Other Sports Random, Random

[Ti-Amie]

I hope that those responsible are held accountable.

I think that most of the jury is made up of residents of the town where Penn State is located. Most of the people there have ties to the University in one way or another. I agree with you skatingfan but I wonder if the fix is already in.

I hope I'm wrong about the jury. I read it during the French Open so I could very well be wrong.

[skatingfan]

I heard that too - including a current student - were members of the jury - it seems like a risky strategy for both sides - either they will vote to protect the university - if Sandusky is not convicted it will be hard to prosecute anyone else for covering it up - or they will want to punish Sandusky to show that the Penn State does take this serious - either way seems bad for justice.

[Moose]

The US Anti-Doping Agency has formally charged Lance Armstrong with doping violations relating to blood samples from 2009 and 2010. For now, he is banned from sanctioned competition, ( including triathlons, where he has been competing lately) and his Tour titles are in jeopardy.

Always wanted to believe Lance. This saddens me.

[Ti-Amie]

BELLEFONTE, Pa. -- For the third day in a row, the jury in the Jerry Sandusky child molestation trial heard graphic testimony from accusers who alleged that they were sexually abused more than a decade ago at the hands of the former Penn State assistant coach.

"I felt his body on my back. I kept lurching forward, but I didn't have any more room to go. I kind of turned away and felt his arm on me, and he touched my genitalia. Then he took my hand and placed it on his," Accuser #5 testified in court today as he fought back tears.

The names of the accusers are being withheld, although they are testifying in open court.

The 23-year-old said he decided to come forward after first telling his girlfriend last year about the alleged 2001 sexual assault by the former Penn State assistant football coach. "I wanted to forget and I was embarrassed," he said, to explain why he had not spoken out sooner.

(...)

Earlier Wednesday, Accuser #10, a 25-year-old man, said he was 11 in 1998 when Sandusky repeatedly invited him to his house and bought him presents. The niceties, however, were costly, he said, explaining some of the price tags involved oral sex.

Like Accuser #5, Accuser #10 said he was, "ashamed ... embarrassed" and scared. "He told me if I ever told anyone, I'd never see my family again," Accuser #10 testified.

Many of the allegations made from the different accusers were similar.

Accuser #7 said he met Sandusky in 1995, when he was 10. "At that age I was very, very scrawny, very lean ... and Jerry was three or four times my size, it seemed."

He often spent the night at Sandusky's home, he said, and it was not long before the former coach began touching him. He said Sandusky sometimes would try to cuddle with him in bed. "To this day, I am sort of repulsed by chest hair now ... I just remember the feeling of it pressed up against my back," Accuser #7 testified. "For whatever reason, it just made me hate it. I just have this thing now where I hate chest hair."

Like the others, he did not know what to do. "It was not something I wanted my family or anyone to know ... I chose to block that stuff out and focus on the positive," he said.

Earlier Wednesday, John McQueary, father of Penn State former assistant coach Mike McQueary, took the witness stand. Mike McQueary previously testified that he saw Sandusky in the shower with a boy in 2001, and according to grand jury documents, he told his father about the incident.

McQueary corroborated his son's testimony and detailed a phone call he received from his son. He said his son was distraught and said something like, "I saw Coach Sandusky in the shower with a boy."

McQueary said his son was uncomfortable discussing what he allegedly saw, but, "you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand what happened in that shower."

He also testified that a couple of months after the discussion with his son, he met with University Vice President Gary Schultz about the alleged shower incident and that Schultz told him that he "heard noise about this before."

Penn State janitor Ron Petrosky also testified that in 2000, he encountered former coworker Jim Calhoun, who now suffers from dementia and is unable to testify, and that Calhoun told him he had seen Sandusky making a boy perform oral sex on him. Petrosky said Calhoun was shaking and "white as a ghost."

The janitorial supervisor, Jay Witherite, is expected to testify Thursday.

(...)

Judge John M. Cleland told the jury Wednesday that the Commonwealth will be done presenting its case by Friday. So far, five of the eight alleged victims expected to testify have taken the stand.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1594915.html

[omess]

Muhammad Ali is the New Face of Louis Vuitton

Read more: http://www.thefader.com/2012/06/14/m...#ixzz1xoa648ie

[Ti-Amie]

Muhammad Ali is the New Face of Louis Vuitton

Read more: http://www.thefader.com/2012/06/14/m...#ixzz1xoa648ie

[Moose]

Ali looks really good here. The boy is his daughter Laila's son, Curtis. Looks just like his grandfather.

