What Is The Difference Between Vacate And Forfeit To A Lot Of Penn State Football Players

The scandal that ended Penn State university as a football powerhouse, the case of the convicted child molester perv Jerry Sandusky, has claimed a lot more people than those directly or indirectly involved in the scandal.
Say hundreds of Penn State football player who had the misfortune of playing under the late former coach, Joe Paterno.
For you see, as part of the penalty thrown down by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), all the wins that Penn State football had between 1998-2011 have been "vacated".
Vacated? What exactly does that mean?
Well, lets take a look at the dictionary for the meaning as a verb and a noun.
Here is vacate as a verb:

1. to give up possession or occupancy of: to vacate an apartment.

2. to give up or relinquish (an office, position, etc.): to vacate the presidency of a firm.

3. to render inoperative; deprive of validity; void; annul: to vacate a legal judgment.

4. to cause to be empty or unoccupied; make vacant: to vacate one's mind of worries.

Oh, and here is vacate as a verb in legalese:

	a.to cancel or rescind
	b.to make void or of no effect; annul

There is no noun for vacate, so lets go to the noun definition of forfeit:

1. a fine; penalty.

2. an act of forfeiting; forfeiture.

3. something to which the right is lost, as for commission of a crime or misdeed, neglect of duty, or violation of a contract.

4. an article deposited in a game because of a mistake and redeemable by a fine or penalty.

5. forfeits, ( used with a singular verb ) a game in which such articles are taken from the players

So, if one looks at the definitions for both words, there is a lot of similarity. The closest vacate comes to is the legal definition A-to cancel or rescind. And for forfeit, the closest to what happened is 5-(used with a singular verb) a game in which such articles are taken from the players.

OK, to a player, what is the difference?

NOTHING! Not one damn thing.

It is semantics. OK, the NCAA is not forcing Penn State to forfeit their wins. That starts getting complicated because a lot of schools would thus have to adjust their records that reflect wins when they were losses. And it would possibly affect some teams that may have been on the bubble of getting possible bowl invites. No, vacating just is cleaner, right?
No, it is not. Because for those who played the games, win or lose, they are all losses now. Maybe not in the records, but they are deemed losses. Especially because those games from 1998-2011 were coached by the focus of evil in the modern world, Joe Paterno.
What the NCAA is really doing is sticking it to a dead guy the only way that they feel they could. But again there is a helluva lot of collateral damage for those players. Players that for once had not one thing to do with this scandal. A real scandal of epic proportions.
You know what else is a scandal? Lashing out at JoPa, as Mr. Paterno was once affectionately called before his unceremonious fall.
Why one would think that JoPa was some Svengali and he was totally in charge of Penn State.
The fact of the matter is that everyone involved played each other and it was to all their benefit to not let this Sandusky scandal, well become one.
Because a successful college program brings big bucks to a university, yes often times the administrators will look the other way when the coaching and athletic bosses try to get a leg up any way possible. And yes, some violate NCAA rules. As long as the money rolls in, everyone is happy.
The fact is ALL involved were short sighted.
The fact that JoPa basically did not want to believe that the man he wanted to be his successor as coach was in fact a horrible perv should have been a sign to school administrators that he may have overstayed his time. But hey, as long as over 110,000 were packing Beaver Stadium and there was money coming in from numerous streams, well they looked the other way.
What should have happened is that JoPa should have been eased out and a successor named around 1999. Then the non-athletic administrators should have turned Mr. Sandusky over to the authorities.
But that did not happen.
And the NCAA wants to make an example out of a dead man, JoPa. And in the process have to twist and turn to explain to the hundreds that played football for the Penn State Nittany Lions that well, their efforts were nice. But we "vacated" your wins. It is the only way to nail that dead guy, JoPa.
Which shows that the NCAA does not really get it.
Seeking vengeance, no matter how appealing it may seem does nothing to address the problem. That way too many people just looked the other way. They all enabled each other.
Again, the players did nothing wrong. They are the ones being punished. Yes, it is beyond punitive. It is petty. It showed how in reality the NCAA was in fact and indeed impotent in meting out a punishment and potential redemption for the future.
To the players that played football for Penn State from 1998-2011, there is no difference between forfeiting all their wins and vacating them. They are losses to them. And a tragedy in an attempt to seek righteous justice for those young boys molested by a man with power, Jerry Sandusky. Remember, Mr. Sandusky is the one that committed the crimes. Even if he was not stopped, he is the one that must pay the most. Not players whose only "crime" was playing for the wrong school, the wrong coach at the wrong time.

Perversion At Penn State And The Search For Scapegoats

Gerald Sandusky maybe one of the most dangerous men in America if sexual abuse of young boys charges filed by a Pennsylvania grand jury are even remotely true.
The former Penn State football player and assistant coach has been indicted on 40 counts of sex crimes against young boys (all under 18 years old) over a period of at least 15 years if not more. And almost worst is the fact that Mr. Sandusky started a charity for underprivileged, foster children known as The Second Mile back in 1977.
One can only wonder now if that was but a front for Mr. Sandusky to find young boys to have his way with, sexually.
The indictment here is graphic and NSFW.
Mr. Sandusky's alleged perverion even reached the man he hoped to succeed one day as the Penn State head football coach, Joe Paterno.
But it does not end with Mr. Paterno.
The athletic director, Tim Curley. The director of finance, Gary Schultz. The University president, Graham Spanier.
But a strange turn of events has occurred.
Mr. Paterno and Mr. Spanier were fired last night. Yet Mr. Curley and Mr. Schultz are on administrative leave.
Mr. Paterno and Mr. Spanier are not charged with a crime.
Yet Mr. Curley and Mr. Schultz are charged with failure to report an incident.
So, my question is why is Mr. Paterno and Mr. Spanier taking the fall while those that were told and allegedly did nothing are still employed by the university.
Because there has to be a scapegoat.
Or in this case, two scapegoats.
After all, in reading the indictment, Mr. Paterno did report to his superiors the incident in which the graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, told Mr. Paterno about an incident. The incident in question was Mr. McQueaey allegedly saw Mr. Sandusky engaging in anal intercourse in a shower on campus. In the indictment, Mr. McQueary notified Mr. Paterno and in turn he notified his immediate superior, Mr. Curley.
But when you read the indictment, you realize that Mr. Curley and Mr. Schultz did not do the kind of follow up that they were supposed to do.
Again, those two men are still employed by the university.
Mr. Paterno is sullied for life because he did the right thing.
The real question is did Mr. Paterno do enough?
That is where I would say he should have done some follow up. But, what about the one who told Mr. Paterno, Mr. McQueary? Did he not try to see what was done?
A lot of people really failed these young boys. At some level, yes even someone like Mr. Paterno could have done more.
But again, why is he the one fired?
Because he is the easy scapegoat.
And I suppose that Mr. Spanier is as well. Because after all, he was the university president and should have known better, right?
I certainly do not condone the riots done last night in reaction to the Paterno firing. After all, he decided to retire before the university board of trustees got their first scalp.
But the legal system must do its thing. And two other men need to be fired now. They would be Mr. Curley and Mr. Schultz.
Looking for temporary scapegoats makes things only maybe temporarily better. It does not begin to do justice for those boys forever harmed by this man, Sandusky.
If any of the charges against Mr. Sandusky are true, he is one sick dude.
But the witch hunt and the CYA* is worse than seeking true justice.

*CYA-Covering Your A--.