The Man and the Coach

By Joe Schackman

The legacy of Joe Paterno is not black and white.

Joe Paterno is an icon, thanks to his success on the football field.

He built the Penn State program into one of the titans in the sporting world. And while USC, Miami and other big-time programs crumbled from within, Penn State appeared built on a rock solid foundation secured by JoePa’s leadership.

However, the last few months have torn down that image. While Paterno’s greatness as a football coach is unquestioned, his legacy off the field became forever complicated.

Paterno is the winningest coach in major college football history, racking up 409 career wins over 46 years at the helm of Penn State football. He’s appeared in more bowls than any other coach and has the most victories to show for them. He coached five undefeated teams and won two national championships. An endless stream of players graduated to the professional ranks, five of whom went on to be enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame.

Through all of his success, though, Paterno remained a humble man. He turned down chances to move to the NFL because he felt indebted to the school. He never strong armed Penn State into raising his salary to match the other top coaches around the country. He lived in the same ranch-style house for the last 45 years of his life. He was a simple and somewhat anachronistic man who embodied the central Pennsylvania tenets of simplicity and hard work. Paterno was old school in every sense of the word, and those characteristics won over those both in State College and around the country.

Those football-related accomplishments are easy to measure. Wins are wins; they can be counted. But his life away from the game that is difficult to quantify. Paterno has long been a passionate educator, and it showed in his teams’ graduation rates, which were well above the NCAA average. Many of the players that didn’t go on to pro football after Penn State excelled in other careers in part because of the teachings they took from Paterno.

He was a philanthropist as well, donating to the academic funds of Penn State and helping the school raise the millions of dollars necessary to build a new library that now bears his name.

There is no doubt that Paterno did a great amount of good for both his players and the other students at the school. Without him and his on-field success, you could argue, Penn State’s growth from agricultural school to world-renowned institution of higher education might never have happened

But as we have so painfully found out, Paterno was not perfect. When Mike McQueary walked into his office and told him what he saw, regardless of his exact wording or tone of voice, Paterno had responsibility to take action. Instead, he did the bare minimum. He passed the information to his “superior” and never addressed it again.

There have been numerous excuses made for the head coach, all of which are inadequate. Some say Paterno did exactly what was expected of him. Some use his age as an excuse, arguing that he was too old to really understand what was going on. Paterno himself maintained that he had “never heard of, of rape and a man.”

None of those justifications, make his failures any less severe or shocking. No matter how those around him acted, Paterno’s position allowed him to do more for these young children, and he never did. Claiming that you have never heard of rape and a man is on par with saying you didn’t know guns could kill in a manslaughter trial.

Is it unfair that Joe Paterno has in many ways become the face of this crisis? Yes. He is not the criminal here. That is allegedly Jerry Sandusky (who, as a reminder, has not yet been convicted. Everyone deserves their day in court. Even if it turns out they’re monsters.) But Paterno is no victim either. The platform he built over his years at Penn State led to tremendous good. He raised money for libraries and research facilities and scholarships. That same platform also led to his spectacular downfall. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

Joe Paterno’s legacy can no longer be measured in absolutes. He was not the shining example he was once believed to be. Nor is he Exhibit A in what is wrong with major college sports today. Paterno’s acts of good do not make up for the fact that he failed to act when needed, yet that failure cannot overshadow the otherwise admirable life that Joe Paterno led. It is a complicated legacy for a not so complicated man.


Joe Schackman is an editor and co-founder of Began in '96