Penn State's woes after the conviction of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted on charges of child molestation and abuse, have not ended. In fact, if anything, the future is increasingly dim for the celebrated team. The National Collegiate Athletic Association recently imposed a $60 million penalty on the university a figure that the organization says is equal to the annual revenues of the football program at Penn State.

There were a number of other nasty surprises for Penn State. The football team has been banned from bowl games for 4 years, and will suffer a huge reduction in scholarships. Those penalties are likely to have a severe effect on the football team.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association has also held that any current or incoming players can transfer immediately to compete at another school without fear of penalty. This has raised fears that it could lead to a massive exodus from the team. That would financially cripple the team, and lead to not just declining admissions at the university, but fewer donations from alumni. Even worse, the National Collegiate Athletic Association decided to vacate team victories from 1998 through 2011, effectively erasing Paterno's record as the most successful football coach of all time.

Those penalties came after damning accusations leveled at some of the highest authorities of Penn state, including coach Paterno. The allegations are that college authorities including Paterno were aware of allegations of child abuse and sexual molestation involving children by Sandusky. However, these entities did nothing to bring the abuse to the attention of law enforcement authorities.

Clearly the, National Collegiate Athletic Association wanted to make an example out of Penn State, in the face of public outrage over the Sandusky child abuse case.