Former Penn State coach Joe Paterno dead at 85

Paterno

GENARO C. ARMAS

AP Sports Writer

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Happy Val­ley was per­fect for Joe Paterno, a place where “JoePa” knew best, where he not only won more foot­ball games than any other major col­lege coach, but won them the right way: with integrity and sports­man­ship. A place where char­ac­ter came first, cham­pi­onships second.

Behind it all, how­ever, was an ugly secret that ran counter to every­thing the revered coach stood for.

Paterno, a sainted fig­ure at Penn State for almost half a cen­tury but scarred for­ever by the child sex abuse scan­dal that led to his stun­ning dis­missal, died Sun­day at age 85.

His death came just 65 days after his son Scott said his father had been diag­nosed with a treat­able form of lung can­cer. The can­cer was found dur­ing a follow-up visit for a bronchial ill­ness. A few weeks later, Paterno broke his pelvis after a fall but did not need surgery.

Mount Nit­tany Med­ical Cen­ter said in a state­ment that Paterno died at 9:25 a.m. of “metasta­tic small cell car­ci­noma of the lung.” Metasta­tic indi­cates an ill­ness that has spread from one part of the body to an unre­lated area.

The hos­pi­tal says Paterno was sur­rounded by fam­ily mem­bers, who have requested privacy.

Paterno had been in the hos­pi­tal since Jan. 13 for obser­va­tion after what his fam­ily called minor com­pli­ca­tions from his can­cer treat­ments. Not long before that, he con­ducted his only inter­view since los­ing his job, with The Wash­ing­ton Post. Paterno was described as frail then, speak­ing mostly in a whis­per and wear­ing a wig. The sec­ond half of the two-day inter­view was con­ducted at his bedside.

His fam­ily released a state­ment Sun­day morn­ing to announce his death: “His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled.”

“He died as he lived,” the state­ment said. “He fought hard until the end, stayed pos­i­tive, thought only of oth­ers and con­stantly reminded every­one of how blessed his life had been. His ambi­tions were far reach­ing, but he never believed he had to leave this Happy Val­ley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his fam­ily, his uni­ver­sity, his play­ers and his community.”

Paterno’s death just under three months fol­low­ing his last vic­tory called to mind another coach­ing great, Alabama’s Paul “Bear” Bryant, who died less than a month after retiring.

“Quit coach­ing?” Bryant said late in his career. “I’d croak in a week.”

Paterno alluded to the remark made by his friend and rival, say­ing in 2003: “There isn’t any­thing in my life any­more except my fam­ily and my foot­ball. I think about it all the time.”

Two police offi­cers were sta­tioned to block traf­fic on the street where Paterno’s mod­est ranch home stands next to a local park. The offi­cers said the fam­ily had asked there be no pub­lic gath­er­ing out­side the house, still dec­o­rated with a Christ­mas wreath, so Paterno’s rel­a­tives could grieve pri­vately. And, indeed, the street was quiet on a cold win­ter day.

Paterno’s sons, Scott and Jay, arrived sep­a­rately at the house late Sun­day morn­ing. Jay Paterno, who served as his father’s quar­ter­backs coach, was crying.

Paterno built a pro­gram based on the credo of “Suc­cess with Honor,” and he found both. The man known as “JoePa” won 409 games and took the Nit­tany Lions to 37 bowl games and two national cham­pi­onships. More than 250 of the play­ers he coached went on to the NFL.

“He will go down as the great­est foot­ball coach in the his­tory of the game,” Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said after his for­mer team, the Florida Gators, beat Penn State 37–24 in the 2011 Out­back Bowl.

Paterno roamed the side­lines for 46 sea­sons, his thick-rimmed glasses, wind­breaker and jet-black sneak­ers as famil­iar as the Nit­tany Lions’ blue and white uniforms.

The rep­u­ta­tion he built looked even more impres­sive because he insisted that on-field suc­cess not come at the expense of high grad­u­a­tion rates.

But in the mid­dle of his 46th sea­son, the leg­end was shat­tered. Paterno was engulfed in a child sex abuse scan­dal when a for­mer trusted assis­tant, Jerry San­dusky, was accused of molest­ing 10 boys over a 15-year span, some­times in the foot­ball building.

Out­rage built quickly when the state’s top cop said the coach hadn’t ful­filled a moral oblig­a­tion to go to the author­i­ties when a grad­u­ate assis­tant, Mike McQueary, told Paterno he saw San­dusky with a young boy in the show­ers of the foot­ball com­plex in 2002.

At a pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing for the school offi­cials, McQueary tes­ti­fied that he had seen San­dusky attack­ing the child with his hands around the boy’s waist but said he wasn’t 100 per­cent sure it was inter­course. McQueary described Paterno as shocked and sad­dened and said the coach told him he had “done the right thing” by report­ing the encounter.

