Alumni elected trustee Joel Myers sent an email this afternoon to over a thousand Penn State supporters, addressing what he indicates to be a barrage of concerns over how Penn State administrators handled the NCAA sanctions.

Myers says that concerned Penn Staters should place their criticisms on the NCAA. President Erickson and the Board of Trustees have been heavily scrutinized in Penn State circles for how the NCAA sanctions were handled, but it is clear that the NCAA used blackmail tactics and coercion to force Penn State’s agreement.  Indeed, “Fight on State” never meant more.

Trustee Myers full email can be found below:

Dear Penn State Supporters,

I wanted to follow up with all of you who have taken the time to send me and other members of the Board personal notes. The emails I have personally received number well past a thousand.  It is gratifying that you are fired up about this situation, as am I.  Fight on State never meant more.

Please realize I am sending this note in lieu of a personal one, because of the sheer volume of emails I have received.  Rest assured, if you are getting this note, I read your individual email.

No vote was taken at the Sunday meeting August 12^th on any Board matter.  The Board met in unofficial session and was open to the public via streaming internet. Each trustee on the call had a chance to speak and each acknowledged the awful position Penn State was placed in by the NCAA threats to Rod Erickson.

As the Penn State family, we have quarreled with one another enough, I would hope.  You have all asked the following kinds of questions and we can continue to do so.  We can continue to ask why the Consent Decree Imposed by the NCAA was signed under threat and coercion by Penn State.  We can continue to ask why the Board did not have a bigger role. We can continue to ask, as Trustee Lubrano has, why the coach was consulted but he as a trustee was not.  We can continue to ask these and other questions as a family would do when parents, children and others have had a loss inflicted on them and search for an answer that will not come, of what they might have done differently.  Good people make crisis decisions under bad circumstances.

I think the real questions are now different.  And you have already stated them in your emails.  It is not what we could have done differently as the Nittany Nation.  You have asked: Why would the NCAA threaten Penn State.  Why would the NCAA impose such outrageous sanctions without fair process.  Why would Penn State be given time to respond and then the time taken away.  Why would the NCAA allow raiding of our football players by its member schools – hardly good sportspersonship.  Why would the NCAA place penalties that fall unfairly on innocent players, students, alumni and friends.  Your questions and mine about the NCAA approach go on and on.

The Nittany Nation has been directing its ire inward.  It has had a tremendous impact. It is time to do something else

Comments by the trustees who were on the Sunday call has one central theme: it placed the criticism, where it belongs, on the NCAA actions.  Perhaps the NCAA would appreciate hearing your comments.

It’s time to do something new and different.  I believe Rod and Karen did what they thought was correct.

Good men and women can differ but all Penn Staters want the glory back and we deserve it.

We need to put the roar back into the lion.  The Nittany Nation has the American right of freedom of speech. Perhaps the NCAA would like to hear your thoughts.

All the best,

Joel N. Myers