The NCAA has hit Penn State with a $60 million sanction, a four-year football postseason ban and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998, the organization said Monday morning. The career record of Joe Paterno will reflect these vacated records, the NCAA said.

Penn State also must reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period.

The NCAA revealed the sanctions as NCAA president Mark Emmert and Ed Ray, the chairman of the NCAA's executive committee and Oregon State's president, spoke at a news conference in Indianapolis at the organization's headquarters.

"In the Penn State case, the results were perverse and unconscionable. No price the NCAA can levy will repair the damage inflicted by Jerry Sandusky on his victims," Emmert said, referring to the former Penn State defensive coordinator convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse last month.

The NCAA said the $60 million was equivalent to the average annual revenue of the football program. The NCAA ordered Penn State to pay the penalty funds into an endowment for "external programs preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims and may not be used to fund such programs at the university."

With the wins from 1998-2011 vacated, Paterno moves from 409 wins to 298, dropping him from first to 12th on the winningest NCAA football coach list. Penn State also will have six bowl wins and two conference championships erased.

The Penn State athletic program also will be put on a five-year probation and must work with an athletic-integrity monitor of NCAA's choosing. Any current or incoming football players are free to immediately transfer and compete at another school.

"There is incredible interest in what will happen to Penn State football," Ray said at the news conference. "But the fundamental chapter of this horrific story should focus on the innocent children and the powerful people who let them down."

The Big Ten fully supports the NCAA's actions, saying in a news release it is condemning and censuring the school for "egregiously" failing on "many levels -- morally, ethically and potentially criminally."

The conference also will place the university on a five-year probation to run concurrently with the NCAA's and has declared the football program ineligible for the Big Ten championship game for the four years in which the NCAA banned the Nittany Lions from postseason play.

Penn State's proceeds from Big Ten bowl revenues from the four years, amounting to an estimated $13 million, will be allocated "to established charitable organizations in Big Ten communities dedicated to the protection of children," the conference said.

Penn State, in a statement released less than an hour after the NCAA sanctions were revealed, said it will accept them and that the "ruling holds the university accountable for the failure of those in power to protect children and insists that all areas of the university community are held to the same high standards of honesty and integrity."

"The tragedy of child sexual abuse that occurred at our university altered the lives of innocent children," school president Rodney Erickson said in the news release. "Today, as every day, our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the victims of Mr. Sandusky and all other victims of child abuse."

Adam Taliaferro, a former player for Paterno who has since recovered from a spinal cord injury he suffered in a 2000 game, expressed frustration in a post on Twitter.

"NCAA says games didn't exist," tweeted Taliaferro, who was elected to Penn State's board of directors in May. "I got the metal plate in my neck to prove it did..I almost died playing 4 PSU..punishment or healing?!? #WeAre" The penalties came a day after Penn State removed its Paterno statue outside Beaver Stadium, a decision that came 10 days after a scathing report by former FBI director Louis J. Freeh found that Paterno, with three other top Penn State administrators, had concealed allegations of child sexual abuse made against Sandusky.

The Freeh report concluded their motive was to shield the university and its football program from negative publicity.

"Today we receive a very harsh penalty from the NCAA and as head coach of the Nittany Lions football program, I will do everything in my power to not only comply, but help guide the university forward to become a national leader in ethics, compliance and operational excellence," Penn State football coach Bill O'Brien said in the statement. "I knew when I accepted the position that there would be tough times ahead. But I am committed for the long term to Penn State and our student athletes."

By vacating 112 Penn State victories over a 14-year period, the sanctions cost Paterno 111 wins. Penn State finished last season 1-3 with Tom Bradley as coach after Paterno was fired in November.

Former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden will now hold the top spot in the NCAA record book with 377.

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