Sent 10/6/14
To:
NCAA Executive Committee, Division I
cc:
PSU alumni networking
Unlike
Penn State Trustees Karen Peetz and Kenneth Frazier when they affirmed the
Freeh Report’s findings on Penn State’s behalf without authorization by a vote
from the Board of Trustees, I need to say up front that I am speaking as an
individual, with NO authority to negotiate on behalf of anybody involved in the
two current lawsuits against the NCAA. I am also not an attorney, and cannot
give anybody legal advice. Having said that, here is the NCAA’s current
situation. If the Paterno family and Senator Corman have to press their
lawsuits home, the NCAA could easily be hit with scathing court decisions that
reflect on its fitness to regulate college athletics or serve as a role model
for college athletes. Nobody has any use for a bully who misuses his authority,
or a capricious and arbitrary referee who makes up rules rather than going by
the book.
(1)
The
Commonwealth’s courts have taken a very dim official view of the sanctions in
question, and Judge Anne Covey just said that the NCAA and Penn State were
trying to usurp her
court’s authority by continuing to agree to the sanctions.
·
The
Commonwealth Court’s opinion of 4/09/2014 (409, as in the number of Coach
Paterno’s victories) hinted not only that the sanctions were illegitimate, but
also that the Trustees whom Mark Emmert says are supportive of the sanctions
were derelict in their fiduciary duty for not challenging them. Allies like
that are weaknesses, and not assets.
·
State
Senator Yudichak added that their recent (August 2014) support of the sanctions
proved that personal
agendas, and not a Penn State agenda, are driving the Board’s actions.
(2)
The
NCAA based its sanctions on “Penn State’s” acceptance of the Freeh Report’s
findings that Penn State administrators and Coach Paterno covered up for Jerry
Sandusky.
·
Penn State never accepted the Freeh
Report’s findings,
as proven by the absence of any vote in the July 2012 Board meeting along with
statements from Trustees Joel Myers and Anthony Lubrano. The NCAA knew or
should have known that Peetz and Frazier had no authority to speak for the
University.
(3)
The
NCAA’s own recently published guidelines on sexual violence and harassment
prove that Coach Paterno did what he was supposed to do, and would have
violated the NCAA’s rules by “doing more.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is known
as tripping over one’s own feet.
(4)
NCAA
head Mark Emmert and former Penn State President Rodney Erickson say the NCAA
threatened Penn State with the death penalty. NCAA official Ed Ray says the
death penalty was never on the table, and Ameen Najjar went even further by
saying Erickson sold Penn State down the river.
(5)
Louis
Freeh is becoming more problematic on a daily basis.
·
Freeh
just stepped down as head of his law firm, and now his investigative work
regarding the BP oil spill is being questioned officially.
·
Former
Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff accused him of acting as a hired gun (unprofessional
conduct) in his investigative report for Wynn Resorts.
·
A
European court for sports regulation found his work for FIFA to be substandard.
·
His
work for Penn State is riddled with contradictory and dishonest statements.
(6)
E-mails
obtained per a Freedom of Information request show that Kenneth Frazier, one of
the leading Trustees who supports the Consent Decree, sent Freeh a link to an
ESPN story very hostile to Coach Paterno and Penn State’s “football culture”
while Freeh’s purportedly confidential and independent investigation was still
in progress.
The
NCAA needs to realize that, if it hasn’t yet figured it out, that it is in this
position because of Penn State’s Trustees, and I mean in particular those whom
the NCAA says support the sanctions. Those Trustees will drag the NCAA’s
credibility down with their own if this controversy continues much longer. I
think the NCAA needs to talk to the plaintiffs and their attorneys about a
face-saving way to revoke all the sanctions while the NCAA can still maintain
the dignified outward appearance of having some control over the outcome, and
let the Trustees who are still scrambling to cover up their mismanagement of
the Sandusky scandal fend for themselves.
