The Paterno Family and Its Legacy

So now the Paterno family wants to appeal the NCAA’s sanctions against the Penn State football team. Which, of course, took away Joe Paterno’s record for being the winningest college football coach, forever cast a bright light on the whole Paterno myth bullshit and thereby sullied the Paterno name forever.

I’m not sure what the family thinks it can accomplish by this appeal, but undoing the damage Joe Paterno did to himself, the school and his family would be difficult and iffy in an alternate universe and certainly is not possible in the universe Joe Paterno actually lived in.

The main problem is that Joe Paterno came to believe the boloney that Penn State’s press releases wrote about him. Joe Paterno did not coach the team for the last 14 years of his life. From the time Paterno was 72, he was a has-been who was letting his name be used, but he was not a coach in any real sense of the word.  He was asked to resign. But Penn State had created a monster. Joe Paterno had power with the money-crowd at Penn State and he said NO to retiring.

When Jerry Sandusky’s pedophilia came to be a known fact in 1998, it was Joe Paterno who persuaded Penn State officials, Spanier, Schulz and Curley to cover it up and not to take the information to the police.

These ugly facts have been proven by corroborating materials in the Freeh report. No matter how the Paterno family shouts and screams, this cover-up cannot be deleted from Joe Paterno’s life.

There are a number of alternate paths the Paternos can take.

1) Publicly state they didn’t know Joe was living a lie and vow to back whatever course Penn State takes.

2) Shut the fuck up and make an anonymous scholarship grant to Penn State with the money they will pay to lawyers.

3) Shut the fuck up and enter a witness protection program.

4) Shut the fuck up and leave town.

5) Shut the fuck up.