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Examining the Sports Narrative, Part 5: Legacy

By Matt Meier · January 28, 2012

“If you lose the last one of the season, nobody gives a shit about the others.” – Billy Beane, Moneyball (2011 Motion Picture)

Despite our limited cultural attention span, it would be far too simplistic to claim that Beane’s quote is an accurate metaphor for all aspects of our lives, especially with regard to death.  We generally reflect upon our departed with forgiving hearts, willing to overlook (or diminish) their more negative qualities or actions while glorifying their commendatory contributions to society.  In 2010, Forbes ranked Al Davis (principal owner of the Oakland Raiders, at the time) as the #1 most disliked figure in all of sports—Michael Vick was #2, if that helps provide some perspective.  Davis died little more than a year after the article’s release and was hailed as a “pioneer,” “trailblazer,” “legend,” and other flattering (and often euphemistic) terms for his legacy; the same person so vehemently hated only a year prior was all but canonized by every major network following his passing.

But as I ponder over the legacy of the late Joe Paterno, as I write these opening remarks to a piece I cannot rightfully qualify as either a sports article or my own personal eulogy for a man who was so much more than the former Penn State head football coach, I glance down at the t-shirt I’m wearing, one that I bought my freshman year at Penn State that simply and now poignantly reads, “What Would JoePa Do?” and I pray that Billy Beane was wrong.

As a Philadelphia native and former Penn State student (I was enrolled there for one year before transferring to USC as a sophomore), I’ve been somewhat of a local ambassador for the university since the Sandusky scandal arose some months back.  I read every nauseating word of the 23-page Grand Jury report and followed every media story in hopes that keeping thoroughly informed would allow me to analyze the situation objectively and not as a blindly faithful follower of JoePa.

Legally: Paterno did nothing wrong.  Morally: his actions were irresponsible at best and amoral at worst.  Beyond this, we may never truly know the full extent of Paterno’s involvement in the school’s disgraceful mishandling (i.e. concealing) of the child sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky—to be honest, I’m not sure if I really want to.  What I can say for certain, however, is that while I understood the necessity of Paterno’s firing, understood why so many were (justifiably) repulsed by the Happy Valley riots incited by the termination, I saw something in those students with which most others could not begin to sympathize.  That night, I saw something more than their misguided and inebriated rebellion against the firing of their school’s head football coach of 46 years, the winningest coach in Division-One history.  That night, I saw a desperate and disillusioned youth respond to the public damnation of their infallible leader with violent denial, clinging to what remained of their religion as they were forced to accept that God is dead.

Forgive my hyperbole, but I refuse to write some banal obituary about Paterno’s “complex yet monumental legacy” as though we have to choose between his historic coaching career and his historic scandal as the centerpiece of his life.  If that tumultuous night in Happy Valley proved anything, it’s that this is about much more than football, and JoePa was much more than just another coach, whatever you may think of him now.

So I will take this opportunity to say what few others are willing to acknowledge.  Call it negligence or concealment, but JoePa’s decision not to follow up on the allegations against Sandusky is not some isolated blemish on Paterno’s legacy, a proverbial asterisk that will reside beside his name in the College Football Hall of Fame.  Bullshit.  This is not some home run record tarnished by a steroid violation.  At its core, the Sandusky scandal was the darkest form of Paterno’s most admirable quality: loyalty, a rare attribute in today’s world that he embodied greater than any other public figure of his lifetime.

Of the countless articles published thus far surrounding JoePa’s legacy—the majority of which I have found spinelessly cautious and/or trite—the best is a piece by Rick Reilly on ESPN.com.  In it, he describes the story of Adam Taliaferro, a former Penn State defensive back who injured his spine in 2000.  JoePa visited Adam every other week throughout his long recovery process, encouraging Adam to prove all the doctors wrong who said he would remain paralyzed for life.  Adam did fully recover and to this day credits JoePa as his primary source of inspiration.

