RIP: JoePa

[cartman]

Joseph Vincent Paterno, head coach of Penn State from 1966 to 2011, and the all-time winning-est coach in Division 1 history, has passed away.

Former Penn State coach Joe Paterno dies at 85 - CBSSports.com (http://eye-on-collegefootball.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/24156338/34497800)

[Edward64]

Sad to see him pass away with the baggage from this past year.

[Izulde]

I think the baggage of this past year played a large role in killing him, as others said in the other thread.

[cuervo72]

RIP JoePa.

[Lathum]

RIP, hopefully people remember him for all the good he did and not the mistakes he made.

[Grover]

It may be premature...

Andrew Brandt @adbrandt
Whoa. RT @markcviera: Dan McGinn, the Paterno family spokesman, at 8:57 p.m. on reports of Joe Paterno's death: "Absolutely not true."

[BillJasper]

RIP, hopefully people remember him for all the good he did and not the mistakes he made.

Let's hope they remember him for both. People can learn from the mistakes of others.

RIP Mr. Paterno.

[CU Tiger]

RIP I hope his lasting impression isn't the last few months nor that his role in what transpired over too long is left out either.

[Grover]

The Washington Post @washingtonpost
The Paterno family has denied reports of Joe Paterno's death. #JoePa

[Ben E Lou]

JayPaterno (https://twitter.com/#%21/JayPaterno) Jay Paterno



I appreciate the support & prayers. Joe is continuing to fight.

[Grover]

Scott Paterno @ScottPaterno
CBS report is wrong - Dad is alive but in serious condition. We continue to ask for your prayers and privacy during this time.

[RedKingGold]

I find sick humor in Onward State's backtracking:


OnwardState To OS followers: Our 8:45 pm tweet about Joe Paterno's death appears to be inaccurate, according to @JayPaterno, who says he's alive. (1/2)

Yeah.....I think I'll go with Jay on that one.

[cartman]

Lee Roy Selman, Part Deux

[Ben E Lou]

DanielRathman (https://twitter.com/#%21/DanielRathman) Daniel Rathman



Bigger problem than CBS Sports being wrong is that only AFTER they were proved wrong did they cite original <s>@</s>OnwardState (https://twitter.com/#%21/OnwardState) report. <s class="hash">#</s>cowardly (https://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23cowardly)

[tyketime]

Sorry, guess I'm in a different camp. I hope his death doesn't diminish this terrible tragedy he did have a key part in. Mrs. Tyke called it by saying he would probably die soon after leaving the team. Seems she may be right in the near future.

[Senator]

Mrs. Tyke called it by saying he would probably die soon after leaving the team. Seems she may be right in the near future.

The insurance actuaries agreed.

[gkb]

Is Jeff Goldblum ok?

[rowech]

MSNBC reporting family has confirmed. Paterno has died.

[RainMaker]

Let the riots begin.

[rowech]

I'm trying to think of someone who had their legacy tarnished so much near the end and then died within 6 months. I can't think of anyone else that even comes close.

[Toddzilla]

Sad to see him pass away with the baggage from this past year.Sad too see him pass away a free man and not in jail where he belonged.

Also sad he was never made to face the kids he allowed to get raped by keeping quiet just to protect his own ass and his football team.

[rowech]

Sad too see him pass away a free man and not in jail where he belonged.

Also sad he was never made to face the kids he allowed to get raped by keeping quiet just to protect his own ass and his football team.

What grounds were you going to put him into jail? He didn't break any laws.

[Raiders Army]

I think condoning child abuse is the tip of the iceberg. Now that he's dead the rest won't come out. Although it's almost impossible to do, the attempt will be made to make him into more of a deity. If he was willing to overlook despicable acts, then what else did he do in the name of his program?

The retrospectives, however, will augment his good deeds which were many. I don't think that being a good "net" person can give you immunity to hypocrisy or other moral downfalls.

[TroyF]

I think condoning child abuse is the tip of the iceberg. Now that he's dead the rest won't come out. Although it's almost impossible to do, the attempt will be made to make him into more of a deity. If he was willing to overlook despicable acts, then what else did he do in the name of his program?

The retrospectives, however, will augment his good deeds which were many. I don't think that being a good "net" person can give you immunity to hypocrisy or other moral downfalls.

I disagree with this. I think this will always hang over his head by the general population. The people of Penn St? Former players? Maybe sympathetic. The rest of the world? He'll be remembered as a great head coach and a guy who did a lot of really good things. . . and then who had a despicable moral failure when it counted most. Not a deity, a flawed man whose inaction caused many lives to be ruined.

I also think investigators into this will not stop anytime soon. Everyone still wants to know the full story and people are going to keep trying to get that story.

