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For at least 30 years, Joe Paterno was praised as not only an iconic football coach, but as Mr. Values himself. He stayed in one isolated place and coached a team with the plainest uniforms in sports. The media portrayed that as an extension of Joe Paterno's ideals himself, that the all-time winningest coach in college football cared nothing about himself and only about his team. He was made to stand for all that was good and right in college football against a rising tide of commercialism and egotism.
And then we learned that his most famous long-time assistant coach is accused of molesting boys on the Penn State campus for decades, and that Joe Paterno passed the buck to higher-ups when he was told of it.
So now most people hate Joe Paterno. He died in disgrace last weekend. Others, though, can't forget his five decades of a perfect image and say he is unfairly pilloried. The New York Times writes that Paterno "leaves a complicated legacy" because of a "tragic flaw."
I say his legacy will be mostly forgotten, both his great moral failure as well as his half-century of wins, that he won't be remembered any more clearly than Amos Alonzo Stagg, the man that Bobby Bowden and Paterno passed to become the all-time wins leader. How many people can name anything about Amos Alonzo Stagg other than his place on that victory list, or perhaps where he coached? Exactly.
I point to two quotes to describe Joe Paterno's true legacy:
"All that is required for evil to flourish in the world is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmond Burke. (Burke was the great intellectual rival of Thomas Paine, the voice behind the American and French revolutions. ... Burke did not believe in overthrowing the social order).
"We all want to say the things Charles (Barkley) says, but we don't dare." -- Michael Jordan.
Michael Jordan was the best and most popular basketball player of all time, yet he was afraid to speak out. When asked once why he wouldn't speak out for a Democractic candidate that he supported, Jordan replied: "Republicans wear sneakers, too."
We live in a country where the most popular athlete of all time was scared to take a stand. Where the President tried to hide the fact he smoked from the media. Where the most scandalized President in history was brought down and drummed out because of a third-rate burglarly that would have been an old news after one or two days if he had simply admitted it when it first came out. ... If our most popular and most powerful won't admit their smallest flaws, is it really THAT surprising that Joe Paterno wouldn't call the police on Jerry Sandusky? The people above him at Penn State made the same choice, even though that decision would have reflected better on them (the Penn State president would have been a whistle blower on an unspeakable tragedy, not the man who hired and employed Sandusky for decades, as Joe Paterno was). Yet the man at the top of the Penn State food chain buried the Sandusky accusations.
For at least 30 years, Joe Paterno was praised as not only an iconic football coach, but as Mr. Values himself. He stayed in one isolated place and coached a team with the plainest uniforms in sports. The media portrayed that as an extension of Joe Paterno's ideals himself, that the all-time winningest coach in college football cared nothing about himself and only about his team. He was made to stand for all that was good and right in college football against a rising tide of commercialism and egotism.
And then we learned that his most famous long-time assistant coach is accused of molesting boys on the Penn State campus for decades, and that Joe Paterno passed the buck to higher-ups when he was told of it.
So now most people hate Joe Paterno. He died in disgrace last weekend. Others, though, can't forget his five decades of a perfect image and say he is unfairly pilloried. The New York Times writes that Paterno "leaves a complicated legacy" because of a "tragic flaw."
I say his legacy will be mostly forgotten, both his great moral failure as well as his half-century of wins, that he won't be remembered any more clearly than Amos Alonzo Stagg, the man that Bobby Bowden and Paterno passed to become the all-time wins leader. How many people can name anything about Amos Alonzo Stagg other than his place on that victory list, or perhaps where he coached? Exactly.
I point to two quotes to describe Joe Paterno's true legacy:
"All that is required for evil to flourish in the world is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmond Burke. (Burke was the great intellectual rival of Thomas Paine, the voice behind the American and French revolutions. ... Burke did not believe in overthrowing the social order).
"We all want to say the things Charles (Barkley) says, but we don't dare." -- Michael Jordan.
Michael Jordan was the best and most popular basketball player of all time, yet he was afraid to speak out. When asked once why he wouldn't speak out for a Democractic candidate that he supported, Jordan replied: "Republicans wear sneakers, too."
We live in a country where the most popular athlete of all time was scared to take a stand. Where the President tried to hide the fact he smoked from the media. Where the most scandalized President in history was brought down and drummed out because of a third-rate burglarly that would have been an old news after one or two days if he had simply admitted it when it first came out. ... If our most popular and most powerful won't admit their smallest flaws, is it really THAT surprising that Joe Paterno wouldn't call the police on Jerry Sandusky? The people above him at Penn State made the same choice, even though that decision would have reflected better on them (the Penn State president would have been a whistle blower on an unspeakable tragedy, not the man who hired and employed Sandusky for decades, as Joe Paterno was). Yet the man at the top of the Penn State food chain buried the Sandusky accusations.
So Joe Paterno wasn't pure evil for turning his back on the Sandusky allegations. He was simply weak. And being weak undercuts all the narrative about Joe Paterno being a great man. That leaves only being a great coach.
And all of that great coach stuff lies on what he did before Penn State joined the Big Ten.
And much of that was done by playing a Boise State-type of schedule against one or two tough teams per year and a bunch of cupcakes. That's not quite fair; at Penn State, it was double that, three or four tough games a year and a bunch of cupcakes. One of Paterno's two national championship years even included a 21-point loss at Alabama (42-21). But Bill Livingston of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland points out that in the 27 years from 1966-1992 Penn State was 160-18-2 vs. six then-independent Eastern schools (Pitt, Boston College, Temple, Rutgers, Syracuse and West Virginia), plus Maryland and North Carolina State and the service academies. Penn State was 83-39-1 against everyone else. So, for Paterno's glory years, Penn State was merely king of the Eastern independents and also feasted on middle-of-the-pack teams from the ACC, the worst of the major conferences, plus Army, Navy and Air Force, schools that never beat a top 10 team.
Since Penn State joined the Big Ten 18 years ago, Joe Paterno and Penn State maintained roughly the same overall winning percentage, but won one outright Big Ten title and tied for two others. That's not the stuff of a coaching legend. That's Northwestern. (The Wildcats were 8-0 in 1995, tied Ohio State at 7-1 the next year and finished in a three-way tie in 2000).
Joe Paterno has won fewer outright Big Ten titles (zero) in the last 15 years than Illinois (one).
Since joining the Big Ten, Paterno and Penn State have been, basically, Iowa. Or Wisconsin.
His last national title came 26 years ago.
He's been a good coach ever since, but not a great one. We also now know that he was not a great man. Nor evil. Just weak.
We don't remember the weak. Or the good. Only the great or the truly bad.
In time, Joe Paterno will likely be a name in the record book. No more. And no less.
