"Everybody's always worried about what the punishment is," he told a small gathering of reporters before taking the stage at the final day of Southeastern Conference Media Days Thursday. "The way I always try to look at it is, 'What's the outcome?'"
This is why Saban suggested a plan for Penn State, which various journalists have said should have its football program receive the NCAA "death penalty" after a recent report said top school officials, including late football coach Joe Paterno, covered up former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's activities with young boys. Last month, a grand jury found Sandusky guilty of 45 of 48 charges of sexual abuse of several young boys.
"This is a very, very criminal situation that probably reflects poorly on a lot of folks," said Saban, who played Penn State yearly in the Big Ten when he was Michigan State's head coach from 1995-99 and beat the Nittany Lions 27-11 in "Happy Valley" last season.
"It's probably almost too raw to really have a feeling that I can express," he said. "It needs something that's a win-win type thing for kids in the future and the people that are there now and the players that are there now. Maybe they ought to tax all the tickets they sell on athletics and give the proceeds to some child abuse organization or something like that, rather than worrying about some punishment for the school that is really going to have no positive affect on anything."
When asked a follow-up question on his idea, Saban had regrets.
"I probably shouldn't have said that. I'm just a regular old football coach," he said. But he went on to support his suggestion and used his player discipline as an example.
"I'll tell a (wayward) player, 'What outcome do you want?' Do you want to graduate from school? Do you want to play in the NFL some day? If that's the outcome that you want, this behavior is not becoming of that," Saban said. "So what do we need to do to make it better?"
Saban was asked about his tax plan during the formal press conference.
"I just think that more focus on outcome is always more beneficial," he said. "It might create a situation in the future that would be beneficial to someone."
Georgia coach Mark Richt was asked about his thoughts on the Penn State scandal and had little comment.
"It's sad that that been the topic of conversation around the country," he said. "I don't know what needs to be done."
Source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomCollegeSports-TopStories/~3/LpFo814rhgE/1
No comments:
Post a Comment