[BYU 14]

I disagree with this. I think this will always hang over his head by the general population. The people of Penn St? Former players? Maybe sympathetic. The rest of the world? He'll be remembered as a great head coach and a guy who did a lot of really good things. . . and then who had a despicable moral failure when it counted most. Not a deity, a flawed man whose inaction caused many lives to be ruined.

I also think investigators into this will not stop anytime soon. Everyone still wants to know the full story and people are going to keep trying to get that story.

Summarized nicely Troy and I have to agree with you. One thing for sure is that he has gone from a universally revered icon to one of the more polarzing figures in sports. Maybe not in terms of straight division among people, which you address in your post. But in terms of extremes I think the chasm between those that condemn or support him the most will always be VERY wide.

[ColtCrazy]

Regardless of where you stand on the Joe Pa issue, it's hard to argue that all of this didn't hasten his death. There's a fighting spirit that we have that gets diminished for various reasons. The whole situation and his passing is just one endless sad situation.

[Dutch]

Assuming he had no part in the horrific events that transpired in his locker rooms, RIP, Paterno.

[Matthean]

The bad news he doesn't get to tell his side of the story in full. The good news is I don't see how it would have ended well considering what he had already said coming across as ignorant and oblivious to the obvious.

[rowech]

Is it fair to say Paterno's legacy will be similar to Bobby Knight's?

[molson]

I usually hate video links on the front page of news/sports sites, but I did click on the ESPN.com front page cover story video link - it was a good, balanced, 2-3 minute piece narrated by Jeremy Schaap. He got it all in there and I think it's a good sampling of what the legacy is going to be.

Edit: And personally, I think that at least 75% of people of Paterno's age wouldn't have done any more than he did when it came to what he learned. And a lot of people wouldn't have done even what he did. Paterno trusted people younger than him to deal with it, I do believe he was bewildered and confused by the whole thing. So while it was definitely a failed opportunity to do more, I can't see it as a "despicable act." He faced a test that many people from his generation would fail, and he couldn't rise above it and he failed too. I'm 100% positive there's coaches who have actively (and successfully) covered up sex abuse scandals. It's too widespread for this to have been the first time this has ever happened in big time college sports. So it's hard to say it's "unfair", but it kind of is - Paterno has this tarnished legacy, that I think many coaches would have had if Sandusky ended up on their staffs. Of course, it's also really just luck and being in the right place that allowed Paterno to be considered "a great person" before all this. That's all I'm saying. There's a fine line between considered a great guy and a horrible person, and a lot of it is just based on the opportunities you have and the tests you face.

[SportsDino]

I don't think younger coaches would have done much better with the scandal, there is a lot in our culture about covering things up or lying for selfish ends. I can just see the crowd come out and demand he be allowed to rest and peace and all this talk about what he did or did not do should be put to rest, fuck that, the people harmed by his choices who have already lived for years with no outlet for justice have suffered more than an old cowardly idiot who had a comfortable and long life.

[rowech]

Westboro to picket the funeral. Something tells me they could get their ass kicked.

[molson]

I never thought I'd hear Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe quoting Shakespeare but I think this was a good quote:

“The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.” (Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene II).

[gkb]

Edit: And personally, I think that at least 75% of people of Paterno's age wouldn't have done any more than he did when it came to what he learned. And a lot of people wouldn't have done even what he did. Paterno trusted people younger than him to deal with it, I do believe he was bewildered and confused by the whole thing.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this. I'm not in here to crap all of Joe Paterno, but I think you're selling the majority of elderly people short. This isn't a difficult thing to understand or do something about. Do you have older grandparents. Go ask them this:

Hey Grandpa, do you know what rape is? So if I told you that I saw an old man raping a 10 year old boy you'd get the gist of what I was saying right?

“You know, he didn’t want to get specific,” Paterno said. “And to be frank with you I don’t know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man."

[molson]

This isn't a difficult thing to understand or do something about. Do you have older grandparents. Go ask them this:



My grandfather would probably keep it to himself, it'd be too weird and creepy to tell anybody about. It was a different time. In the 50s, Sandusky would be directed to pray more, and the kid probably would be punished and his parents would hope it was just a phase and the kid would grow out of it if me met the right girl. The police wouldn't get involved in something like this, it's be a personal matter between Sandusky and his wife, and the Penn St. community and Sanduksy's church.

[Autumn]

And in the '50s Paterno would be running the wishbone. Wouldnt he have been fired if he was incapable of keeping up with a changing sport? He clearly was capable of learning new things. Ironically people are less forgiving when it comes to sports than molestation.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I think Ivan Maisel's piece is one of the better ones I've seen.

Joe Paterno's Penn State legacy should be more than scandal - ESPN (http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7487990/joe-paterno-penn-state-legacy-more-scandal)

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

I think the baggage of this past year played a large role in killing him, as others said in the other thread.

I disagree, I've got to go with the cancer there.