When you talk about the great career redemptions ( Idon't know that redemption is the right word, but it will do), Ali probably tops the list - he was roundly vilified for his refusal to enter the draft (his famous statement about the Viet Cong in particular), and for his outspokenness on race relations in his time. He took a stand, and rallied younger war and civil rights protestors with his actions (not merely words) - and earned the emnity of many (mostly whites) in the process. His war protests are said to have inspired MLK to take a more confrontational approach toward the Johnson administration on the war, while up to that point, King did not want to jeopardize progress in the civil rights arena by being an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War.

Yet today, he is (nearly) universally loved.

I don't think there is anyone in his league in that respect. We talk about how Agassi went from rebel to statesman in his Act 2, but that was accomplished by changing his personal conduct. I don't think Ali ever changed one thing - it was society that changed.

[skatingfan]

Very well said - I will always remember the ovation that Ali received in Atlanta in 1996 when he lit the Olympic Cauldron - an example of how society has changed.

[Ti-Amie]

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Emails show Penn State's former president Graham Spanier agreed not to take allegations of sex abuse against ex-assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky to authorities but worried university officials would be "vulnerable" for failing to report it, a news organization has reported.

The emails followed a graduate assistant's 2001 report he saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in the team locker room shower, CNN reported. The existence of the emails was first reported earlier this month by NBC.

The emails show athletic director Tim Curley and retired vice president Gary Schultz intended to report the allegation, then reconsidered. Spanier responded that he was "supportive" of their plan, but he worried they might "become vulnerable for not having reported it."

Sandusky was convicted this month of 45 counts of sexually abusing 10 boys. The scandal led to the ouster of Spanier and revered coach Joe Paterno and charges against Curley and Schultz, who are accused of perjury for their grand jury testimony and failing to properly report suspected child abuse. Spanier hasn't been charged.

The timing of their change in plans – coming after Curley's discussion with Paterno – raises questions about whether the coach was more involved than he said in the decision.

The CNN report cites an email from Schultz to Curley on Feb. 26, 2001, 16 days after graduate assistant Mike McQueary told veteran coach Joe Paterno about the shower assault. Schultz suggests bringing the allegation to the attention of Sandusky, Sandusky's charity and the Department of Welfare, which investigates suspected child abuse, according to the report.

But the next night, Curley sent an email to Spanier, saying that after thinking about it more and talking to Paterno, he was "uncomfortable" with that plan and wanted to work with Sandusky before contacting authorities, the report said.

If Sandusky is cooperative, Curley's email said, "we would work with him. .... If not, we do not have a choice and will inform the two groups," according to the report.

Spanier wrote back and agreed with that approach, calling it "humane and a reasonable way to proceed," according to the report. But he also worried about the consequences.

"The only downside for us is if message isn't `heard' and acted upon and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it, but that can be assessed down the road," the email said, according to CNN.

Spanier's attorney didn't immediately return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment Saturday.

The timing of their change in plans – coming after Curley's discussion with Paterno – raises questions about whether the coach was more involved than he said in the decision.

Wick Sollers, the lawyer for the Paterno family, said in a statement Saturday that it would be inappropriate for the family to comment on the contents of the emails because the family didn't possess them.

"To be clear, the emails in question did not originate with Joe Paterno or go to him as he never personally utilized email," Sollers said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1640000.html

[Ti-Amie]

July 10, 2012

Athletes With Chronic Pain Turn to Novel Blood Treatment

By NICHOLAS KULISH

DÜSSELDORF, Germany — The medical treatment for Lindsey Berg’s arthritic left knee has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and neither her professional volleyball team in Italy nor the United States Olympic team would help with the cost. But for Berg, a gold medal hopeful, the chance to dull the chronic pain was worth the money, and the risk.

So between the end of her professional season and the start of Olympic practices in California, Berg stopped at the office of Dr. Peter Wehling on the bank of the Rhine River. “I’ve been struggling with knee pain for the last four years and just continuing to play on it,” said Berg, 31, who had tried surgery and cortisone injections to little avail.

