Paterno will be honored
Penn State has no date yet
PITTSBURGH — Joe Paterno is gone from Penn State, but the university president said Wednesday night that the fired legendary football coach will not be forgotten.
Rodney Erickson, at a meeting attended by more than 600 alumni, said the university will eventually honor Paterno, fired Nov. 9 amid the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
“I can’t tell you yet what it will be or when it will be,” Erickson said, “but we will publicly honor Joe and his wife, Sue, for all the many things they have done for the university, both from an athletic standpoint and an academic standpoint.”
Erickson also will meet with alumni tonight in Philadelphia and Friday in New York.
Erickson, promoted from provost when Graham Spanier was fired as university president in November, said he has not spoken to Paterno since the coach was fired but did send a note Wednesday, thanking him for his contributions to the university and to wish him well in his fight against lung cancer.
Meanwhile, Erickson defended Penn State’s search for a new coach. It took the school nearly two months before hiring New England Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’brien.
“The football coach is going to be at Penn State a lot longer than I will be,” said Erickson, who plans to retire in 2014. “It was very important to bring the right person into our situation, and we feel strongly we have found that man. Coach O’brien fully understands what we are about as a university and has expressed publicly that he knows he is standing on the shoulder of what Joe Paterno has built.”
Erickson is trying to repair the school’s image with alumni, faculty, staff and students, more than two months after Sandusky’s arrest. Some alumni have criticized the university’s failing to conduct a complete investigation before firing Paterno and ousting Spanier.
The town hall meeting came as investigators re-interview current and former employees of Penn State’s athletic department as part of the case against Sandusky, 67, the Nittany Lions’ longtime defensive coordinator who is charged with abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period. He has maintained his innocence and is free on $250,000 bail.
Tim Curley, the athletics director who is on leave, and former vice president Gary Schultz face charges they lied to a grand jury investigating Sandusky and failed to properly report suspected child abuse. Both have denied the allegations.
While Penn State’s public image has taken a beating, Erickson said he was heartened by the Nittany Lions’ participation in the Ticketcity Bowl on Jan. 2.
“So many people came up to me and told me how impressed they were with our studentathletes and how they conducted themselves,” Erickson said. “They said, ‘That’s Penn State; those players are Penn State.’ That made me feel good, because we will not let our football program be defined by what has happened.”
Loophole closed:
A year and a day after Cam Newton led Auburn to a football national title, the NCAA closed the loophole that allowed him to play.
The Division I legislative council endorsed a measure Wednesday expanding its definition of an agent to include family who directly or indirectly market an athlete for profit as Newton’s father tried to do as the quarterback was being recruited out of junior college.
Among the specific targets: anyone who “seeks to obtain any type of financial gain or benefit from securing a prospective student-athlete’s enrollment at an educational institution or a from a student-athlete’s potential earnings as a professional athlete.”
Such activity would render the athlete ineligible.
The issue has boiled since revelations in 2010 that Cecil Newton tried to get six-figure payment from Mississippi State for his son’s recruiting commitment. Cam Newton claimed no knowledge of the infraction and, with that, the NCAA said it had no recourse under current rules to suspend him.
Newton went on to win the Heisman Trophy and lead Auburn to the national title.
The change takes effect immediately as long as the Division I board of directors doesn’t quash or delay it when it meets Saturday.