[molson]

And in the '50s Paterno would be running the wishbone. Wouldnt he have been fired if he was incapable of keeping up with a changing sport? He clearly was capable of learning new things. Ironically people are less forgiving when it comes to sports than molestation.

Are you calling me "forgiving of molestation"? You say "people", but I think you're responding to my post. I'm trying to think out loud about a complicated topic, about how regular people get here.

Are people who think about and study how regular, otherwise decent and law-abiding Germans were able to be complicit in Nazi atrocities "forgiving of Nazism"?

I've made it a career to prosecute crimes and support victims. I do have a psychological interest in how these things can happen, and how people fail morally. That's real life. Victims try to understand the perspective of not only their abusers who are often loved ones, but the role of their parents who failed to take steps to act. It's not "forgiving" to try to understand those things. And it's pretty insulting to be called that.

[Autumn]

No, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the way people rally behind a coach, even for such serious mistakes, yet if a coach made the wrong call or picks the wrong players people are willing to crucify him. If Paterno had screwed up on the field students would be burning him in effigy, but since he just screwed up in life, they're holding candlelight vigils. That's crazy.

[JediKooter]

Joe fucked up and got fired for it.

I've seen and heard about a lot of people that die shortly after retiring/getting fired from a job they held for a long long time. This is nothing new.

I guess I don't see the big deal here.

[Toddzilla]

Is it fair to say Paterno's legacy will be similar to Bobby Knight's?I hope not - I don't think Bob Knight covered up child rape.

[spleen1015]

Rick Reilly - Paterno's True Legacy - ESPN (http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7492873/rick-reilly-paterno-true-legacy)

Makes me conflicted on how to really feel about the man.

[Ksyrup]

So uh, the fact that Paterno's memorial service happens to fall on Sandusky's birthday is...strange, I guess?

[Suburban Rhythm]

Paterno memorial service tickets posted for sale on eBay (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12025/1205814-455.stm)

[Kodos]

Rick Reilly - Paterno's True Legacy - ESPN (http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7492873/rick-reilly-paterno-true-legacy)

Makes me conflicted on how to really feel about the man.

Nice column. I think he summed it up pretty well. A man with many great acts and one terrible failure to act. I've definitely struggled with how to feel about him as a whole person.

[BillJasper]

Nice column. I think he summed it up pretty well. A man with many great acts and one terrible failure to act. I've definitely struggled with how to feel about him as a whole person.

Agreed.

[albionmoonlight]

The Onion's take on it: http://www.theonion.com/articles/jerry-sandusky-ill-never-forget-all-the-things-joe,27169/

My take on it: I don't see why we are all stopping at wondering about Paterno's legacy. This is larger than Paterno: Alleged Jerry Sandusky victim leaves school because of bullying, counselor says | PennLive.com (http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/11/alleged_jerry_sandusky_victim.html)

This is NOT a sports scandal. This is a tragedy that happens to involve a sports team. The fact that Penn State football seems to be making people forget this makes me think that we could all do without Penn State football.

Suspend the football program. Re-assess what's going on with your university culture without the distraction of football. Then, after a while, bring it back if that seems like the right thing to do. Or don't. Show that you actually get that raping kids is a bigger deal than some typical recruiting violation.

And don't really worry about Joe Pa one way or the other. Trying to pin all of this on him is a convenient way to pretend that the rot isn't still in the program.

[RomaGoth]

My grandfather would probably keep it to himself, it'd be too weird and creepy to tell anybody about. It was a different time. In the 50s, Sandusky would be directed to pray more, and the kid probably would be punished and his parents would hope it was just a phase and the kid would grow out of it if me met the right girl. The police wouldn't get involved in something like this, it's be a personal matter between Sandusky and his wife, and the Penn St. community and Sanduksy's church.

I find the bolded section very interesting. You are making it sound like the Puritans were running things 50 years ago. Why wouldn't the police be involved if a man was accused of raping a child? Were the laws different then? Did nobody care what happened to children?

I can tell you from my experience with the older generation that they do care about children being raped. I suspect that Paterno was more interested in keeping his job and protecting reputations than a secondhand story about a child being raped in his football facilities. It is unfortunate, but this is the legacy that Paterno leaves behind and God will judge him now.

[Autumn]

The Onion's take on it: Jerry Sandusky: I’ll Never Forget All The Things Joe Paterno Did For Me | The Onion - America's Finest News Source (http://www.theonion.com/articles/jerry-sandusky-ill-never-forget-all-the-things-joe,27169/)

That is one of their most perfect pieces ever.

"When I think of how much of my life I owe to Joe Paterno, I don't even know where to begin," said Sandusky, who confessed to feeling "overcome" while attending the former football coach's funeral. "I think it's safe to say I wouldn't have been able to lead the life I've led, wouldn't have grown into the man I've become, if it hadn't been for his leadership. I can't even begin to imagine what would have become of me if not for Joe Paterno."