Joe Pa and the Bear

29 years ago Bear Bryant died 4 weeks after coaching his last football game.  Joe Paterno died this morning 11 weeks after coaching his last game.  Two legendary college football coaches whose careers have been compared many times over the years now share one more trait; they couldn’t live without the game.  As the dust has settled a bit from the awful November revelations of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged molestations of young boys, attitudes towards Paterno’s poor judgment in the matter have softened.  While it is still apparent that Paterno should have done more, his own admission of such as well as his failing health have caused the media to focus more on his “full body of work” at Penn State to capture his legacy. 

Joe admitted that he didn’t know how to deal with Mike McQueary’s  report of what happened in the  shower room,  and he settled for informing Penn State administrators thinking that they would have more expertise in dealing with the situation.  He should have done more.  He should have thought about future victims instead of potential embarrassment to the university.  This is obvious in retrospect, but given similar circumstances, how many of us would have behaved differently?  After all, he didn’t hide it; he passed the problem up the line. So did McQueary.  We think of our heroes like Joe Paterno as being better than the rest of us in all respects.  This event proves that while iconic football coaches like Paterno and Bryant are superior in one field, they can be extraordinarily human and average in other aspects of life.

Paterno’s longevity was both legendary and controversial.  He was asked to retire in 2004 after consecutive losing seasons but refused.  For the past two seasons his frail appearance evoked more pity than adulation and the injury that he suffered this season when accidentally hit by a player during practice took him off the sidelines and may have accelerated his death.  An argument can be made that he was too old to coach in 2002 when as a 75 year old man, he faced a decision that would later turn out to be career and life defining.  Would a younger, more energetic Paterno, a man of unquestioned  integrity and honesty, have dealt with McQueary’s revelation in a more proactive way?

It’s been said that Joe Paterno died of a broken heart.  In a sense, his sudden death relieves him of the pain of watching the sordid Sandusky affair unfold in the courts later this year.  Time does heal and Paterno’s legacy will be less tarnished as time moves on.  A lesson that we can all learn is that public icons are no better than the rest of us outside of their field and we all have a responsibility to act when presented with the opportunity to stop a threat to society.