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Joe Paterno Capsules: At PSU, tension over ouster, then grief
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Anguished by an unthinkable scandal that shook a university and tarnished the proud football program, many in the Penn State community rallied around a common cause.
They mourned coach Joe Paterno's dismissal and questioned the motives and tactics of school leaders who pushed out the Hall of Famer in November in the wake of child sex abuse charges against a retired assistant coach.
Alumni, fans and students already racked by emotions were jolted by a much greater loss when Paterno died Sunday of lung cancer at age 85 — and the grieving process again could be complicated following two tense months that often had the Paterno family and the school at odds.
"I feel like from the inside looking out that most people forget that he donated his whole life to the program. ... And everything that he donated to that school, people tend to look over that," defensive end Jack Crawford, who just completed his senior season with the Nittany Lions, said Sunday from Senior Bowl practice in Mobile, Ala.
"It was tough to swallow. It was harder to swallow when he first got fired. It was a sad moment for the whole Penn State family."
A family seemingly torn Nov. 5 after retired defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was charged with the first of dozens of counts of abuse allegations. Sandusky has maintained his innocence and is awaiting trial. Paterno testified before a state grand jury investigating Sandusky, and authorities said he wasn't a target of the probe.
It ended up being his undoing anyway.
Paterno fulfilled his legal obligation by reporting a 2002 allegation relayed by a graduate assistant to his university superior. But the state's top cop chastised Paterno, among other school leaders, for failing to fulfill a moral duty to do more and take the allegation to police.
Paterno himself said he "wished he could have done more" when he announced his retirement plans the morning of Nov. 9 before getting ousted by the university Board of Trustees that evening.
"I am saddened to hear the news of Joe Paterno's passing. Joe was a genuinely good person," longtime Nebraska coach and current athletic director Tom Osborne said. "Anybody who knew Joe feels badly about the circumstances. I suspect the emotional turmoil of the last few weeks might have played into it."
That turmoil stretched to Paterno's final days.
Diagnosed with lung cancer days after getting fired, Paterno entered the hospital Jan. 13 for what his family then said was a minor complication from treatments that included radiation and chemotherapy. Mount Nittany Medical Center was barely a half-mile from Beaver Stadium, the Nittany Lions' home field that Paterno helped make into one of college football's shrines during his 46 seasons as Penn State head coach.
While in the hospital, trustees just a couple miles away at a campus hotel on Thursday told of why they fired Paterno and cited in part a failure to fulfill his moral responsibility in connection with the 2002 allegation. His lawyer, Wick Sollers, called the allegations self-serving and reiterated that Paterno fully reported what he knew to the people responsible for campus investigations.
"I think his legacy should be everything wonderful he did here for Penn State and for the community. That's what I hope," Karen Long, 70, of State College, said at the women's basketball game Sunday afternoon between Iowa and Penn State. "I don't think he was treated fairly, though. Just the way they handled firing him was awful."
Against that backdrop, school leaders, the Paterno family and the university community fractured by the scandal appear to be slowly mending relationships.
On Monday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett ordered the state's flags lowered to half-staff through Paterno's burial.
In recent weeks, university leaders have indicated they intend to honor Paterno's contributions on and off the field — a sharp contrast to tones sounded in the frantic first week of the scandal. Back then, for instance, school President Rodney Erickson said Paterno was welcome to football games just like any other member of the public.
Paterno won two national championships and a Division I record 409 victories to turn Penn State into a name-brand program. Off the field, Paterno and his wife, Sue, donated millions back to the university, including the library.
"His and Sue's contributions are as much about ensuring student success as the many endowments and the library bearing the Paterno name," said Barbara Dewey, Penn State's dean of University Libraries.
Memorial service and funeral plans weren't ready yet Sunday night, though it appeared the family and the school were coordinating efforts.
Perhaps one last chance to say goodbye for a Penn State community that often took its cues on fall weekends from JoePa.
"No matter what people say, you can't take away what he did for Penn State and college football," former cornerback D'Anton Lynn said. "I don't think there will ever be a college coach that will ever have that impact again."
Big Ten, Penn State not a dream matchup at start
A comfortable member of the Big Ten for more than two decades, it's easy to forget that Penn State wasn't readily welcomed by everyone in the conference.
"I've been to Penn State," said Bob Knight, then the coach at Indiana, when Penn State was first invited to join the league in 1990. "And Penn State's a camping trip. There's nothing for about 100 miles."
Rick Bay, then Minnesota's athletic director, was hoping that the Big Ten didn't expand. And that if it had to, he hoped the addition wouldn't be Penn State.
"I don't think it's a done deal," he said. "Maybe it's some wishful thinking on my part."
Even Indiana's president said he would vote against bringing Penn State aboard.
