These are quotes assembled by Joel Myers.

Many people have asked where is the truth about the alleged threat made to Penn State President Rod Erickson by the NCAA over the death penalty. It seems clear from published information that the NCAA threatened Penn State President Rod Erickson with the death penalty, at least up until July 20, 2012. The published reports, presented below, suggest that if they decided then not to impose the death penalty, it seems they did so secretly and did not advise Penn State that the death penalty, previously threatened, was off of the table when the Consent Decree was offered. But even that NCAA story seems in doubt in reading the quote and reports below. Ed Ray, Oregon State President, is widely quoted as indicating that the death penalty was never considered, yet his actual words indicate two votes were taken on the death penalty, one in the Executive Committee and one in the Division I Board. This means they did seriously consider it why else would a vote be taken. Further Emmert is clear the vote Ray referred to was because, in the Division I Board, they had coalesced around a decision: Shut down Penn State's football program for four years. Additionally Mark Emmert, NCAA President, is quoted as saying that Penn States willingness to accept the penalties without due process was what saved Penn State from the death penalty. This is an outrageous statement that suggests if Penn State wanted due process, it would be summarily executed. It seems it was a game of threat, coercion, and deceit by the NCAAs in dealing with Penn State and in comments afterward.

Quotes by Ed Ray (the quotes below come from the Oregon State Beavers: A Q&A with Dr. Ed Ray, OSU president, on the NCAA's ruling on Penn State. Published: Monday, July 23, 2012, 5:16 PM Updated: Monday, July 23, 2012, 5:34 PM By John Hunt, The Oregonian.) I think it culminated with the Freeh Report that was commissioned and accepted without exception by the university. It was the release of that report and the acceptance of the findings by the university itself and the concurrence with the NCAA that led us to move forward with deliberations over whether or not it would be appropriate to create a set of punitive and corrective actions by the NCAA to be imposed on Penn State University hopefully in a consent decree, where the university accepts proposed actions we put forward, and thats what happened. As part of that, we talked about whether suspension of play ought to be one of the actions that we would call for. But the overwhelming vote we took a vote in both the executive committee and the Division I board was not to include a suspension of play or death penalty,

and then we quickly moved to the menu of actions that you heard about today, and we voted unanimously to support that package. At no time did we ever have a discussion about, If they dont do this, were going to do that. That is a conversation that never occurred. I think most universities do operate with great integrity, do have wonderful community and institutional values that they adhere to. So these are corrective actions for a university that lost on its values and its culture, and weve proposed very specific corrective actions for Penn State.

Quotes by Dr. Mark Emmert: According to a story written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Don Van Natta Jr., Emmert called Erickson July 17 and "told him the majority of the NCAA's Division I board of directors - - 18 university presidents - had coalesced around a decision: Shut down Penn State's football program for four years." Gene Marsh, a former chairman of the NCAA's infractions committee who defended former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, had been hired by Penn State to help negotiate sanctions in the wake of the scandal. According to Van Natta, Marsh received a call July 17 from Donald Remy, the NCAA's general counsel. Remy told Marsh that Penn State was facing a death penalty for multiple seasons. Inside the negotiations that brought Penn State football to the brink of extinction. Updated: August 4, 2012, 4:37 PM ET By Don Van Natta Jr. | ESPN The Magazine On July 17 Emmert was interviewed on PBS and said the following: What the appropriate penalties are if there are determinations of violations we will have to decide and we will hold in abeyance all those decisions until we have actually decided what we want to do with actual charges should there be any. I dont want to take anything off the table. The fact is this is completely different than an impermissible benefit scandal at SMU or anything else we have dealt with. July 23rd http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--mark-emmert-ncaa-president-penn-state-sanctionsexclusive-interview-joe-paterno.html Emmert told Y! Sports that a multi-year suspension of the football program was "vigorously discussed" with members of the Division I Board of Directors. Ultimately, Penn State's willingness to take its medicine commissioning, accepting and making public the damaging Freeh Commission report, and accepting massive NCAA penalties without due process helped save the school from a complete shutdown of football for a season or longer, Emmert said. July 24th http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57478499/why-ncaa-decided-against-deathpenalty-for-penn-state/

Many people wanted us to impose the so called death penalty the suspension of play. The reason that I and the executive committee decided not to impose the death penalty was that it was too blunt an instrument. It effects too many people that had utterly nothing to do with these affairs.

Quotes by Dr. Rod Erickson (the quotes below are from the Board Discussion, Public Meeting, Sunday, August 12, 2012.): Emmert indicated that our only chance to avoid the death penalty along with sanctions might be to offer a consent decree that would have unprecedented penalties but would allow us to keep our program running. President Emmert and the NCAA staff indicated throughout the week that it was not at all clear that the NCAA Board members would accept the consent decree without involving the death penalty or penalties even more severe and we didnt know until late Saturday that the NCAA Board was willing to go along with the consent decree option and it was late Saturday that we learned that. During the week I kept the Board of Trustees leadership, Chairman Peetz and Vice Chairman Masser briefed that there were discussions with the NCAA that were moving along very quickly, that the sanctions were going to be severe in any case and that the NCAA had said emphatically that any leak of these discussions by Penn State would take any deal off the table and the NCAA would go the other route. (Meaning death penalty)