After examining her, Dr. Wehling and his team drew syringes of her blood. First they incubated it. Then they spun it in a centrifuge. The blood cells produce proteins that reduce inflammation and stimulate cellular growth; sometimes additional anti-inflammatory proteins are added to the solution. Finally, Dr. Wehling injected the orange serum into her knee.

The price came to 6,000 euros, or about $7,400 out of her own pocket, but with the Olympics in London coming up, any treatment that might make her knee better was worth it. “It’s your body and your money because they’re not paying for it,” she said, with cheerful resignation, on the fourth day of her treatment.

Dr. Wehling’s practice has become almost a pilgrimage site for athletes trying to prolong careers that have tested the limits of their bodies. It has also been the subject of no small amount of speculation after word leaked last year that the Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant had flown to Düsseldorf for the treatments. Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees traveled there as well. After the N.B.A. season ended, Lakers center Andrew Bynum, Bryant’s teammate, said he, too, would try it.

Commentators wanted to know if there was something fishy that required Bryant to go abroad for medical treatment. As his scoring average increased and the aging star seemed rejuvenated, the interest in the trips to Germany and the unusual treatment grew.

To answer the most common questions: Dr. Wehling’s practice is not at the end of a dark alley but in a modern building south of the city’s old town; it is brightly rather than dimly lighted, with orange floors and a water cooler in the waiting room; and Dr. Wehling seems more like a true believer in his Regenokine therapy than a snake-oil salesman. He said he was careful not to use any substances banned by athletic governing bodies.

Biologic medicine is a rapidly growing field. Dr. Wehling’s Regenokine treatment might sound similar to another blood-spinning treatment, known as platelet-rich plasma, or P.R.P., that has gained popularity in the United States in recent years. In that procedure, the goal is to produce a high concentration of platelet cells, which are believed to speed the healing process. Dr. Wehling said his treatment differed from P.R.P. because he heats the blood before it is spun to increase the concentration of anti-inflammatory proteins, rather than the platelets, in his cell-free solution.

The idea is not just to focus on mechanical problems in the joints or lower back but to treat inflammation as a cause of tissue damage as well as a symptom. “The potential of biology to treat orthopedic problems is high because it has only been developed a little,” Dr. Wehling said in an interview.

“It has to be embedded in a good concept more broadly,” he added, emphasizing that sleep, diet and conditioning are among the important components to go with the injections. “There’s no such thing as the one therapy that fixes everything.”

On a recent morning he treated not only Berg but a basketball player, a golfer, a Hollywood film executive and a former martial artist.

“The results were incredible,” Vijay Singh, the world’s former No. 1 golfer and a patient of Dr. Wehling’s, said in a telephone interview. “It’s like somebody just put oil all over your body. It lubes you up, and you’re able to move more freely, especially pain free.” The question is how effective the treatment will prove in the long run.

Dr. Freddie Fu, a professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, has been critical of many such treatments, including P.R.P. He was slightly more optimistic about Dr. Wehling’s approach.

“The gimmick is, it’s your own body, it must be safe,” Dr. Fu said. “There has been some impressive research done already, and there is a good scientific fundament to do more research.

“However, before the F.D.A. approves, more high quality independent trials have to be done in order to prove the effectiveness.”

Recent patients speak glowingly of the doctor as well as his therapy. “When you come here and are skeptical and all your pain disappears it makes you all the more devoted to the science of it,” said Tim Shaheen, from Los Angeles. “What about people on assembly lines with terrible knees and terrible backs? This would be a lifesaver for that in quality of life.”

The therapy generally lasts five days, starting with an evaluation and, if the patient decides to go ahead, drawing the blood. “As much blood as they took the first day, I didn’t think I’d have any left,” said Wes Short Jr., a professional golfer from Austin, Tex. It was his first trip to Germany, he said, indeed his first to a non-English-speaking country, and he still marveled at the fact that most of the taxis were Mercedeses.

Short lay on his stomach, his green short-sleeved shirt hiked up. Dr. Wehling had just injected several syringes of serum into the small of his back. Afterward the doctor left half a dozen acupuncture needles quivering in Short’s back.