Paterno waited a day before alert­ing school offi­cials and never went to the police.

“I didn’t know which way to go … and rather than get in there and make a mis­take,” Paterno said in the Post interview.

“You know, (McQueary) didn’t want to get spe­cific,” Paterno said. “And to be frank with you I don’t know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to peo­ple that I thought would be, if there was a prob­lem, that would be fol­low­ing up on it.”

When the scan­dal erupted in Novem­ber, Paterno said he would retire fol­low­ing the 2011 sea­son. He also said he was “absolutely dev­as­tated” by the abuse case.

“This is a tragedy,” he said. “It is one of the great sor­rows of my life. With the ben­e­fit of hind­sight, I wish I had done more.”

But the uni­ver­sity trustees fired Paterno, effec­tive imme­di­ately. Gra­ham Spanier, one of the longest-serving uni­ver­sity pres­i­dents in the nation, also was fired.

Paterno was noti­fied by phone, not in per­son, a deci­sion that board vice chair­man John Surma regret­ted, trustees said. Lanny Davis, the attor­ney retained by trustees as an adviser, said Surma intended to extend his regrets over the phone before Paterno hung up him.

After weeks of esca­lat­ing crit­i­cism by some for­mer play­ers and alumni about a lack of trans­parency trustees last week said they fired Paterno in part because he failed a moral oblig­a­tion to do more in report­ing the 2002 allegation.

An attor­ney for Paterno on Thurs­day called the board’s com­ments self-serving and unsup­ported by the facts. Paterno fully reported what he knew to the peo­ple respon­si­ble for cam­pus inves­ti­ga­tions, lawyer Wick Sollers said.

“He did what he thought was right with the infor­ma­tion he had at the time,” Sollers said.

The uni­ver­sity handed the foot­ball team to one of Paterno’s assis­tants, Tom Bradley, who said Paterno “will go down in his­tory as one of the great­est men, who maybe most of you know as a great foot­ball coach.”

“As the last 61 years have shown, Joe made an incred­i­ble impact,” said the state­ment from the fam­ily. “That impact has been felt and appre­ci­ated by our fam­ily in the form of thou­sands of let­ters and well wishes along with count­less acts of kind­ness from peo­ple whose lives he touched. It is evi­dent also in the thou­sands of suc­cess­ful stu­dent ath­letes who have gone on to mul­ti­ply that impact as they spread out across the country.”

New Penn State foot­ball coach Bill O’Brien, hired ear­lier this month, offered his condolences.

“The Penn State Foot­ball pro­gram is one of col­lege football’s iconic pro­grams because it was led by an icon in the coach­ing pro­fes­sion in Joe Paterno,” O’Brien said in a state­ment. “There are no words to express my respect for him as a man and as a coach. To be fol­low­ing in his foot­steps at Penn State is an honor. Our fam­i­lies, our foot­ball pro­gram, our uni­ver­sity and all of col­lege foot­ball have suf­fered a great loss, and we will be eter­nally grate­ful for Coach Paterno’s immea­sur­able contributions.”

Paterno believed suc­cess was not mea­sured entirely on the field. From his ide­al­is­tic early days, he had imple­mented what he called a “grand exper­i­ment” — to grad­u­ate more play­ers while main­tain­ing suc­cess on the field.

“He main­tained a high stan­dard in a very dif­fi­cult pro­fes­sion. Joe preached tough­ness, hard work and clean com­pe­ti­tion,” San­dusky said in a state­ment. “Most impor­tantly, he had the courage to prac­tice what he preached.”

Paterno was a fre­quent speaker on ethics in sports, a con­science for a world often infil­trated by scandal.

The team con­sis­tently ranked among the best in the Big Ten for grad­u­at­ing play­ers. As of 2011, it had 49 aca­d­e­mic All-Americans, the third-highest among schools in the Foot­ball Bowl Sub­di­vi­sion. All but two played under Paterno.

“He teaches us about really just grow­ing up and being a man,” for­mer line­backer Paul Posluszny, now with the NFL’s Jack­sonville Jaguars, once said. “Besides the foot­ball, he’s prepar­ing us to be good men in life.”

Paterno cer­tainly had detrac­tors. One for­mer Penn State pro­fes­sor called his high-minded words on aca­d­e­mics a farce, and a for­mer admin­is­tra­tor said play­ers often got spe­cial treat­ment. His coach­ing style often was con­sid­ered too con­ser­v­a­tive. Some thought he held on to his job too long, and a move to push him out in 2004 failed.

