The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Home Archives for 2013

Archives for 2013

Fire Mark Emmert: the petition

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It was inevitable that someone would create a petition to fire Mark Emmert, president of the NCAA and legend in his own mind. Change.org, a bastion of petitioners, gets the prize for being the vehicle for a petition by “Josh O” of Fairfax, Virginia entitled “NCAA: Fire Mark Emmert as President of the NCAA“. It is addressed to David Leebron, Nathan Hatch, Gene Block, Lou Anna Simon, and Judy Genshaft — the NCAA Board of Directors.

You can follow the link above and sign the petition by filling out a brief form on the same page. The Turkey endorses this petition, and thinks you should strongly consider signing it. When last I looked, they had 305 supporters and needed 195 to make it over the first hurdle.

Can the Board of Directors fire Emmert, or has he amassed too much power and become Emperor for Life?

In order to determine exactly what would be involved in shitcanning Emmert, I tried to find the NCAA by-laws on the NCAA.org site, but they’re not published there for us mere mortals. Perhaps someone with Lexis Nexus access can find them for me, as the Turkey lacks the finances to employ such tools, but I digress. It is interesting that the NCAA site is replete with rule books for each division of member institutions, posted in very prominent places, but when it comes to its own framework of rules, it keeps them secret. (Incidentally, they devote an entire page to Penn State sanctions on that site.)

Emmert, the hypocrite, is running a dirty organization but he has thus far kept his hands squeaky clean. As the scandals and internal malfeasance mount, he won’t be able to remain aloof much longer. It is time for the media to turn their negative death rays toward the NCAA in general and Mark Emmert in particular. We’ve seen some of it happening in the past day or two, so there is hope. Come on, sports writers and writerettes, commentators and commentatettes, you don’t want to be left out! Join the media firestorm today!

CBS Sports: Emmert needs to go

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“If they believe that action should be taken toward me or anyone else in the organization they are free to do that.” —Mark Emmert

Dennis Dodd, Senior College Football Columnist for CBSSports.com, calls a spade a spade: “the NCAA is guilty of failure to monitor and lack of institutional control.”

At today’s press conference, Dodd wanted to ask how much Emmert knew and when he knew it, but was cut off and never got to ask it. But his point is well taken, and it resonates with my own feelings about Emmert shirking blame in this case, despicably shitcanning an underling as a scapegoat to divert the attention from his own malfeasance. Dodd and I both believe that Emmert must now step down, as too much hypocritical shit has gone down on his watch.

Says Dodd:

The NCAA executive committee, which employs Mark Emmert at its leisure, … has leverage.

“If they believe that action should be taken toward me or anyone else in the organization they are free to do that,” Emmert said.

Is that a statement or a dare?

Read about it here. Thanks to Joe for the link.

NCAA cans VP who screwed up Miami investigation

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Well, folks, the NCAA internal review ordered by its leader, Mark Emmert, is done, and the scapegoat properly identified, as expected. ?????????? ??????? As those of us who have run consulting assignments know, the ostensible object of the assignment is one thing and the actual desiredresult is another. In this case, it was a “who shall we fire to deflect public criticism from Mark Emmert” assignment.

The result? Vice President of Enforcement Julie Roe Lach got the ax. See the Yahoo Sports story on the subject.

So, what do you think? Emmert comes off as the enforcer’s enforcer and slithers cleanly away from any culpability himself? ??? ???? ????? ?? ???????? You’re thinking like I’m thinking. ????? ???? ?????? Emmert is the “Teflon Don” of the NCAA.

Julie is the fourth member of the NCAA investigative staff to go to the guillotine, voluntarily or not. Her severance follows the dismissals of Ameen Najjar (who also botched the Miami case), Abigail Grantstein (whose boyfriend bragged that she had the power to deny UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad the right to play), and Bill Benjamin, whose short, eight-month tenure as director of enforcement turned quite a few heads, lemme tellya.

Lach was well-respected and broadly regarded as competent. Nevertheless, someone’s head had to roll and you can be damn sure it wasn’t going to be Emmert’s.

I would say that the NCAA is more screwed up than ever, and this scapegoat-seeking review did nothing to dispel that notion. In fact, by taking the action he did, Emmert affirmed the notion.

Meanwhile, Emmert is doing additional damage control by “initiating the process of seeking feedback from NCAA member schools about the best way for [the enforcement arm] of the association to operate.” Expect that to go in one ear and out the other.

Jonathan Duncan has been named interim vice president of enforcement. Anyone want to predict how long he’ll last?

Read more in ESPN.com.

By the way, I’m not the only one who believes that Emmert is hiding behind the contrived culpability of his underlings for the sorry state of the NCAA. He is a grand scale shirker. Dana O’Neil of ESPN has some interesting opinions on the subject.