This is a story we have read numerous variations of before; but for JoePa, his relationship with Adam was only a microcosm of his relationship with his team and the university as a whole.  These were not just players or students or alumni or fans: they were family, and JoePa understood and embraced his role as patriarch from very early on.  It’s what always distinguished him from other coaches, and what few fail to grasp from the outside looking in.  Penn State is undoubtedly one of the most football-crazed schools in the nation.  But unlike other schools who similarly flock to the stadium every Saturday with the enthusiasm and devotion of Hasidics on Shabbas, our love for football was always secondary to our love for JoePa, who was our true mascot from the moment he arrived.

After graduating from Brown in 1950 (where he played QB and cornerback), JoePa followed head coach Rip Engle to Penn State, working as an assistant for fifteen years before succeeding him as head coach.  Despite receiving various more lucrative offers from other schools and NFL teams, JoePa remained by the school’s side for the entirety of his career and life, these most recent months notwithstanding.  He despised anything gaudy or self-indulgent, with the black sneakers he made his team wear representing his roots in humility and community, something he exemplified every day in his own actions.  He left his address publicly listed, welcoming unannounced visits from random students and alumni who simply wanted to say hi and perhaps have some of his wife Sue’s home cooking.  He emphasized the importance of education to his players, something he always placed above football, and he demanded the same of his players and more.  The university library was not named after Paterno because of what he did for us as a coach, but because it never would have been build without him, because through campaigning and personal contributions he raised the $13.75 million necessary to build it, because he wanted the academic institution to exceed the standards of the football institution, and “Without a great library, you can’t have a great university.”  It was one of the many donations JoePa made throughout his tenure and continued to make even after his firing (donating $100,000 the month after being terminated over the phone after 46 years of service).

Of course the perfect family is only myth: there are tensions in every family, struggles for power between the reigning patriarch and those around him.  JoePa’s superlative allegiance to the university is without question, but he demanded that same allegiance from the school in return, demanded that, as the patriarch, he be allowed to operate his family as he saw fit.  Penn State’s standards and conduct officer Vicky Triponey resigned in 2007 out of frustration of being stonewalled by JoePa and his team when she tried to enforce the rules on players who had been accused of violating infractions of varying severity.  Many saw this as an act of arrogance by JoePa, an attempt to keep his best players active for every game regardless of their conduct off the field.  Though I cannot wholly condone any decision by JoePa that would permit or essentially ignore reprehensible offenses, I can say that this decision extended beyond arrogance or negligence or football.  JoePa viewed these players as his sons, and like any father, he wanted to punish disobedient or disreputable behavior on his own terms rather than simply handing them over to the authorities.

If it were easy to make all the righteous decisions, we would all be saints.  Instead, we must pick the principles that guide us.  JoePa understood that better than anyone, and he preached loyalty within a culture increasingly void of it, and it seems only fitting that his loyalty ultimately led to his unraveling.

Imagine, for a moment, that a young assistant approaches you and describes the heinous acts of a man who has been by your side for over 30 years, a close friend with whom you have shared a scotch and a cigar on numerous occasions, a man to whom you owe much of your success for his contributions.  If JoePa is the father/patriarch of the university, Sandusky is the uncle—no pun intended.  How does one even begin to comprehend such accusations?  JoePa reported the information to his superiors as required by law, leading to Sandusky’s immediate termination.  But there must have been a part of him that wanted to remain loyal to the friend he thought he knew, a brotherly figure of 30-some years that he refused to believe capable of such inhumanity; and when the time came to follow up, to act as executioner and make certain that his old companion would live the rest of his life behind bars, the aging idol of integrity simply didn’t have the stomach for it.

I’m not going to end this article with a bunch of cliché about JoePa being human, that with good always comes bad or any of that shit.  I’m not going to try to convince you to forgive him for all he has done wrong because of all he has done right, on and off the field.  There are men who live entire lifetimes centered solely on principles of greed and self-preservation, but do so in a way that we never once question their morality because they never truly give us reason to.  There is also an entire fleet of men who live their lives centered around principles of loyalty and humility and generosity and honesty because they learned it under the guidance of Joseph Vincent Paterno. 

Rest in Peace, JoePa.  We Are…