NCAA lightens Penn State penalties

Associated Press

Penn State’s football team on Monday got out from under some of the severe sanctions imposed on it two years ago over the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal, learning the NCAA will allow it to compete in this year’s postseason and that all scholarships will return in 2015.

The surprise announcement, linked to progress the school has made reforming its athletics programs, moved the university a step farther away from the fallout from Sandusky, the former assistant coach convicted of sexual abuse of 10 boys, including acts inside university facilities.

The scandal badly tarnished what had been one of college sports’ most respected programs and led to charges of a criminal cover-up against former university administrators Graham Spanier, Gary Schultz and Tim Curley, whose cases are still pending.

Penn State had been halfway through a four-year postseason ban handed down during the summer of 2012. Some of the scholarships were restored earlier than expected a year ago.