an indefinite suspension better known as the death penalty. The organization has handed down the sentence only one time in its 106-year existence to the Southern Methodist University in a case that dealt with giving players impermissible benefits.
The Freeh report has certainly shed light on PSU's "pervasive and damaging culture at Penn State where the levers of power were tightly controlled by four men (the officials)... whose repeated failure to deal with troubling allegations lodged against Sandusky always seemed to be directed by one goal: to avoid the consequences of bad publicity," as mentioned by USA Today.
The 267 page report was formed over seven months of investigation, more than 400 interviews, and a review of over 3.5 million documents.
The most powerful PSU officials "repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from the authorities, the board of trustees, the Penn State community and the public at large," according to the New York Times.
Last month a jury of seven women and five men found the 68 year-old guilty of 45 out of the 48 counts against him for sexual abuse of ten young boys over a span of 15 years. Sandusky, 68, is currently in Centre County prison awaiting his sentencing, which is scheduled to be held in about 90 days. He could face a maximum sentence of 373 years.
