The family of late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno released a statement Wednesday regarding the State of Pennsylvania's lawsuit against the NCAA, calling it "encouraging."
Gov. Tom Corbett officially announced at a press conference on Wednesday morning that the state was filing an anti-trust lawsuit against the NCAA in an effort to throw out all of the harsh sanctions that were issued against the school on July 23 as a result of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
The sanctions include a $60 million fine, along with a four-year postseason ban, scholarship reductions for the football team and 112 vacated wins, 111 of which previously belonged to Paterno.
After former FBI director Louis Freeh's report on the Sandusky case and related matters was released last July, the Paterno family said it would take matters to review the report, and the statement put out Wednesday said that process is almost finished. In addition, the Paterno family said it hadn't yet had an opportunity to review the state's lawsuit against the NCAA, and added the matter is "far from closed."
The full statement is as follows:
"As we have not yet had an opportunity to review the lawsuit filed by Governor Corbett today, we cannot comment on the specifics of the litigation. What we do know, however, is that this matter is far from closed. The fact that Governor Corbett now realizes, as do many others, that there was an inexcusable rush to judgment is encouraging.
"Joe Paterno's only guidance to us was to seek the truth. Consequently, last July when the Freeh report was released and the subsequent unprecedented and unjustified actions were taken by the Penn State University Board and the NCAA, we stated that we would engage a team of experts to conduct a careful and thoughtful review of the Freeh inquiry and the actions of the Board and the Administration. That process is nearing completion. We expect to release the analysis of the experts in the near future. At that time we will address all of the issues of the past year in a comprehensive manner."
