Penn State Sanctions & Paterno Family Response

From The Associated Press:

Penn State football was all but dismantled Monday by an NCAA ruling that wiped away 14 years of coach Joe Paterno's victories and imposed a mountain of fines and penalties, crippling a program whose pedophile assistant coach spent years molesting children, sometimes on school property.

The sanctions by the governing body of college sports also imposed unprecedented fines of $60 million, ordered Penn State to sit out the postseason for four years, capped scholarships at 20 below the normal limit for four years and placed football on five years' probation.

Current or incoming football players are free to immediately transfer and compete at another school.

The NCAA's sanctions following the worst scandal in the history of college football stopped short of delivering the "death penalty" - shutting down the sport completely. It actually did everything but kill it.

Part of the Paterno family response (via CNN):

Sexual abuse is reprehensible, especially when it involves children, and no one starting with Joe Paterno condones or minimizes it. The horrific acts committed by Jerry Sandusky shock the conscience of every decent human being. How Sandusky was able to get away with his crimes for so long has yet to be fully understood, despite the claims and assertions of the Freeh report.

The release of the Freeh report has triggered an avalanche of vitriol, condemnation and posthumous punishment on Joe Paterno. The NCAA has now become the latest party to accept the report as the final word on the Sandusky scandal. The sanctions announced by the NCAA today defame the legacy and contributions of a great coach and educator without any input from our family or those who knew him best.

No comment would have been the better thing for them to say, given that it is the abused/raped kids who are the victims, not Paterno, nor Penn State.