But the crit­ics were in the minor­ity, and his pro­gram was never cited for major NCAA vio­la­tions. The child sex abuse scan­dal, how­ever, did prompt sep­a­rate inquiries by the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and the NCAA into the school’s handling.

Paterno played quar­ter­back and defen­sive back for Brown Uni­ver­sity and set a defen­sive record with 14 career inter­cep­tions, a dis­tinc­tion he still boasted about to his teams in his 80s. He grad­u­ated in 1950 with plans to go to law school. He said his father hoped he would some­day be president.

But when Paterno was 23, a for­mer coach at Brown was mov­ing to Penn State to become the head coach and per­suaded Paterno to come with him as an assistant.

“I had no inten­tion to coach when I got out of Brown,” Paterno said in 2007 in an inter­view at Penn State’s Beaver Sta­dium before being inducted into col­lege football’s Hall of Fame. “Come to this hick town? From Brooklyn?”

In 1963, he was offered a job by the late Al Davis — $18,000, triple his salary at Penn State, plus a car to become gen­eral man­ager and coach of the AFL’s Oak­land Raiders. He said no. Rip Engle retired as Penn State head coach three years later, and Paterno took over.

At the time, Penn State was con­sid­ered “East­ern foot­ball” — infe­rior — and Paterno courted news­pa­per cov­er­age to raise the team’s pro­file. In 1967, PSU began a 30–0-1 streak.

But Penn State couldn’t get to the top of the polls. The Nit­tany Lions fin­ished sec­ond in 1968 and 1969 despite per­fect sea­sons. They were unde­feated and untied again in 1973 at 12–0 again but fin­ished fifth. Texas edged them in 1969 after Pres­i­dent Richard Nixon, impressed with the Long­horns’ bowl per­for­mance, declared them No. 1.

“I’d like to know,” Paterno said later, “how could the pres­i­dent know so lit­tle about Water­gate in 1973, and so much about col­lege foot­ball in 1969?”

A national title finally came in 1982, after a 27–23 win over Geor­gia at the Sugar Bowl. Another fol­lowed in 1986 after the Lions inter­cepted Vinny Tes­taverde five times and beat Miami 14–10 in the Fiesta Bowl.

They made sev­eral title runs after that, includ­ing a 2005 run to the Orange Bowl and an 11–1 sea­son in 2008 that ended in a 37–23 loss to South­ern Cal­i­for­nia in the Rose Bowl.

In his later years, phys­i­cal ail­ments wore the old coach down.

Paterno was run over on the side­line dur­ing a game at Wis­con­sin in Novem­ber 2006 and under­went knee surgery. He hurt his hip in 2008 demon­strat­ing an onside kick. An intesti­nal ill­ness and a bad reac­tion to antibi­otics pre­scribed for den­tal work slowed him for most of the 2010 sea­son. He began scal­ing back his speak­ing engage­ments that year, end­ing his sum­mer car­a­van of speeches to alumni across the state.

Then a receiver bowled over Paterno at prac­tice in August, send­ing him to the hos­pi­tal with shoul­der and pelvis injuries and con­sign­ing him to coach much of what would be his last sea­son from the press box.

“The fact that we’ve won a lot of games is that the good Lord kept me healthy, not because I’m bet­ter than any­body else,” Paterno said two days before he won his 409th game and passed Eddie Robin­son of Gram­bling State for the most in Divi­sion I. “It’s because I’ve been around a lot longer than any­body else.”

Paterno could be con­ser­v­a­tive on the field, espe­cially in big games, rely­ing on the tried-and-true for­mula of defense, the run­ning game and field position.

He and his wife, Sue, raised five chil­dren in State Col­lege. Any­body could tele­phone him at his home — the same one he appeared in front of on the night he was fired — by look­ing up “Paterno, Joseph V.” in the phone book.

He walked to home games and was greeted and wished good luck by fans on the street. For­mer play­ers paraded through his liv­ing room for the chance to say hello. But for the most part, he stayed out of the spotlight.

Paterno did have a knack for jokes. He referred to Twit­ter, the social media site, as “Twittle-do, Twittle-dee.”

He also could be abra­sive and stub­born, and he had his share of run-ins with his bosses or admin­is­tra­tors. And as his leg­end grew, so did the atten­tion to his on-field deci­sions, and the ques­tions about when he would hang it up.

Calls for his retire­ment reached a crescendo in 2004. The next year, Penn State went 11–1 and won the Big Ten. In the Orange Bowl, PSU beat Florida State, whose coach, Bobby Bow­den, was eased out after the 2009 sea­son after 34 years and 389 wins.

Like many oth­ers, he was out­lasted by “JoePa.”

Posted by AP News on Jan 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.