The rush to assess Joe Paterno’s legacy after his death Sunday morning rivaled the rush to oust him as Penn State’s coach a few short months ago.
Both actions might be understandable; neither are completely justifiable.
No 60-year career can be summed up in one assessment, one legacy, one action. It’s comprised of parts, many good, some not great and one very, very troubling.
Paterno was a coach who tried to maintain perspective about his job. He walked to work from a house that many average Joes could afford. He eschewed the self-aggrandizement that many coaches, players and “programs” can’t avoid.
It was always striking to hear Paterno’s players speak of him. College students would sit and say “Joe does this” or “Joe thinks that.” While many coaches insisted on the title, Paterno’s players called him Joe. Paterno didn’t feel a title earned respect; actions did. And he educated, taught, and tried to mold boys into young men. In many cases he did just that -- witness the way he is beloved by his former players.
Paterno had an ego. There is no coach who lacks one. But he brought a different feel to coaching, one that legitimately tried to take pride in helping educate as well as win. Without Paterno, one wonders what Penn State would be. He stood for winning, but he tried to preach winning with perspective.
Unfortunately, as Paterno preached perspective he lost it -- about himself. His biggest flaw was staying in his job too long, and as he got older it was tougher to see him try to stay on the sideline. Imagine the impact and import Paterno could have had had he retired at 65 and elicited his strong feelings about college athletics and perspective as a sort of coach emeritus.
Dean Smith did wonders for North Carolina and preached the same perspective as Paterno. Smith often said athletics was like the front porch of a house; what happened inside the house was most important, the front porch was simply more visible. Unlike Paterno, Smith didn’t hang on, didn’t become a figurehead late in his career. Had Paterno maintained the same perspective about his job as he preached, his legacy would be simpler.
Paterno, though, had a form of control with his program Smith never had. Paterno controlled who was allowed on the inside, scoffed at those who criticized him and as his career went on seemed more focused on his win total than the perspective he advocated.
Penn State’s administration bears much responsibility for this, of course. They were the true enablers, the ones who accepted the money Paterno generated but never forced him to accept the reality of age and time. Instead of making Paterno a revered member of the community, it let him hang on. This furthered the culture of enabling that furthered the belief that the football “program” was above reproach, and it allowed the culture to ferment until it was uncontrollable.
Does Paterno bear responsibility for this as well? Of course, but as a coach in the forest, he would have benefitted from someone showing him the trees, from someone saying simply: Joe, it’s been a great ride, but it’s time.
Paterno’s explanations to The Washington Post about the Sandusky scandal scream to second-guessers. Among other things, he said he never associated rape with a man.
That sounds absurd, of course, except when you consider his age. Paterno came from the time and generation when male rape and child abuse complaints were ignored or shunned. Witness the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to cover up scandals by the Roman Catholic Church, of which Paterno was a member. It always seemed that Paterno’s failings were generational rather than willful. That doesn’t excuse his not doing more when confronted with the Mike McQueary story; it might explain it a bit.
When McQueary came to Paterno with that sickening story he saw in the showers, Paterno was 75. When the Sandusky scandal broke a few months ago, Paterno was 84. The outcry for his scalp came soon after. It was a rush to judgment for a very senior citizen that even the Penn State administration could not ignore. But take a step back: Does anyone in their right mind believe that a man with Paterno’s principles would willfully ignore that kind of crime if he truly understood what was happening?
To think Paterno would ignore it insults and dismisses everything he did and stood for. It simply seems he was not equipped -- emotionally, culturally or chronologically -- to fully grasp what was happening, and that inability was entangled in the Nittany Lions culture that Paterno and Penn State created.
A man who did so much wound up fired, wound up seeing everything he stood for ridiculed and questioned. It was far, far less torture than any of Sandusky’s victims endured, but it had to be real, physical pain to Paterno, who had done much for many.
It’s probably no coincidence that his physical condition deteriorated once the scandal broke.
For a caring man, a principled man, the weight of what happened and wondering what more he could have done had to be crushing in his heart.