So it wasn't as if all the Big Ten's coaches and administrators sang 'We Are The World' and offered a warm hug to the Nittany Lions. The math didn't work — how do you schedule 11 teams? The travel was a pain — ever try to get to State College, Pa.? And there was the troublesome problem of what to call the new entity. The Big 11? The Big Misnomer?
The pragmatist in the grand design was Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. In 1990, he'd already been in charge of the Nittany Lions for 24 years — and, amazingly, would remain coach for 22 years more.
Penn State had been an independent for 106 years before it joined the Big Ten. The Big Ten hadn't added a school since Michigan State in 1949.
Paterno knew the change would be difficult on everyone.
"The (Big Ten's) presidents made an invitation and we accepted it," Paterno said then. "It's not going to be easy, though. I have a lot of empathy for coaches and athletic directors who have to make this happen. The easy part was done by the presidents. The hard part has to be worked out by others."
For the record, not everyone in Happy Valley was sold on a conference affiliation, either.
One caller to a radio talk show said, "I think Penn State took a step down. I see Penn State giving everything to the Big Ten and getting nothing back in return."
For years, Penn State had tried to create an Eastern conference, but had failed. Most neighboring schools didn't look at football the same way Penn State did. Plus, there were differences in size, academic goals and geography to address. At least the Big Ten was comprised of like universities in contiguous states.
Still, even Penn State alumni were lukewarm to the lack of established rivalries and having to travel over 1,000 miles to watch the Nittany Lions play at Minnesota.
"It's been mixed," said Peter Weiler, then Penn State's executive director of the alumni association. "But the temperature is changing. This thing has been percolating for a while. When it first hit the streets, the reaction is completely different than what you have now. There's a lot of anticipation for the first game."
Now the addition of Penn State is seen as a template for other conference expansions, commonplace in college sports these days. Penn State has been a perfect fit for both the university and the Big Ten, particularly in football.
Paterno, who died of lung cancer Sunday at the age of 85, became the conference patriarch as a rookie.
"If you look at just adding a guy like Joe and what he brought individually and what he represented, there was a star power," said Jordan Hyman, a Penn State alum who worked for the school paper and has written books on Nittany Lions football. "You look at the other coaches in the Big Ten, he was the guy. He had the magnetism. No offense to the (John) Coopers and (Lloyd) Carrs of the world, but they're not Joe.
"And never will be."
The addition of Penn State expanded the Big Ten in more ways than geography. Sure, it added fans in New York and the East Coast to what had been a somewhat insular, Midwestern league. But it also enhanced the conference's prominence nationally. Recruiting for other schools started stretching further to the East while Paterno made inroads in Ohio and Michigan. And the inclusion of Penn State increased the Big Ten's television profile and almost immediately proved to be a financial bonanza for all 11 schools.
It's hard to imagine where the Big Ten would be without Penn State — and vice versa.
"Much the way that Penn State kind of acquired a little more national respect and a national footprint through the Big Ten, Penn State coming in helped to further nationalize the Big Ten," Hyman said.
Still, it took time. The first year or two, there was some mistrust and downright enmity between Penn State and the existing members.
Michigan, then the reigning bully in the Big Ten, beat the Nittany Lions 21-13 on Oct. 16, 1993, for their first conference loss. The Wolverines didn't hide their feelings.
"We wanted to welcome Penn State to the Big Ten in a Big Ten fashion, and I think we did that today," center Marc Milia said.
They resented all the attention Penn State was getting in its first season in the Big Ten.
"You just have to pay your dues. Just like a freshman, you can't come in bragging and boasting," said running back Tyrone Wheatley, who rushed for 192 yards in the victory.
But it didn't take long for Penn State to prove it belonged. Within two years, Paterno and his team were Big Ten champs. He called reaching the Rose Bowl — his Nittany Lions did it twice — one of the highlights of an unprecedented 46-year coaching career which included a major-college record 409 victories.
These days, most Big Ten athletes would have no idea that Penn State hadn't always been a member, the fit is so ideal.
But for visionaries like Paterno and others, it took some selling.
"It's good for Penn State and the Big Ten," he said at the time. "Anybody who doesn't think that is very shortsighted."
-- Rusty Miller
Paterno's son: JoePa upbeat, fought cancer to end
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Joe Paterno was upbeat and confident in his final days and didn't die broken-hearted over his firing in November as Penn State's longtime football coach, his son said Monday.
Scott Paterno said his Dad was "serenely calm," before his death from lung cancer on Sunday, antsy to leave the hospital so he could start planning a vacation with his wife, Sue.
Paterno was abruptly dismissed after 46 years amid a child sex abuse scandal involving a former assistant coach.
During a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Scott Paterno said his father's health had deteriorated by Friday afternoon, prompting the family to announce Saturday that the 85-year-old Paterno was in serious condition. He died the following morning.
