COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - As the country absorbs the independent report released Thursday on the Penn State sex abuse scandal, some see it as more than an indictment of one school. They see it as underscoring how major-college sports, football in particular, have run amok.
The investigators determined that Penn State officials, including the university president and legendary coach Joe Paterno, protected their cash-cow football program instead of young boys who were victimized by former Nittany Lions assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
Some say the case will spark change but Murray Sperber, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is skeptical. He says he's seen too many scandals where "nobody learned anything."
Meanwhile, a newspaper says Penn State football coach Joe Paterno testified before a grand jury in a sex-abuse investigation of a longtime assistant coach the same month he began negotiating an amendment to his contact.
The New York Times says Paterno and the university reached agreement on the amended contract that eventually totaled $5.5 million in August, months before charges were filed against Jerry Sandusky.
The contract included a $3 million career bonus if Paterno retired at the end of the 2011 season. It also included access to a stadium box for his family for 25 years, parking privileges and access to hydrotherapy equipment for his wife.
Paterno was fired in November and died in January. Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 45 counts.
Paterno family attorney Wick Sollers told the newspaper Friday that it was Penn State that proposed the package, and that many elements had existed in previous contracts.
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