NEW YORK — Penn State’s trustees are on a mission to promote the reforms they have enacted as a result of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal, hoping their record might persuade the NCAA to reconsider its crippling penalties against the university before they are due to expire in 2018.
Chairman Keith Masser and longtime board member Joel Myers did not offer a time frame for approaching the NCAA during an hourlong interview Wednesday in New York with The Associated Press, but they noted the university’s consent agreement with the NCAA allows the consent agreement to be reopened if both sides agree.
They said the school is still working to implement a long list of governance and oversight changes suggested a year ago in a report from the team led by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.
“You’ve got to serve some jail time before you serve probation,” Masser said. “Everybody wants to get this behind us as soon as possible, so we want to do whatever we can to get this behind us as soon as possible.”
He said the school is now trying to demonstrate “to the NCAA and the entire world” that it aims to embody the highest moral and ethical standards in college sports.
The NCAA agreement, signed in July, includes a $60 million fine, a four-year ban on post-season play, a loss of scholarships and the invalidation of 112 wins from the final years of the late head coach Joe Paterno.
Their public relations push comes a month after university alumni elected three trustees who were endorsed by an alumni group critical of university leadership, and less than a week after Paterno’s family and others with Penn State ties including five current members of the board of trustees sued in an effort to overturn the sanctions.
