State College, Pa. - It's hard to fully capture the impact of height and Joe Paterno .
You can start with the numbers: 409 victories at Penn State, more than any other coach in college football, two national titles, 62 years, more than any other head coach of an institution, $ 53 million, the benefit of the team Penn State football last year, more than $ 5 million donated personally by Paterno, enough to build a university library and a spiritual center, and hundreds of millions of dollars generated at the time focused on agriculture university could become a major research institution, a place whose main symbol was a bookish-looking, educated, Ivy League coach with thick glasses who roamed the band in a jacket and tie.
However, in Pennsylvania and beyond, in a country where soccer reigns, but where the taint of college sports is ugly and everywhere, Paterno seemed to be much more than numbers. He preached and stood for integrity, family and principles. And unlike other football powers - Alabama or Michigan, for example, where there always wins, but also frequent changes in recent years among coaches that engineers - Paterno represents the absolute stability. He, very close to, literally, was Penn State.
Now, with all but certain that there will coach beyond this year, a looming question is how much of that epic achievement - the triumphs and defeats, the university's reputation for honor and justice, money given to encourage academics - could be reduced in the short term and long term.
Some people, indeed, wanted Paterno, 84, to leave work in recent years, many of them because he loved and feared for their health, others because they had tired of his power and stubbornness. But nobody could have imagined - much less-Paterno wanted to leave as he seems destined to: with his decency and care of young people in jeopardy by their inability to act aggressively in a report that one of his former coaches sexually assaulted a 10 year old in soccer facilities.
Even those raised in a world that knew only as Joep Paterno, a mythical figure as revered and great as Santa Claus, are shaken and concerned about recent events.
"It's almost like a death in the family," said Michael Brown, a 22-year-old Penn State senior from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. "And part of that is the sad realization that class is going to ruin his legacy. It has done so much good to the university and the state, but people remember the end of things."
Lou Prato, who graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1950 and has written four books about Penn State football, said he was more annoying to those who are accused Paterno former assistant, Jerry Sandusky, of sexual abuse. But Prato said:
"Things may change when all the facts to come out eventually, but if not, I'm sorry for the family Paterno, Penn State and college football. He did run a clean and honorable program. As this would a catastrophe. "
For all players in the Hall of Fame that Pennsylvania has been in the past 75 years, Penn State was a great power play good football, but not when Paterno took over as coach in 1966. He had spent 16 seasons as an assistant at the university, a curiosity in central Pennsylvania - born in Brooklyn, degree from Brown University, a man who does not hunt or fish, but instead of reading the classics and poetry usually cited (without looking up).
His first team was 5-5, but his next team is ranked 10th in the nation and the following two Paterno teams in 1968 and 1969, never lost a game, finishing second in the final national polls for the Associated Press . Go to bowl games soon became routine for Pennsylvania State University, and win just rare, so (the Nittany Lions have won 24 bowl appearances Paterno 37).
In the mid 1980's, Paterno had won two national championships and produced four undefeated teams and five more who had lost only once. Penn State is the quintessential college football this power that dared to challenge the titans of the sport dominates the South and Midwest and the West Coast. Paterno and found success as a way to do something else.
"We were in a small town cow, but Joe wanted to be a world-class university," said Prato. "When Penn State started winning all the time, he has a lot of invitations to go places. And Joe was a sophisticated kind that could go into any room and talk to someone to give money to Penn State - and often the money it was not for football.
"He mixed with all kinds of people, not many football coach usual, and raised our profile. The school began to receive more applications and better students. The extra money began a building boom in the campus. No doubt Penn State will not be the same without Joe. "
Paterno standing in the state grew to the point that some types of policies tried to talk a candidate for governor. Paterno laughed. As his image became Penn State's academic, his players have graduated at rates higher than the average for Division I programs.
When people asked to rate their best team ever, he replied that he needed another 20 years. "That's when I know what my current team players have been performed outside of football," Paterno said. "This is how to evaluate the success of my team."
Football flourished in every possible way. Penn State Beaver Stadium, which sat about 46,000 when Paterno took over, grew to accommodate about 107,000, and fans are filled with fidelity. Loyalty program steeped Paterno - his staff was full of former players and other alumni of Penn State. Still, Paterno lived in a modest ranch to a quiet, leafy street outside the campus and routinely rejected the invitations of the NFL, whether it was the Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots.
In 1990, when Penn State agreed to join the Big Ten, which boosted the income of the college, television and the consolidation of a sometimes indifferent schedule of opponents. However, Penn State also lined with some prominent institutions, nationally renowned scholars.
There was no immediate successes, but by the turn of the century were not impressive and surprising years after Penn State and its coach, who was in his mid-70s. He suffered injuries, had other diseases and delivered performance casual strange press conference. This season, a preseason clash with a player as a result of fractures in the shoulder and pelvis and forced Paterno to watch the games from the press box. In public, it has sometimes appeared in the pain and discomfort.
However, it was rare for him to have to respond publicly to resign, and when he did, Paterno said he considered retirement almost a form of death.
On Tuesday night, when it became clear that the board of Penn State Paterno was planning to leave, more than 200 students gathered in front of his house screaming, "We love you, Joe."
Outside Beaver Stadium, where the usual set of small shops, known as Paternoville had sprouted - students have to wait days to get front row seats for Saturday's game - Tyler Quinze-Singer, a 20-year-old of Southampton, Pa., said the allegations of sexual abuse and the role of Paterno had covered them on campus in a form of depression.
"Even the teachers in the classroom, that's all that talk," said Quinze-Singer. "Now everyone. We knew it was time for Joe to leave, but not in these circumstances. It is not so."
source : nytimes.com
source : nytimes.com
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