A decade ago, working on ESPN TV’s “SportsCentury” series, I interviewed Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno in the place that JoePa built: State College, Pa., then college football’s Brigadoon.
For an hour, I asked the two-time national titlist about players, games, and Xs and Os, seeing why Sports Illustrated termed Paterno “universally beloved.” Turning off the camera, we spoke of college off the field — easy to see why JoePa was respected, too.
The Brown University ‘49 English major discussed his daughter, a reporter; favorite authors, from Hemingway to Fitzgerald; and books he admired, like Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” Listening, I wondered how many major coaches would know who Faulkner was, let alone discuss him with depth and erudition.
At one point, Paterno said, “Life means balance. That’s why the scholar-athlete” — a joke at most schools — “matters. Take away the scholar, and athletics don’t count.” I came to Happy Valley aware that an astonishing 89 percent of his players graduate. I left feeling that JoePa embodied the core of coaching — teaching. Many still believe that now.
Unless on sabbatical in Sudan, you know how last month a grand-jury report charged Paterno’s former defensive coach, Jerry Sandusky, with 40 counts of child sex abuse from 1994 to 2009, including a 2002 incident allegedly witnessed by another coach, Mike McQueary.
McQueary allegedly told Paterno, who told higher-ups, who told the college president: all now gone. The grand jury will investigate who knew what — for no one knows what McQueary told Paterno; thus, what JoePa told others. Did McQueary sanitize the truth? “Roughhousing,” a word Joe recalls, is not necessarily abuse. For now, you and I have only guesswork and supposition.
Paterno has not been charged with illegality, having done what he was supposed to — report up the chain. This didn’t stop CNN, Fox, and MSNBC from lashing him for not acting morally: call the cops, break down the nearest door. Cable TV lecturing JoePa on morality is as hypocritical as Heidi Fleiss touting abstinence. The grand jury will reveal if Paterno knew of the abuse and if he reacted ethically, as it should.
Sadly, like cable, Penn State’s Board of Trustees couldn’t wait for due process of law. It needed a perceived fall guy, and knew just the man, axing JoePa for ... what? One board member said Paterno was jettisoned “to end a controversy,” irrespective of fact or presumption of innocence. To end a controversy? What kind of slugs would use such a rationale?