The fact that Dr. Wehling had treated the late Pope John Paul II made a strong impression on Short. “I’m sure he doesn’t trust just anybody,” said Short, who hoped to start playing again if the treatment worked.

Dr. Wehling’s book “The End of Pain” begins with a “Da Vinci Code” style trip to the Vatican and, escorted by the Swiss Guard, into John Paul II’s private chamber. “The hard marble floors echoed with emptiness,” Dr. Wehling wrote. But why, he asked, had the pope chosen his treatment? “Because your treatment comes from God,” the pope said, referring, Dr. Wehling wrote, to the fact that it comes from the body.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/sp...-nytimessports

[Moose]

Report slams Penn State's 'total disregard' in Sandusky case
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

Senior Penn State administrators exhibited a "total disregard for the safety and welfare'' of the children who were sexually abused by former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, according to an internal investigation of the university.

"The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized,'' the investigation concluded.

It cited former Penn State University president Graham Spanier, former vice president Gary Schultz, former head football coach Joe Paterno and Athletic Director Tim Curley, now on leave, as never demonstrating "through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky's victims until after Sandusky's arrest."

The 267-page report by former FBI director Louis Freeh comes less than three weeks after Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse involving 10 victims during a span of 15 years. Sandusky is in a central Pennsylvania county jail awaiting formal sentencing.

A "critical written correspondence'' uncovered earlier this year, investigators said, contained evidence of a proposed plan to report to law enforcement authorities a 2001 incident involving Sandusky and a young boy in a university shower room that was witnessed by football assistant Michael McQueary.

"After Mr. Curley consulted with Mr. Paterno, however, they changed the plan and decided not to make a report to the authorities,'' the report said. "Their failure to protect the … child victim, or make attempts to identify him, created a dangerous situation for other unknown, unsuspecting young boys who were lured to the Penn State campus and football games by Sandusky and victimized repeatedly by him."

"Further,'' the report said, "they exposed this child to additional harm by alerting Sandusky, who was the only one who knew the child's identity, about what McQueary saw in the shower on the night of February 9, 2001."

Citing witness statements and other evidence, the university officials acted "in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity.''

"The most powerful leaders at Penn State University - Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley - repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from the authorities, the Board of Trustees, Penn State community, and the public at large.

"Although concern to treat the child abuser humanely was expressly stated, no such sentiments were ever expressed by them for Sandusky's victims.''

Penn State immediately released a statement that said officials are "currently reviewing (Freeh's) findings and recommendations. We expect a comprehensive analysis of our policies, procedures and controls related to identifying and reporting crimes and misconduct, including failures or gaps that may have allowed alleged misconduct to go undetected or unreported."

The university was expected to comment later Thursday afternoon.

More of story (with link to full report): http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...6/1?csp=34news

[Ti-Amie]

July 14, 2012

Paterno Won Sweeter Deal Even as Scandal Played Out

By JO BECKER

In January 2011, Joe Paterno learned prosecutors were investigating his longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for sexually assaulting young boys. Soon, Mr. Paterno had testified before a grand jury, and the rough outlines of what would become a giant scandal had been published in a local newspaper.

That same month, Mr. Paterno, the football coach at Penn State, began negotiating with his superiors to amend his contract, with the timing something of a surprise because the contract was not set to expire until the end of 2012, according to university documents and people with knowledge of the discussions. By August, Mr. Paterno and the university’s president, both of whom were by then embroiled in the Sandusky investigation, had reached an agreement.

Mr. Paterno was to be paid $3 million at the end of the 2011 season if he agreed it would be his last. Interest-free loans totaling $350,000 that the university had made to Mr. Paterno over the years would be forgiven as part of the retirement package. He would also have the use of the university’s private plane and a luxury box at Beaver Stadium for him and his family to use over the next 25 years.

The university’s full board of trustees was kept in the dark about the arrangement until November, when Mr. Sandusky was arrested and the contract arrangements, along with so much else at Penn State, were upended. Mr. Paterno was fired, two of the university’s top officials were indicted in connection with the scandal, and the trustees, who held Mr. Paterno’s financial fate in their hands, came under verbal assault from the coach’s angry supporters.

Board members who raised questions about whether the university ought to go forward with the payments were quickly shut down, according to two people with direct knowledge of the negotiations.

