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Update: Big Ten Won't Allow Commissioner To Fire Coaches

The Big Ten said Friday it won't give its commissioner the power to fire coaches.

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Reporter: The Associated Press

The Big Ten said Friday it won't give its commissioner the power to fire coaches.

The conference said in a statement that "giving emergency powers to the commissioner to fire personnel is not under consideration" by its 12 school presidents and chancellors.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week that the conference was considering giving its commissioner the power to punish schools with financial sanctions, suspensions and the ability to fire coaches in the wake of the Penn State scandal.

The Chronicle obtained an 18-page plan titled "Standards and Procedures for Safeguarding Institutional Control of Intercollegiate Athletics" that proposed giving the commissioner unilateral authority to "take any and all actions" in the best interest of the Big Ten.

The conference said that was "an early draft put together by the Big Ten staff in order to surface all of the options available."

Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was recently convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys, sometimes on campus. A report commissioned by Penn State said school leaders, including the late coach Joe Paterno, ignored allegations more than a decade ago to avoid bad publicity, allowing Sandusky to prey on other boys for years.

Paterno's family denies that he participated in any attempt at a cover-up.