That's a surprise

[cactuswatcher]

Joe Paterno has died. My biggest fear for Penn State had been for the last few years that Paterno would coach till some poor kid ran into him accidentally on the field and effectively killed him. He wasn't diagnosed with lung cancer till after he was fired, but he must have been suffering for a while. No doubt the guy's health was seriously damaged by the scandal, but doubtless he wouldn't have made it to next season anyway. Just exactly when was he going to tell people, he was sick?

I supported Paterno when he chose to coach past age 65, but began to wonder what he thought he was doing once he passed 72. He kept coaching as his key aides got too old to take over from him. At some point you need to step aside if you really love the place you work for as much as Paterno claimed he did. His legacy is always going to be tainted now. But even if that hadn't happened, he was determined to do what he wanted and most likely leave the school in the lurch, sooner or later. That's what I'll remember about Joe Paterno.

Comments

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Penn State Players All Worried They're Going To Be The One Who Accidentally Kills Joe Paterno (http://www.theonion.com/articles/penn-state-players-all-worried-theyre-going-to-be,21120/)

It's always going to be hard to part with a legend... see Bobby Bowden at FSU. With the difference that Bowden was less ruthless than Joe. Bowden was a huge deal in Tallahassee, but Paterno was the Pope of State College. Paterno owned that school, and he was never going to let anyone touch him. And he would run off anyone who crossed him, including people who were supposedly his superiors in the campus hierarchy.

All of his virtue aside, he was well aware that he'd put the school on the map and he was very proud of it. I would think he assumed he would have a hereditary situation. He'd set up his son on the coaching staff and probably assumed the University would have to hire him if JoePa dropped in the middle of the year.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

People have forgotten that Penn State already hadn't had a losing season for over 25 years when Paterno was hired. No question he raised them from a power in the East to a national power. But time makes us, and especially Penn State fans, forget he had plenty of tradition to build on.

Certainly a great coach, but I think one who overstayed his time, even if they did keep winning.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

I don't mean "Penn State" the football program - I mean, Penn State, the academic institution. It's now considered the premier public university in the state, and one of the better schools in the country. It wasn't when he started working there.

Yesterday, Mike Ditka mentioned Penn State's poor academic reputation as a deterrent when Paterno was recruiting him out of HS in the 50s. (Ditka, at the time, wasn't a top prospect and planned on going into dentistry.) Paterno's fundraising and success played a big role in boosting the institution - not just football. I think he probably felt he'd already done so much that they were always going to owe him.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

There again, we're probably giving Joe too much credit. There were a lot of major state schools that dramatically improved academically in that same period after the 1950's when Ditka was at Pitt. Much of it had to do with the rapid expansion of the student bodies and the hiring of a lot of new blood to be professors. In the Big 8, Oklahoma, Colorado and Missouri all went from marginal to at least respectable. There were a few schools like Georgia Tech and Indiana that went backwards in those years, but not many.

Donations are always higher when the football teams win, but it's not the kind of donations that build the school rather than the athletic programs.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's we giving Joe too much credit, because I don't credit him for that. I think JoePa believed it though, and a lot of people in PA did too. He was at the forefront of "big winning sports teams build universities"...