A Word, Herr Emmert?

Both last Friday and yesterday, Mark Emmert did speaking events in Michigan and Texas, respectively, and not to anyone's surprise, Penn State came up in discussion. Dr. Emmert consistently got facts wrong while saying that he never plans to use the same punishment structure against another school again as a case like this should never happen again. Man, did I nail that publicly-lauded, grandstanding coverup line a month ago.

In response to Dr. Emmert speaking out of his ass, I decided to craft a letter to Dr. Emmert and the NCAA. I should note that this story has nothing to do with Penn State's use of the Freeh Report, so let's not turn the comments section into that bloodbath. If you feel the urge to, go on over to this FanPost and complain about the layout of the site instead. Without further ado...

A Letter To Mark Emmert

Dr. Emmert…

You are a doctor, right? Right, okay, just making sure.

Dr. Emmert,

It’s been awhile since I last tried to speak to you. I tried to offer you some advice on other cases for the NCAA to take a look at as you used the Penn State situation to start becoming the moral authority on all things that pertain to college athletics. You must have not have seen it. That’s fine. I know you have a lot to do. Now that you have your own Twitter though (@NCAAprez), I’m sure you’ll be reading blogs a lot more.

Anyway, I see you’ve done a couple of speaking appearances over the past few days. It’s nice to see you out again. That vacation you took after doing an entire investigation of Penn State must’ve have taken a lot out of you. Oh wait….Well I’m sure pouring over the pages of tiny print of the Freeh Report made you extra tired and you needed some time away…

''As a criminal investigation, it was none of our business, and if back in 1998, Penn State had heard about it and put a stop to it, it would have never been any of our business. When they didn't do that, it became our concern.''

I guess you missed the part where Penn State police opened up an investigation on the 1998 incident and then Child and Youth Services were called and then the district attorney was brought in to do an investigation and everyone gave Jerry Sandusky and Penn State the all-clear. You know what, it was a 267-page document and there were a lot of figures and everything. It was a lot to take in. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.

''Because of the Freeh Report, which was much more extensive than anything the NCAA would have ever done, we felt that we could proceed without our own investigation. They had more power than we have - we don't have subpoena power, which was more or less granted to them by the Penn State Board of Trustees.''

Well, I mean, that isn't exactly true. The Freeh group had no subpoena power. Penn State handed over whatever documents it had, but the Freeh group did not have the power to make Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, Joe Paterno, Wendell Courtney, Cynthia Baldwin, Tom Harmon, Mike McQueary or Graham Spanier speak with them. In fact, Dr. Spanier had to beg Freeh to listen to him days before the report came out. According to his New Yorker article, most of what he said was ignored.

You did read the report, correct, Dr. Emmert?

''It is always a problem in an organization when one group becomes so revered and so powerful that you not only can't control them, you aren't even allowed to question them.

Who would have the power to question anything if everything was covered up like the Freeh Report and you claim, Dr. Emmert? This actually sounds like the group that you head, the NCAA. Fool me once, shame on you, but you fooled me twice and that just won’t stand. You didn’t read the report, did you? YOU SNEAKY MOM!

At least you’re proud of us and our fancy new Academic Integrity Agreement and compliance issues. Not to brag, but we knew we would make you happy all along. Considering it’s been forever since we were out of the top-10 in FBS graduation rates for our football players and we still have yet to commit an actual major NCAA violation, these five years should be easy-peasy. We hope to be an example when it comes to these things and make you even prouder of us. Maybe this academic integrity policy could be used at other schools. Hey, speaking of which, did you hear about that crazy North Carolina news? The NCAA said nothing happ… oh, right. That’s you.

Sorry, I’m getting off topic. I’m a bit excitable these days. Back when I wrote you last time, I mentioned a few other places that were having some of the same "culture" problems we were having. I imagine you’ll deal with these schools the same way.

Potuto, a former chair of the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions, then asked Emmert if the NCAA was considering writing a policy or bylaw, as some news reports have suggested, that would cover its ability to intervene as it did with Penn State. "No, not precisely," he said. "The authority I used in the Penn State case is something I never plan to use again."

So if criminal investigations play out at a place like Montana and it’s proven that football players who raped women got away with things due to their administration’s errors in judgement, you won’t do anything? Oh Christ, Mark…

I can’t do much more of this. One last thing: What would you have done if the Freeh Report wasn’t there and you and your team had to do some grunt work?

Mark Emmert on if he didn't have Freeh Report: "We would have done an investigation." Said it could have taken a year.

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) September 24, 2012

So in the time it would have taken you to do your job and your own investigation, you could have seen the Freeh Report AND the criminal trial that will prove whether the assumptions you based all of these sanctions on are true or not and used a complete body of work to make your decisions?

Welp.

A great talk as usual, Dr. Emmert. Hope that "success of LSU football is essential to the success of Louisiana State University" doesn’t actually get brought up in a press conference one of these days and bites you in the ass.

Until next time…

Dan

Follow @BSDtweet on Twitter
And join us on Facebook
All BSD community members should review our current Posting & Commenting Policies before creating any posts or commenting.