"He wanted his family in his room. He wanted to be around people. He wanted to talk," the son said. "He wanted to have people, even when he had trouble speaking, he wanted people around him talking. How are your kids? It was so natural. It was like we were having dinner around the kitchen table. It just happened to be his hospital bed."
And, he said: "Even at the end when it was clear that he passed a line of no return, it was never a moment of bitterness. It was never a moment of fear. He was serenely calm, even right up to the end."
The Paternos would have been married six decades this year. Along with their five children, Sue Paterno was at her husband's bedside at Mount Nittany Medical Center when he died.
"If there's any message I think my father would pass on to everybody at this point, it's 'let's build this thing up.' He was so positive and so confident at the end of his life that the things that were important about this place would endure.
"And that's why he was at peace," Scott Paterno said, before joking, "That, and (that) my mother was willing to put up with him all these years."
The Paternos' plans for a long promised six-week honeymoon trip were snatched away by the disease that took his life.
The actual honeymoon? A three-day trip to Virginia Beach — with a stop to see a recruit on the way down.
Paterno re-entered the hospital on Jan. 13, with his family fully expecting him to return home despite his increased frailty.
They thought it was simply a matter of getting him stabilized.
As recently as last Wednesday, Paterno was counting on his fingers the number of days he had been in the hospital, hoping to get out.
"One, two, three, four, five. I've been here five days. I'm coming home," his son quoted his Dad as saying.
Though the old coach was on a respirator that made it difficult to talk, it didn't stop him from teasing Scott on Thursday about his weight. Again. Dad playfully pointed to his son's belly.
"He did that every time," Scott Paterno said.
There were no balloons or flowers in Paterno's room. His son suspects his mother sent them to other patients in the hospital.
But there was a Penn State sweat shirt in there.
"His life is Penn State through and through," Scott Paterno said, speaking of his father in the present tense. "He understood that and it never once occurred to him to be bitter toward Penn State."
-- Genaro C. Armas
Paterno funeral scheduled for Wednesday
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Joe Paterno's family said Monday the legendary football coach will get a two-day viewing and a public memorial this week on the Penn State campus, two months after the university summarily fired him over the phone.
The family gave no details on who might be invited or asked to speak at the memorial Thursday at the basketball arena, which can hold 16,000 people. Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said the specifics were still being worked out with the Paternos.
But many alumni and students say Paterno was treated shabbily by the Board of Trustees in November, and trustees and other members of the administration might not be made to feel welcome at the memorial for the 85-year-old coach, who died Sunday of lung cancer.
"I don't think it's going to be heavily laden with administration and trustees," said trustee Linda Strumpf, who lives in New York and will not attend. "This is something the family is putting together and not the university. I don't think the university wants to be in a position to tell them what a memorial service looks like."
But trustee Al Clemens said he will be there to honor a man he described as a good friend.
"This is really a family thing, and so we're just going to go as individuals," Clemens said. "Joe's a great guy. No matter was the situation was in the last two months, it doesn't take away from what he's done through history for so many people. He's just been tremendous."
The viewing will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at a campus spiritual center, followed by a private funeral Wednesday afternoon. The public memorial will be at the Jordan Center and is expected to draw thousands.
Michael Day, a 1973 Penn State graduate from Hagerstown, Md., whose father taught there and whose four children all have Penn State degrees, said the trustees were wrong to fire Paterno and he believes they will ultimately be replaced. He said he hopes they don't attend.
"I think the Penn State community is separate from the Penn State Board of Trustees," he said. "The Board of Trustees has separated itself from the Penn State community, and the Penn State community loves Joe Paterno and always will. So it's appropriate for the Penn State community to honor Joe Paterno in this service."
Paterno was fired Nov. 9 after he was criticized over his handling of child sex-abuse allegations leveled against former assistant Jerry Sandusky in 2002. Pennsylvania's state police commissioner said that in not going to the police, Paterno may have met his legal duty but not his moral one.
Bitterness over Paterno's removal has turned up in many forms, from online postings to a note placed next to Paterno's statue at the football stadium blaming the trustees for his death. A newspaper headline that read "FIRED" was crossed out and made to read, "Killed by Trustees." Lanny Davis, lawyer for the board, said threats have been made against the trustees.
Janice Hume, a journalism professor at the University of Georgia, said that staging an appropriate memorial creates a dilemma similar to the one faced by Paterno's obituary writers: how to address the scandal without letting it negate his entire career.
"I think it's probably very difficult to strike the right balance," she said.
Clemens said the board will later consider more lasting tributes to Paterno, including scholarships in his name. Because of his generosity to the school, his family name is already on the library and a spiritual center.
