Joe Paterno, once again, will be the winningest coach in major college football history, but the debate over who won this legal showdown goes on.
NCAA President Mark Emmert and Pennsylvania State Sen. Jake Corman, the lead plaintiff in the case, offered dueling interpretations at separate news conferences Friday, both announcing a settlement in a lawsuit stemming from the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal at Penn State University. Pennsylvania officials brought the suit against the NCAA and Penn State, challenging the validity of the consent decree they signed in 2012 that assigned unprecedented punishment to the school for its failure to act on information years earlier regarding Sandusky.
That consent decree is no more.
The settlement restores 112 victories to Penn State, 111 of those to Paterno, the legendary coach who died three years ago this month. And it directs $60 million — a penalty the school agreed to pay in the consent decree — to programs serving victims of child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania ...
He deserves it.
