When I first saw the news pop up on the bottom line of ESPN as I watched my second college sports love, the Iowa State Cyclones, play basketball yesterday that Joe Paterno was near death I couldn’t help but think of how quickly life changes and how cruel it can be at times. It also left me searching for words to describe someone who’s seen parts of 6 decades as a Head Coach and who’s career came crashing down in one brutal twist of fate. Then waking up today to find the news of his passing those words came to me courtesy of a man who may have defined his sport nearly as much as Joe Paterno, one John Wooden. “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
It’s unfortuante that a career that’s seen a man not only define a program, not only a university, but also so many men’s lives be remembered as much for how it ended as for what he stood for and did for nearly his entire 85 years that he graced this earth.
While I have never had the pleasure of speaking with Joe on a personal level I consider it one of the greatest honors of my life to have him answer a question that I asked just this past season (my 1st covering the Badgers) like I had been around for years. He was always honest and open in his dealings with the media and in my experience rarely sugar coated things.
That I will miss.
In a day of PR firms, media training for college athletes and coaches, and social media it’s a rarity that you get an honest, from the heart answer from anyone but he always answered from the heart.
People within the “Penn State Family” keep saying that JoePa died as much of a broken heart as he did from the affects of rapidly attacking Lung cancer and that may well be true. He was forced to leave a program that defined him and the university he loved so much because he failed in the one test of morality that mattered most, protecting kids at all costs.
Given a chance to do it over I’m sure he would do it differently. Finding out the details of just what he could’ve stopped and his reaction to it shows just how deep his character actually is. If you didn’t care you’d be able to sleep at night, but clearly Paterno couldn’t deal with the sense of regret and remorse as much as he couldn’t live with the cancer attacking his body at the age of 85.
I have to say that in the end the good things Paterno did far outweigh the details that have emerged over the past few months. On the field he came to define “old school”, never putting a fancy set of uniforms on his players, playing football the way it was supposed to be played – Hard, Aggressive, and executing the fundamentals to win.
Not once did you hear about the school having academic or recruiting scandals. His players may not have always been perfect in their time at Penn State, but they usually left the State College campus a better human being than when they came and that’s a credit to the character and morality of a man who truly cared about shaping young people’s minds as much as their bodies.
He did things on the field the right way and was always a tough son of a gun. Even if he broke a leg or hip you knew JoePa would find a way to be at the game the next Saturday.
Joe Paterno is a man you won’t find anywhere anymore in the day of multi-million dollar coaching contracts, heck the longest serving coach at one university that’s left is Frank Beamer and he’s only seen parts of 4 decades at Virginia Tech. His passing truly marks an end of an era, one that I was lucky enough to witness as a college sports fan for 30 years and at a new level over the past season.
I could go on and on about the national championships, his dedication to making Penn State University a top level academic institution and all the other things that he did and it would all be worth talking about, but in the end just look at the people he helped mold and shape and you have to say there may not be another man like him in our lifetimes of college sports fandom.
Saturdays in the fall have lost a little meaning without JoePa roaming the sidelines in black shoes, white socks, and slacks. Mr. Paterno may your soul find the peace that it lacked the past few months and may your fighting spirit live on in the people you’ve touched throughout your life.
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