Judge disregards NCAA, grants extension | Centre Daily Times

NCAA arguments about expediency didn’t move a federal judge, who sided with state counsel Wednesday.

Judge Yvette Kane did not even address the NCAA’s arguments in her order granting the “enlargement of time” requested by Gov. Tom Corbett and Mark Zimmer, chairman of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. The parties now have until Oct. 29 to submit briefs in the case.

Zimmer and Corbett made the motion due to a conflict on the part of their lawyer, Senior Deputy General Counsel Linda Barrett. The request came after the NCAA’s own motion for an expedited judgment in its case, seeking to have the state’s Endowment Act declared unconstitutional.

That legislation, passed in 2013, would keep the $60 million in fines levied by the NCAA against Penn State after the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal in Pennsylvania. It was declared constitutional by the Commonwealth Court in April.

The NCAA requested the expedited judgment Oct. 6. Attorneys in that filing specifically sought the federal ruling to render moot a scheduled Jan. 6 trial ordered by Commonwealth Court Judge Anne Covey that would determine the validity of the consent decree between Penn State and the NCAA that allowed the fine and other penalties to be put in place.

Corbett and Auditor General Eugene DePasquale were dismissed as defendants in the NCAA’s suit Monday, the same day the request for an extension was made. Zimmer and state Treasurer Rob McCord remain defendants.