Upon hearing of the death of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, several thoughts ran through my head – and not one of those revolved around the ugly scandal that rocked the small Pennsylvania community just over two months prior.
Make no mistake: Joe Paterno is a legend and his passing should be treated as such.
The news of his death is a sad reminder of how quickly things can change. In late October he was preparing his team for its upcoming game – something that he had done hundreds of times. Less than a week later, someone other than Paterno was leading Penn State out of the tunnel for the first time since 1966.
One week later he was diagnosed with lung cancer.
Two months later, he was gone.
Paterno lived and breathed Penn State football, and once that was taken away from him, his health deteriorated rapidly. His cause of death will be listed as complications from lung cancer, but what really killed him was the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
It's sad really, that this man who had such a monumental impact on Penn State, and football in general for that matter, will inevitably have a stain on his legacy.
Four hundred nine wins, 37 bowl games, five perfect seasons and two national championships are the kinds of things that should be mentioned when talking about Paterno.
As a society we are programmed to remember people's failures more than their successes. If you say Chris Webber the first thing that comes to mind is when he called timeout when his team didn't have any left in the 1993 National Championship game.
In Paterno's case it's especially saddening because it's not because of anything he himself did. You could make the argument that the longtime coach should have done more to prevent the Jerry Sandusky crimes, and that's your prerogative. But Joe Pa himself didn't commit any of the heinous acts described in the grand jury report, and his memory should reflect that.
Paterno should be remembered as the face of Penn State, and the gold standard for football coaches, not the face of a sexual abuse scandal.
Joe Paterno never raped any children – that was all allegedly Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky was the one who sodomized a child in the shower, and Sandusky was the one who should take the well-deserved backlash.
He defines coaching, built a national powerhouse and changed the game.
Paterno dedicated his life to Penn State football and his players, and the quick deterioration of his health speaks to that.
Taking away football from Joe Paterno is what killed him more than the cancer.
As Jim Valvano famously said, "Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul."
Cancer took away Paterno's physical health, but it was the scandal that took away his heart and soul.
Email: tyler.cady@ubspectrum.com
