This isn’t the end Joe Paterno envisioned, but this is what the end looks like for the man who has won more college football games than any coach in history.
An illustrious 46-year coaching career shouldn’t end this way.
Paterno should have been triumphantly carried off the field after he had coached the Nittany Lions for the final time, but now it seems likely he’ll be forced to resign amid the child abuse allegations engulfing Penn State.
For a man that ran a clean program and was the most well-respected coach in college football, his pending ouster boils down to a brief moment when he exercised poor judgement.
In 46 years of coaching one of the nation’s storied college football programs, you probably wouldn’t need all the fingers on one hand to count the number of times Paterno made an egregious error.
But his failure to contact police after he was told of an incident involving former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky’s alleged molestation of a minor will tarnish him for the rest of his days.
Although his son Scott – who serves as his father’s spokesman – denies the story that the Penn State board of trustees are going to force the elder Paterno out, the end is clearly imminent.
It doesn’t matter that Paterno wasn’t implicated in the charges brought against Sandusky, athletic director Tim Curley and university vice president Gary Schultz.
The fact that he was told of a potential problem taking place right under his nose and failed to contact police is more than enough to warrant his termination.
When Pennsylvania state police commissioner Frank Noonan said that Paterno should have had contacted law enforcement in 2002 after he was told of the Sandusky incident, the handwriting was on the wall.
Noonan said, “Somebody has to question about what I would consider the moral requirements for a human being that knows of sexual things that are taking place with a child.”
“I think you have the moral responsibility, anyone. Not whether you’re a football coach or a university president or the guy sweeping the building. I think you have a moral responsibility to call us,” said Noonan.
Paterno’s legacy at Penn State is no longer about having the most wins of any coach in college football history or how many national titles the Nittany Lions won under his guidance.
His legacy is now firmly entrenched in the controversy surrounding the sex abuse allegations, and the only way Paterno can regain some measure of credibility is to fall on his sword.
If Paterno really loves Penn State like we all believe he does, then he should do the right thing and step down rather than forcing the trustees’ to fire him.
Not that his resignation would ease the pain of those who were allegedly molested, but at minimum Paterno could perhaps restore honor to an otherwise very dishonorable situation.
