Remembering Joe Pa
A few months ago, I wrote a few blogs on the Penn St. scandal and how it was a shame that one of the greatest football coaches of all time would eventually lose his job and sure enough, he did. Shortly after, Joe Paterno was diagnosed with lung cancer, further adding to his misery. Just this morning, coach Paterno lost his bout with that awful disease.
In some ways, it was like God took Paterno out of his misery by taking him from us. I cannot imagine Paterno was a very happy man after being fired in November. Coaching at Penn St. was his life, his passion. He didn’t really have any other interests. Golf, hunting, fishing were not things Joe Pa did like many coaches. His whole life was about football and coaching young men to become better players and better people. Suddenly that passion of his life was taken from him. Whether it was fair or not can be debated. But you have to admit that it was a very sad way for a great career to end.
As a sports fan, two words come to mind when I think of Paterno, old school. He was about as old schooled as any coach in the land. Those jerseys of his teams have been the same for the last 60 years!! Nothing fancy or flashy about his program. Those jerseys pretty much symbolized who Paterno was. Someone who probably went to the Dairy Queen and always bought a vanilla ice cream cone. But that plain nature did produce results with Joe Pa having the most wins of any coach in major college football. He knew how to win and for the most part ran a very good program.
This fall, a new coach will take the field for Penn St. and a new era will begin. But it will just not be the same without that skinny old guy on the sidelines with the funny glasses and ankle high flood pants. He will be missed by all of college football. Sure there will be a black mark on his legacy but he has done so many positive things for college football and Penn State. I believe over time, those positive things will far overshadow the scandal and his legacy will be one of a program that produced good results and fine young men.
