By Jennifer Eisenbart
Sports editor
On Sunday morning, one of the greatest football coaches ever to grace the college stage left this Earth.
Joe Paterno, the longtime head of the Penn State University football program, died of lung cancer at the age of 85. The man lovingly known as “JoePa” won 409 football games, took the Nittany Lions to 37 bowl appearances and won a pair of national titles.
And yet, as the news broke Sunday, what should have been the obituary of a great coach took on the appearance of a questionable legacy. The reason? The sexual abuse scandal left behind when Paterno was fired this fall after apparently not sufficiently reporting the actions of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky in said scandal.
The investigation of what happened involving Sandusky and 10 children over the course of 15 years will likely take a long time. In the aftermath left by the scandal, Penn State University made the decision to terminate a coach who may have known everything about Sandusky – or known nothing.
Certainly, the evidence that has been presented so far is reasonably damning. How much Paterno knew and failed to tell, failed to recognize or simply didn’t care about may never be known. Ironically, the family called for privacy to be respected Sunday in the wake of Paterno’s death. It is ironic, because privacy is the one thing Paterno seemed to have a lack of in the wake of the scandal.
But while the investigation is ongoing regarding Sandusky, what should be remembered about Joe Paterno? Remember the football coach? Remember the scandal? In some peoples’ minds, the two will never be separated. JoePa will go down as one of the greatest football coaches ever, but with a big asterisk regarding who he was as a person.
To me, for the moment (and that’s an important addendum), Joe Paterno should be remembered first – and only – as a coach. His legacy should be on the football field.
I stress “for the moment” because the investigation is ongoing and because I truly believe in innocent until proven guilty. My feelings are that what Sandusky did should be punishable, and should be punished in court. There is no lower rung in Hell than for child molesters.
Paterno’s situation is far more ambiguous. All indications are that Paterno didn’t go far enough up the chain in reporting what happened with Sandusky. He didn’t make a media circus out of it – whether to protect his program, to protect the privacy of individuals involved or to simply because he didn’t have a clue what to do with the mess.
I’m not excusing what happened with Sandusky; whatever it was took place. And if it’s proven that Paterno did wrong, then let that become part of the legacy.
For now, though, a great man – respected by thousands of young men who went through Penn State with Paterno as their mentor – has died. Don’t try his case in the media. Let justice play its part, and remember the greatest.
Let the rest play out where it will.
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