In the end, the board of trustees — bombarded with hate mail and threatened with a defamation lawsuit by Mr. Paterno’s family — gave the family virtually everything it wanted, with a package worth roughly $5.5 million. Documents show that the board even tossed in some extras that the family demanded, like the use of specialized hydrotherapy massage equipment for Mr. Paterno’s wife at the university’s Lasch Building, where Mr. Sandusky had molested a number of his victims.

The details of Mr. Paterno and his family’s fight for money seem to deepen one of the lasting truths of the Sandusky scandal: the significant power that Mr. Paterno exerted on the state institution, its officials, its alumni and its purse strings.

Since Mr. Paterno’s death in January, Mr. Paterno’s family, lawyers and publicists have mounted an aggressive campaign to protect his legacy. The family and its lawyers have hammered the university’s board of trustees, accusing members of attempting to deflect blame onto a dying Mr. Paterno. This week, they angrily disputed the conclusions of an independent investigation that asserted Mr. Paterno and other top university officials protected a serial predator in order to “avoid the consequences of bad publicity” for the university, its football program and its coach’s reputation.

On Friday, Wick Sollers, a lawyer for Mr. Paterno and his family, said that it was Penn State that last summer proposed the lucrative retirement package, and that many of the aspects of the proposal — use of the plane, the luxury box — had existed in prior contracts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/sp...y-inquiry.html

[Ti-Amie]

July 14, 2012
Scandal at Penn State Poses Tough Choices for N.C.A.A.
By TIM ROHAN

In N.C.A.A. parlance, “lack of institutional control” is a hazy, almost undefinable term. It is also the organization’s ultimate admonishment, the phrase it utters before handing down its most severe penalties.

Now, in light of the child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State, there is some question about whether those nebulous words will be used by the N.C.A.A. to impose serious sanctions on the Nittany Lions football program, perhaps even forcing the team to shut down for a time, the so-called death penalty.

Anticipating what will happen is difficult; the N.C.A.A. can be unpredictable in even the most conventional enforcement cases. And when it might proceed is unknown, because pending criminal and civil cases could lead to the emergence of more information.

If the organization were to hand down serious sanctions on Penn State, “I believe that it would be unprecedented,” said Michael S. Glazier, of the law firm Bond, Schoeneck & King, which often deals in N.C.A.A. matters but is not involved with the Penn State case.

Based on the report released Thursday of a formal investigation into the university, its football team and its dealings with Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant coach who was convicted last month of sexual abuse of boys, there would seem to be an argument that however institutional control is defined, Penn State certainly lacked it.

The evidence includes a football coach, Joe Paterno, who had immense influence on campus; a football program so powerful that many people, including the president and other university officials, stayed silent as crimes were committed rather than engender bad publicity for the team; and an athletic department that did not comply with federal laws concerning the reporting of and protection against suspected sex crimes.

After the release of the report, prepared by a group led by the former F.B.I. director Louis J. Freeh, the N.C.A.A. issued a statement saying it would read the findings and expected to hear from Penn State before making any decisions. That supplemented a letter to Penn State in November announcing an inquiry into the university’s institutional control and ethical conduct.

“Let’s face it, a football coach raped kids and he did so facilitated allegedly by another football coach and athletic officials, and some of the crimes occurred in the Penn State showers,” said Prof. Michael McCann, the director of the Sports Law Institute at Vermont Law School. “I think that’s sufficient nexus to the team.”

Still, there is a debate about what the N.C.A.A.’s role should be in this case, if any. Paterno is dead, Sandusky faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison, top university officials have lost their jobs and Penn State will very likely have to deal with civil lawsuits posing a significant financial burden for the institution. The crimes Sandusky was convicted of — sexually attacking 10 young boys over a number of years, some of them in campus athletic facilities — are also far beyond anything the N.C.A.A. has ever become involved with from the standpoint of punishment. Still, those crimes are considered so heinous that there is a widespread view that the N.C.A.A. must do something.

“There are really no bylaws that cover this,” said David Ridpath, an associate professor of sports administration at Ohio University. “The N.C.A.A. is notorious for applying things arbitrarily and inconsistently, and it would not be beyond imagination for them to conjure something up within the current bylaws.”

