quote:
In a statement, Penn State said, "It has been public knowledge for almost three years that the University had agreed that the NCAA and the Big Ten Conference would monitor the progress of the Freeh investigation. While the NCAA may have made suggestions to the Freeh Group with respect to its investigation, the scope of the Freeh investigation was established by the Penn State Board of Trustees, as set forth in the Freeh engagement letter, not by the NCAA.

It reads like Freeh chose what to investigate after hearing the NCAA's input. I'm not sure why this is terribly damning. Freeh couldn't very well fail to communicate with the NCAA RE: what they knew and what they thought was suspicious any more than he could fail to investigate Sandusky, PSU, Jo Pa etc.

It seems reasonable to think (based on the allegations in teh story) that Freeh heard their input and then made his own decisions RE: what to pursue (this is implied in the story as well). The fact that the NCAA asked for updates from him to deal with the ongoing media story hardly seems damning either - what else were they going to do? Issue statements that their investigator would later contradict?

Assuming Freeh was the man driving the investigation it reads like the NCAA followed his lead - rather than the other way around.

And why is this story completely missing commentary from Freeh? The heart of the accusation is that he was improperly influenced. I'd think the former director of the FBI would be pretty ticked off to hear that assertion. He was under no obligation to bend his knee to the authority of the NCAA - if anything the NCAA being image conscious made them likely to accept anything he said out of concern that he could shame them in public for non-compliance with his recommendations.