Lawmaker: NCAA Should Fire Chief Over Penn State Sanctions
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Pennsylvania lawmaker whose lawsuit led the NCAA to lift the last of Penn State's sanctions stemming from the Jerry Sandusky scandal said Wednesday the organization misled university officials and that its president, Mark Emmert, should be fired.
Jake Corman, the state Senate's majority leader, also said that under Emmert the NCAA exceeded its legal authority while it pursued the sanctions in 2012 in a bid to expand its own power.
Corman, whose district includes Penn State's main campus, released what he said were 4,900 pages of case documents from the now-settled lawsuit and said he was sending them to the members of the NCAA's executive committee.
"If they review it carefully, they will come to the conclusion that there's a culture problem at the NCAA, and if they truly believe in their core values in their mission statement ... they will determine that Mark Emmert is no longer a credible person to lead this organization," Corman told a packed conference room in his Pennsylvania Capitol office.
Donald Remy, the chief legal officer of college sports' governing body, shot back at Corman, accusing him in a statement of seeking to capitalize politically on a settled matter and maintaining that the NCAA is focused on helping victims of child sexual abuse survivors.
The NCAA agreed last month to restore 112 football wins it had stripped from Penn State and Joe Paterno in the Sandusky child-molestation scandal and to reinstate the venerated late coach as the winningest in major college football history.
The agreement lifted the last of the sanctions imposed in 2012 and settled the lawsuit by Corman and former Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord. The suit initially had sought to ensure Penn State's $60 million fine was spent on child abuse-prevention programs in Pennsylvania, rather than around the nation.
But the case transformed into a test of the legality of the sanctions before the NCAA agreed to settle it in an effort, they said at the time, to stop the litigation from holding up distribution of the university's fine to child abuse-prevention programs.
"It is no coincidence that his political career was simultaneously elevated during a litigation impacting the disbursement of money to child sexual abuse victims nationwide," Remy said in the statement. "In settling the litigation, the NCAA agreed to move forward so that discussions could be rightfully refocused towards child sexual abuse survivors."
To view the documents click here.
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