The N.C.A.A. has imposed its death penalty just five times, the last in 1987 when Southern Methodist was punished for paying players from a slush fund despite already being on two years’ probation. The football program was ordered shut down for a year. The Mustangs actually did not play for two years and did not have the normal allotment of scholarships until 1992. The team, which had been nationally prominent before the sanctions, did not make a postseason bowl game until 2009.

The ripple effect of the extreme punishment has made the N.C.A.A. reluctant to impose it again. The death penalty also causes disruption among TV networks and opposing teams, which face a loss of revenue because of the scheduled games they miss.

In 2010, the N.C.A.A. cited a lack of institutional control at the University of Southern California, and the football team was stripped of 30 scholarships over three years and barred from postseason play for two seasons. In that case, the former star running back Reggie Bush had accepted thousands of dollars in gifts in violation of N.C.A.A. rules. Last year, a lack of institutional control was cited when Ohio State faced a one-year postseason ban after revelations that football players had traded jerseys, bowl rings and team memorabilia for cash and tattoos.

(...)

Perhaps the situation that most closely resembles the Penn State case is that of the Baylor men’s basketball team. In 2005, the N.C.A.A. barred Baylor from playing nonconference games for a season after violations that were uncovered in an investigation begun after the murder of a player by his former teammate.

“The N.C.A.A. didn’t punish Baylor because of the criminal violations,” said Michael Buckner, a lawyer who has extensive experience with N.C.A.A. infractions cases. “The N.C.A.A. punished Baylor because of the underlying N.C.A.A. rules violations that were also involved in those activities.” The Sandusky case does not appear to involve any specific N.C.A.A. rule violations. Criminal violations are not necessarily N.C.A.A. violations.

If the N.C.A.A. does punish Penn State, it could set a precedent that the organization should punish future criminal violations committed by players or coaches, Buckner said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/sp...r-ncaa.html?hp

[Ti-Amie]

Saying that the punishment is "warranted by the conspiracy of silence" among Penn State University's top leadership that turned a blind eye to former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of young boys, the NCAA just announced sanctions on the school that include:

— A $60 million fine. The money will go into an endowment fund to support programs around the nation that assist victims of sexual abuse, NCAA President Mark Emmert said.

— A ban on participation in post-season football bowl games for four years.

— A reduction in the number of football scholarships from 25 to 15 for four years.

— The vacating of all the football team's wins for the years 1998-2011. It was in 1998 that university officials first heard that Sandusky might be sexually abusing young boys.

The school, Emmert said, had allowed its athletic culture to go "horribly awry." And without naming former head coach Joe Paterno, Emmert said the school had allowed one person to become too powerful.

"Because Penn State will be ineligible for bowl games for the next four years, it will therefore be ineligible to receive its share of Big Ten Conference bowl revenues over those same four years," the athletic conference just announced. "That money, estimated to be approximately $13 million, will be donated to established charitable organizations in Big Ten communities dedicated to the protection of children."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...-20120723-0920

[Ti-Amie]

(Reuters) - Insurer State Farm said it should be exempt from paying for legal bills arising from former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's child sexual abuse case.

State Farm Fire and Casualty Co sold Sandusky a homeowner policy and filed a federal lawsuit last week arguing that the policy does not cover injuries caused by intentional, willful or malicious acts.

The State Farm policy provided limited personal liability coverage.

Sandusky, 68, was convicted last month on 45 counts of sex abuse involving 10 boys, sometimes at his home in State College, Pennsylvania.

State Farm began insuring the home in 1985 for Sandusky and his wife, Dottie, according to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for Middle District of Pennsylvania.

The company asked that the court declare that the policy did not cover legal costs for his criminal defense or civil lawsuits arising from the case.

Federal Insurance Co, which covers the Second Mile, the charity Sandusky founded for at-risk youth in 1977, is making payments for his defense, Sandusky's attorney Brian Osias said last week.

The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), the governing body of U.S. college sports, fined Pennsylvania State University $60 million on Monday in an unprecedented rebuke for the school's failure to stop Sandusky's sexual abuse.

In a sign of potential financial fallout from the NCAA move, Moody's Investors Service said it might cut Penn State's Aa1 revenue bond rating.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...86N14P20120724