STATE COLLEGE — Two former NCAA presidents have taken issue with the organization’s handling of the unprecedented sanctions levied against Penn State for the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

Gene Corrigan and Cedric Dempsey attended a panel discussion Wednesday night on the future of the NCAA, sponsored by the university’s sports journalism center.

Corrigan sympathized with an audience of more than 350 Penn State students, faculty and community members at a downtown theater.

“I was upset for you,” Corrigan said in reference to the sanctions. “I felt that you got hit in the head awfully hard.”

The NCAA slammed the university in July with a four-year postseason ban, scholarship cuts and a $60 million fine. Current NCAA President Mark Emmert announced the sanctions about 10 days after former FBI director Louis Freeh accused the late head coach Joe Paterno and three university officials of covering up allegations that Sandusky abused young boys to protect the university and its football program.

Sandusky, a retired assistant coach, is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday after being convicted in June on 45 criminal counts involving 10 boys both on and off campus.

Freeh led Penn State’s internal investigation in the scandal. Paterno’s family and the officials have vehemently denied Freeh’s conclusions. Of the three officials, president Graham Spanier left under pressure; interim vice president Gary Schultz retired, and athletic director Tim Curley is on leave.