There has also been a movement over the past few years to change the name of Beaver Stadium, the football team's home field, to Joe Paterno Field at Beaver Stadium, and on Monday the man behind it, Warren W. Armstrong, a 1960 graduate and retired Allentown advertising executive, said he would renew his efforts. Some are suggesting renaming the street leading to the stadium Paterno Way.
A family spokesman said the Paternos' focus this week is on the viewing and funeral plans and they do want to weigh in on any ideas for a permanent memorial right now. But "I would say the family would welcome a conversation on that," Dan McGinn said.
-- Mark Scolforo
PSU's O'Brien: An 'honor' to follow Paterno
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Bill O'Brien calls it an honor to follow the late Joe Paterno as Penn State's next head coach.
In an interview Monday in the same corner office that once belonged to the man known in State College as JoePa, O'Brien said he will forge his own coaching identity and that no one will ever replace Paterno, who won 409 games and two national championships.
Paterno died Sunday at age 85, a little over two months after his son, Scott, said his father had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
O'Brien never got to speak with Paterno in person following his hiring on Jan. 7.
The two did talk by phone soon after O'Brien arrived. O'Brien said he wanted Paterno to know he would preserve the Penn State traditions of winning and emphasizing academics.
"It wasn't a long conversation, but at the end it was pretty neat. I just wanted to make sure he knew that I was going to work very hard to keep it going here," O'Brien said.
O'Brien's still working at his old job, too — as offensive coordinator for the Super Bowl-bound New England Patriots. He's traveling between Foxborough, Mass., and Happy Valley juggling duties.
O'Brien most recently arrived back in State College on Monday, and he plans to join his players for a viewing for Paterno on Tuesday before returning to New England on Wednesday night.
"To me, it's an honor to follow a guy like Coach Paterno," O'Brien said.
While Paterno's personal items are now out of the office, the furniture hasn't changed.
The conference table, however, is now covered with some of O'Brien's tapes and binders he needs to get ready for the Super Bowl against the New York Giants in two weeks. The large monitor sitting on a TV cart next to his desk was frozen on a frame from the Patriots' win Sunday over Baltimore to take the AFC title.
When in New England, he comes into the office around 4:30 a.m. to get Penn State duties done for two hours. Then it's all Patriots until after dinner, when he transitions back to Penn State.
That means speaking with staff on the phone and especially, these days, getting to work on recruiting. The first day that seniors can formally make their college choices is Feb. 1.
O'Brien feels the Penn State pitch will be helped by his last few days as the coordinator for the high-powered Patriots offense.
"You're on TV and a lot of people are watching the game. You're coaching the offense of New England," he said. "I would think that's going to help."
Wearing a dark sweater and white dress shirt, O'Brien spoke with quiet confidence as he leaned back on the couch. His family is looking for a home. He said they love the area.
But there's no rest while he's here. He's essentially switched the schedule he keeps in New England, so watching tape of the Giants was on the agenda after dinner Monday.
O'Brien knows that some Penn State fans might be concerned that he won't be starting full time in Happy Valley until after the Super Bowl. But he said he made his commitment to New England known to Penn State early in the school's search process to replace Paterno.
"I was going to finish something that I started. I was always taught that by my parents," he said.
"And the other thing ... is that there's no way I could stand in front of the team and tell them, 'You have to be loyal, you have to be committed,' and then say, 'OK see you later New England, I'm going to Penn State,'" O'Brien said.
He has one spot left open on the Penn State coaching staff on offense. O'Brien said he's unsure if he will have an offensive coordinator, and if so whether that person will come from his current assistants or via a new hire, though he does intend at this point to call his own plays.
As for defense, O'Brien cited the credentials of his coordinator, Ted Roof, a former standout linebacker at Georgia Tech. He said he would use multiple looks up front. He cited the Jets, Ravens and Giants defenses among the best he's faced and "the defenses where you never know what's going to happen next."
But O'Brien also said his defense will also "center a lot around that linebacker position," O'Brien said. "The linebackers here are going to be like the quarterback of the defense."
If it works out, it would fit in with another tradition from the Paterno era — tough defenses that helped the program develop a reputation as "Linebacker U."
-- Genaro C. Armas
Kansas coach Snyder calls Paterno 'truly special'
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Kansas State coach Bill Snyder calls Joe Paterno a "truly special person" and said that all the good the late Penn State coach accomplished will live on.
Paterno died Sunday at age 85, just 65 days after his son Scott said his father had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
Snyder spent time with Paterno at various camps, coaching junkets and other events over the course of their careers. They never met as opposing head coaches.
After Paterno was fired this season during the fallout of a sex abuse scandal at Penn State, and the retirement of 77-year-old Howard Schnellenberger from Florida Atlantic, the 72-year-old Snyder becomes the oldest active coach in major college football.
Snyder said in a statement Monday that "Joe's passion for helping others exceeded even his unparalleled successes on the field."
