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Grambling State University’s legendary coach Eddie Robinson is now the winningest coach in Division I college football, following the NCAA’s decision to vacate 111 wins in the wake of a child molestation scandal at Penn State University (PSU). (Photo: AP)

Grambling State University’s legendary coach Eddie Robinson is now the winningest coach in Division I college football, following the NCAA’s decision to vacate 111 wins in the wake of a child molestation scandal at Penn State University (PSU).

In addition, the NCAA announced Monday, a $60 million fine against Penn State University (PSU), a four-year postseason ban and the loss of 10 scholarships per year for the next four years, with a limit of 65 total scholarship players on the roster, as opposed to the typical 85, by the 2014 season. The school’s athletic department also will be on probation for five years.

The wins vacated covers the period from 1998, when university officials first heard allegations of child abuse against the former assistant football coach, through 2011, when the late head football coach Joe Paterno, then the winningest coach in college football, was fired.

That moved Robinson, with 408 total career wins, to the No. 1 spot overall. Florida State’s Bobby Bowden is considered No. 1 with 377 wins in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).

The fines, which are estimated to be the equivalent of what PSU’s football program earns in a year, “must be paid into an endowment for external programs preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims and may not be used to fund such programs at the university,” the NCAA said in a statement

It was a debilitating air strike that not only punished Penn State, and Paterno, who died in January, posthumously,  after officials covered up for former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted last month of 45 counts of child sex abuse.

The penalties spread collateral damage on an elite football program that was recognized for one of the highest graduation rates in the country for student athletes and a coach who was hailed for representing integrity in sports.

The fallout basically prevents Penn State from being competitive in the Big Ten play and sets up the possibility of mass defections by players who will be allowed to transfer to other universities where they can play immediately.

In announcing the penalties at a news conference Monday, NCAA President Mark Emmert said in some ways the punishment can never be enough.

“In the Penn State case, the results were perverse and unconscionable,” he said. “No price the NCAA can levy will repair the damage inflicted by Jerry Sandusky on his victims.”

From 1941, until his retirement in 1997, Robinson led Grambling and sent hundreds of players to the NFL, including the first player from a historically black college, Paul “Tank” Younger.

Last week, Grambling city attorney Pamela Breedlove Mayor Edward Jones sent a 3-pageletter to the NCAA asking it to vacate some of Paterno’s wins in order to restore the Division I football victories record to Robinson, citing the independent investigation of the PSU’s actions by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, according to The Shreveport Times.

“Even though it was done by outside counsel, the Freeh Report was the university’s report,” Breedlove told the newspaper. “It said what their employees, including coach Paterno, did wrong. We’re hoping the end result of this is coach Robinson will get his record back so everyone will think a great man holds this record.”

At a news conference Monday, Grambling State President Frank G. Pogue, PhD, welcomed the NCAA sanctions.

“We support the NCAA’s decision regarding the sanctions against Football Coach Joe Paterno. We will continue to acknowledge the legendary Eddie G. Robinson as the winningest Division I football coach in American History. On a larger level, we will always respect and thank him for bringing integrity into sports and the culture of Grambling,” Pogue said.

“Because of the human being he was known to be, Eddie G. Robinson would have been the first person to express regrets about the tragedies that occurred at Penn State…”

Penn State football program alumnus LaVar Arrington, who played for Washington in the NFL, wrote in his blog on Monday.

“A strong punishment was necessary. Otherwise I don’t think it would have been accepted by those looking on from around the country,” Arrington wrote.

“Many may feel that football defined us; we know different,” Arrington said.

“There was a failure by individuals in powerful positions at the school, and it has impacted everyone from Penn State, including those who played on its football team. We shoulder those mistakes because we must; it’s the right way. We didn’t make this mess, but we can now start to fix it.”

“The shocking thing is the amount of evidence they found,” said David Steele, a columnist for The Sporting News, said of the Freeh report, which encompassed well over 200 pages.

Steele, who wrote a column about the sanctions Monday, told BlackAmericaWeb.com there is plenty of blame to go around, from officials who already have been sanctioned or fired up to “the board of trustees and a lot of people there who chose to overlook a lot of stuff.”

But he particularly singled out former President Graham Spanier, who blasted the Freeh report and denied he harbored a pedophile, referring to the report’s finding that Spanier and other officials covered up reports that Sandusky molested boys participating in a youth sports camp he directed on the university campus.

Spanier, Steele said, was in a position to put an end to the travesty as soon as he learned of it.

“He’s the one at the top,” Steele said. “He could have said, ‘This is how we’re going to do this. We’re not going to have a meeting about it; we’re not going to discuss it; this is what we’re going to do’ and he didn’t do it.”

Steel was asked if the NCAA might now take some action to look at similar programs at campuses around the country.

“They’ve kind of opened the door to being able to do that. It just sort of reminds people that there are these camps all over the place that are vulnerable,” he said.

“It’s obvious now that if it happened at Penn State it could happen anywhere.”