12 thoughts on “Joe Paterno, 1926-2012

  1. My comment disappeared again?

    I didn’t even mention any drug brand names, or anything!

    • gulag — you must have really pissed off the spam filter this time. Your message isn’t even in the spam filter; it went straight to oblivion. Sorry about that.

  2. Wow, I wonder what I did?

    No problem.

    I just wanted to say that though I’m a Penn State fan, and a former Paterno fan, the last 12 or so years, after he found out about Sandusky, have ruined what was once a stellar career. But, it’s hard to overlook the horror that he allowed to continue to happen right under his nose. Instead of facing it head-on, he turned his back on those kids and their families, and that, to me says more about him than all of the success he had a football coach.

    I do, however feel for this family.

    I know what they must have felt when they first found out about his illness, because earlier this week, my 86 year-old father was also told he has lung cancer. I spent all morning with him while he got a PET Scan in Manhattan, and we just got back.
    The VA sent a private car to pick us up, wait for us, and drop us off. And, since we live about 80-90 miles away, that was no small accommodation.

    I’ve spent a lot of time over the past month with him at the VA near Beacon, NY.
    First he had gall stones, which we haven’t had a chance to figure out a strategy for, because right after that he developed a bad cold, and they found fluid in his lungs. Then, he had a bad infection in this arm, which seems to be improving slowly, and then, after further tests on his lung, they found a small tumor – is there even such a thing as a “small” tumor?

    I think very highly of the VA. They have a very hard-working and caring staff. I wish everyone in this country had access to the kind of health care my father has gotten – and this despite all of the budget cuts they’ve had in the past 10+ years.

    In a saner nation, we might. But not here, and not now. Maybe after I’m gone…

  3. Penn State is my alma mater. I crossed paths numerous times with a early fiftiesh JoePa, decades ago as I walked the campus in my younger days. I used to meet with other students in Sunset Park – which was next to Paterno’s modest home, a couple blocks from campus. We were budding environmental activists, members of one of the school’s many subcultures, very far from the mainstream rah-rah football culture that so dominated Penn State even then.

    And yet, anyone who went to school there had their heart ripped open this fall by the scandal; it taught me a lot about how love is blind – how my loyalty to the school and to Paterno made it very hard for me to finally see the man’s (and my school’s) flaws. That’s why students there rioted when Paterno was fired – they at first fought the scandal’s revelations, so at odds with their love of the man, but which they finally had to accept. And yet those who condemned Paterno I feel can’t see the many, overwhelming positives of his life.

    As an alumni I was a bit amazed and mildly horrified over the years at how the school reacted to Paterno’s generosity: he donated millions to build a new wing to the main library, which was subsequently renamed in his honor; Penn State ice cream – which Ben and Jerry pay homage to (they learned to make ice cream through a Penn State correspondence course) – came out with a new flavor – “Peachy Paterno”; the final straw was a large, kitchy bronze statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium – which seemed a bit like the Israelite’s golden calf.

    It was an LA Times sportswriter, Bill Plashke who helped me find my bearings as the scandal unfolded, in a column named This Should Be the End of Paterno State:

    As university presidents throughout the country view the steaming pile of rubble that was once college football’s greatest coach and its most admired program, they should understand one thing.

    None of this is a coincidence.

    It is no coincidence that the most heinous scandal in the history of college sports happened at Penn State University.

    It is no coincidence that an alleged child molester was allowed to roam the Penn State University grounds unchecked for nearly a decade with the knowledge of everyone from the school president to the football coach.

    It is no coincidence that an alleged sexual assault of a 10-year-old boy in the showers of the school’s football locker room was never reported to police by anyone at Penn State University.

    It is no coincidence, because for 46 years it was not really Penn State University, it was Paterno State University. It was a school that sold its soul to football coach Joe Paterno for the sake of riches and recognition, a school that found its identity in his plain uniforms and lived its life by his corny pep talks.

    Paterno was allowed to play God, and so his longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was allowed to do whatever he wanted, wherever he wanted, even if it included alleged sexual abuse of eight boys over a 15-year period….

    Ten years earlier, the school’s president (Spanier, who was fired along with Paterno), along with Paterno’s boss, the athletic director, tried to get Joe Paterno to retire. He threw them out of his house. It amazes me that he could say “No” to the university president – nobody should have that kind of power. But that was just one sign of what had gone wrong at Penn State.

    Plashke made the point that there are other Penn States out there – schools that likewise sold their souls for recognition, fame, and money through athletics. My love for Penn State makes me think more about the needed soul searching that the school must be going through to figure out who they really are after all this, what are they really about, rather than thinking about the victims of the sex scandal – who I have no connection with, but that’s just how love works.

  4. Thank you kindly, maha.

    My Mom, Sister, and I are kind of selfish – we want him around a few more years.
    But, only if his quality of life doesn’t deteriorate too much further. In the month since his gall bladder attack, he’s seems as if he’s aged a decade both mentally and physically.
    He’s a kind man, a great and wonderful father, and the smartest man I’ve ever met. I bet he knows more history than you and I combined – and you seem to know your history pretty well, and I like to think I do as well. He could have been one of the greatest history professors in this country, if he’d have gotten a degree and pursued that. Instead, he was an immigrant, almost 25 when he finally got here, and went to work in a machine shop, where, eventually, he served as a well respected foreman in a number of them.

    Maybe you can put in a good word for him with Buddha?
    My Sister and Mom are working the Jesus side. 🙂

  5. gulag — I’m sorry your father is so ill. I hope he gets very much better and lives more than a few more years.

  6. PurpleGirl,
    Thanks a lot.
    It’s been a tough month.
    We should know more later on this week.

  7. Gulag, your father will never leave you, not really. I am sure you have told him what you have told us about him. The chance to express love and appreciation is what made me able to accept my father’s illness and eventual death. I still have a pair of his pants hanging in back of my closet, a little remembrance shrine and source of strength.

  8. Thanks, Bill.
    And yes, he knows how I feel about him.
    I may not have won the NY State lottery, but my sister and I won in the parental lottery.
    Love is more important than money.

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