Penn State President Rodney Erickson and NCAA spokesman Ed Ray’s conflicting stories about the NCAA’s alleged threat of a death penalty against the Penn State football program require Penn State’s trustees to either fire Erickson or take legal action against the NCAA to enjoin it from imposing its sanctions.

Their failure to do either shows a genuine lack of institutional control at Penn State.

Erickson reaffirmed his story in the Centre Daily Times on Sept. 14: “Erickson said he stands by his previous statements about what happened — that if Penn State hadn’t accepted the sanctions, it would have faced the death penalty.”

The Reading Eagle on Aug. 16, however, quotes Ray as saying, “I can tell you categorically, there was never a threat made to anyone about suspension of play if the consent decree was not agreed to.”

Only one of these stories can be true.

Erickson and Ray are not the only people who have told contradictory stories. Trustee Chairwoman Karen Peetz implied recently that the Freeh group exceeded the scope of its charter by assigning blame to Penn State officials instead of merely making recommendations on how Penn State can improve its governance.

Trustees Mark Dambly and Ken Frazier are, however, on record as saying that part of Louis Freeh’s mission was to find out “who knew what, when” about Jerry Sandusky.

It is simply not possible for Penn State to move forward under leaders who are no longer credible.

William A. Levinson

Wilkes-Barre