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Saturday, October 20, 2012

Sports in the Board Room

By Allie Grasgreen
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published October 10, 2012


The very morning that the man whose actions brought down top administrators at Pennsylvania State University was being condemned to at least 30 years in prison for child abuse, critics of big-time collegiate athletics gathered here were discussing the role -- or lack thereof -- of university governing boards in sports programs.

In documenting the many failings revealed by the abuse scandal at Penn State, the report by Louis J. Freeh documented the faults of the university's former president, Graham Spanier -- among them, neglecting to adequately alert the 32-member Board of Trustees about red flags regarding former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

But equally or even more so at fault, the report said, was the board itself, whose trustees failed to ask questions of Spanier or themselves, such as whether they should conduct an internal investigation. They lacked the necessary structures even to make sure they got the information they needed to properly assess and address potential risks, the report said.

And so officials from the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges recognized the “crisis” at Penn State and role the board played in it, as they presented the findings of a new survey and report on board responsibilities for intercollegiate athletics here Wednesday at a meeting of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

The entire story is here.