Penn State and the NCAA have come to an agreement that will restore the 112 wins taken away from the school’s football program in 2012 over its mishandling of the Jerry Sandusky child-molestation scandal. And Keith Olbermann is pissed off about it.
The ESPN anchor, who is not exactly one to mince words, named the two parties the “world’s worst” during his show on Friday (it starts around 2:00 in the video above). The agreement will once again make the late Joe Paterno the winningest coach in major college football history. Paterno was accused in a 2012 report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh of covering up the scandal to avoid bad press, which allegedly allowed Sandusky to continue to abuse children.
In his segment, Olbermann took the NCAA and Penn State to task for continuing to worry about the legacy of its football program and coach.
“This is Joe Paterno’s legacy. This is Penn State’s legacy,” Keith Olberman said. “Football was more important to them than saving children."
Here’s the transcription of the segment, emphasis ours:
The awful rumors are true and the association and the school have indeed agreed on a settlement of a lawsuit over the punishment Penn State got after the Jerry Sandusky disaster and the university’s and Joe Paterno’s negligence -- and that’s the kind word for it -- regarding the horrors suffered by countless children, many inside Penn State football facilities.
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In short, the NCAA says that in exchange for an agreement that the $60 million the school was fined will be spent only in Pennsylvania to address child abuse there, the 112 wins that had been stricken from the records of the the school, including the 111 wins erased from the record of coach Joe Paterno, all the victories after the first time police were called by a parent about Sandusky showering with their child and Penn State’s damnable cover-up really began -- all those victories will now be restored and Paterno will again become the winningest coach in major college football history because, of course, he was the real victim here.
This could be discussed for hours but the only two things that are to my mind essential points right now: the naivete which still much exists in the minds of NCAA and Penn State and defenders of Joe Paterno, as if this decision or anything else will ever lessen the guilt the university and Paterno share or ever reduce the disgust which the names “Penn State football” and “Joe Paterno” will produce for decades to come. This is Joe Paterno’s legacy. This is Penn State’s legacy. Football was more important to them than saving children.
And the second point: It is hard to believe that the NCAA and the school could take the most nauseating, the most horrifying, the most indefensible institutionalization of corruption in American sports -- the Jerry Sandusky scandal -- and make it worse. But today they just did. Well, what did you expect? They are the NCAA and Penn State.
(h/t Deadspin)