The grandest tragedy is not that the world lost Joe Paterno today. The tragedy was the fundamental dismemberment of the man's legacy that took place in the months following the reveal of the Jerry Sandusky scandal to the eventual upheaval of JoePa at Happy Valley.
In a what-have-you-done-lately world, Paterno keeping quiet while one of his coaches was doing unspeakable things to some of the nation's youth somehow erased 46 years of history where Paterno stood as the face of Linebacker U and the last remaining relic of a golden era of college football. I understand it's a tough line to toe with this whole Sandusky/Paterno fiasco. If you side with JoePa, people tend to believe you support him not blowing the whistle on child molestation that was happening on his grounds. If you side with the university, you are taking a stand against the man who made it every bit as great as it is today. You are more just in opposing God at Penn State than opposing Joe Paterno. That, to me, should speak volumes for the man's legacy. Instead, no story on the life of college football's last great head coach will be complete without mentioning Jerry Sandusky or what may or may not have happened in that shower room or Paterno being unceremoniously dumped not too long after in the midst of a season where JoePa, at 85, was close to notching the Nittany Lions another Big Ten title(or Big 12, however you want to call it). We can debate for days whether Paterno deserved to go after upholding the code of silence over Sandusky's transgressions. That's not the issue at hand.
The issue is something that Darren Rovell tweeted while Paterno's life was in limbo last night: "From what we know, Joe Paterno lived 99.999% of his adult life as a noble man. Some will remember the .01%". That's why, as morbid as it sounds, death might have been the best thing to happen to Joe Paterno. He didn't need to listen to more amateurs taking pot shots at him. He didn't need to sit back while this Sandusky drama continues to unfold and more details are set to emerge. He didn't need to watch Penn State football go on without him. It's fitting that Paterno's last breaths came shortly after his last days as the poster child for Penn State football because you can't really imagine one living without the other. Now, much like the media will do after a man they've besmirched has passed on, people will rush to recant all the daggers they threw Paterno's way and speak glowingly of the man, the myth and the legend.
We saw this before after the passing of much-maligned Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. While alive, "The Boss" was everything that was wrong with how the business of baseball was being conducted, the poster child for big market teams' stranglehold over their small-market brethren. If "Moneyball" needed a face to play its villian, Steinbrenner's trademark smug scowl would have been perfect. Then, Steinbrenner died and he was remembered as the man who oversaw the greatest franchise in professional sports, the man who changed baseball and did whatever it took to win. He went from being Vince McMahon to being Vince Lombardi.
There will never be another Joe Paterno. In today's game, any coach who makes it to ten years at one school must do everything right. You make it to twenty years, you're a legend. Thirty? You're a god. Joe Paterno made it 46 years and only boy-banging kept him from making it a few more. Bob Stoops will be lucky to make it to 20 years at Oklahoma. Pete Carroll couldn't win enough at USC to avoid what was going to eventually happen to him with the Trojans. The same goes for Jim Tressel at Ohio State. We will never see 46 years of greatness at one school again. It's the Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hit streak of coaching runs. On the Mount Rushmore of coaches(in any sport), Paterno's bespeckled face should sit next to the Coach K's and Red Auerbachs of the world. Joe Paterno was the last remaining sign of an era where college football programs were represented by the coaches and not boosters or BCS bids or conference titles.
We all can choose to remember our legends differently. That's the beauty of man. I will remember Joe Paterno as a man who represented longevity at a position that has quickly become a revolving door, who brought class to a sport that lacks morals and as a man who left the game before he was ready even after giving nearly a half-century of service. Joe Paterno was a leader of men and you can't tarnish that standing with a couple scandals no matter how disturbing those scandals are.
Joe Paterno's last breaths should have been taken on Beaver Field, not after he was ushered out of it. Joe Paterno lived and died Penn State football and THAT, more than anything, is how he should always be remembered.
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