He Lies… in State

Or

Seamy Valley

Former Penn State head coach Joe Paterno has died at the age of 85 of complications from lung cancer, 3 months after he could have gone out a legend. Fittingly, he died on a Sunday, because we know how much he hated to inconvenience anyone on a Saturday. Terry Gilliam films had better endings than Paterno’s life. On Oct. 29, 2011, he won his 409th game to become the all-time winningest coach in Division I college football history. On Nov. 5, his long-time defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was revealed to be a pedophile in good standing, and that it had been reported to Paterno, and that he had essentially left a Post-it Note on his boss’ desk saying: “Jerry. Shower. Kids.” and forgotten about it. Then he got fired (by a phone call, the gutless bastards), got cancer, broke his hip and died. Prior to giving enabling a bad name, Paterno had established a football factory in the insignificant town of State College, Pennsylvania. Passing up a scholarship to Boston University School of Law, Paterno moved to Happy Valley in 1950 to become quarterbacks coach before taking over as head coach in 1966, where he implemented an offense as conservative as his horn-rimmed glasses, rolled up pants and white socks. In his record-setting 46-year career, he led 2 national champions, 5 unbeaten teams and finished in the top 5 11 other times, and made 37 bowl games, winning 24 of them – both records for any head coach. And doing so all the while with no recruiting scandals and with some of the highest graduation rates among major college programs.