Penn State coach Paterno retiring at end of season

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

photo In this Jan. 1, 2003 file photo, Joe Paterno, Oenn State head football coach, walks along the sideline during the Capital One Bowl against Auburn, in Orlando. Auburn won, 13-9. Penn State administrators on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011 canceled Paterno's weekly news conference, in which he was expected to field questions about a sex-abuse scandal involving former defensive coach Jerry Sandusky. (AP Photo/Phelan Ebenhack, File)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Joe Paterno, the Penn State football coach who preached success with honor for half a century but whose legend was shattered by a child sex abuse scandal, said today he will retire at the end of this season.

Paterno said he was "absolutely devastated" by the case, in which his one-time heir apparent, Jerry Sandusky, has been charged with molesting eight boys over 15 years, including at the Penn State football complex.

He said he hoped the team could finish its season with "dignity and determination."

The trustees could still force him to leave immediately. It also could take action against the university president, Graham Spanier.

He said the school's Board of Trustees, which had been considering his fate, should "not spend a single minute discussing my status" and has more important matters to address.

The beloved 84-year-old Paterno has been engulfed by outrage that he did not do more to stop Sandusky after a graduate assistant came to Paterno in 2002 after allegedly having seen the former assistant coach molesting a 10-year-old boy in the Penn State showers.

"This is a tragedy," Paterno said in a statement. "It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."

Paterno briefly talked to players in the auditorium of the Mildred and Louis Lasch Football Building. Standing at a podium, the coach told them he was leaving, then broke down in tears.

Players gave him a standing ovation when he walked out.

The decision to retire by the man affectionately known as "Joe Pa" brings to an end one of the most storied coaching careers, not just in college football, but in all sports. Paterno won 409 games, a record for major college football, and is in the middle of his 46th year as coach.

His figure patrolling the sideline - thick-rimmed glasses and windbreaker, tie and khaki pants - was as unmistakable at Penn State as its classic blue and white uniforms and the name Happy Valley, a place where no one came close to Paterno's stature.

The retirement announcement came three days before Penn State hosts Nebraska in its final home game of the season, a day set aside to honor seniors on the team.

Paterno has been questioned about how he acted when a graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, reported the incident to him in 2002.

Paterno notified Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz. Curley and Schultz have since been charged with failing to report the incident to the authorities.

Paterno hasn't been accused of legal wrongdoing. But he has been assailed, in what the state police commissioner called a lapse of "moral responsibility," for not doing more to stop Sandusky, whose lawyer says he is innocent.

In the statement, Paterno said: "I grieve for the children and their families, and I pray for their comfort and relief."

He went on: "I have come to work every day for the last 61 years with one clear goal in mind: To serve the best interests of this university and the young men who have been entrusted to my care. I have the same goal today."

A day earlier, Paterno had showed up for practice and adoring crowds rallied outside his modest home into the night, chanting his name.

But Paterno, whose football program bore the motto "Success with Honor," could not withstand the backlash from a scandal that goes well beyond the everyday stories of corruption in college sports.

"If this is true, we were all fooled, along with scores of professionals trained in such things, and we grieve for the victims and their families," Paterno said Sunday, after the news broke, in a prepared statement. "They are in our prayers."

The coach defended his decision to take the news to the athletic director. Paterno said it was obvious that the graduate student, since identified as McQueary, was "distraught," but said he was not told about the "very specific actions" in the grand jury report.

After Paterno reported the incident to Curley, Sandusky was told to stay away from the school, but critics say the coach should have done more - try to identify and help the victim, for example, or alert authorities.

"Here we are again," John Salveson, former president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said earlier this week. "When an institution discovers abuse of a kid, their first reaction was to protect the reputation of the institution and the perpetrator."

Paterno's requirement that his players not just achieve success but adhere to a moral code, that they win with honor, transcended his sport. Mike Krzyzewski, the Duke basketball coach, said in June for an ESPN special on Paterno: "Values are never compromised. That's the bottom line."

His sudden departure leaves his fans and detractors wondering who exactly was the real "Joe Pa."

Was he a gentle once-in-a-lifetime leader with a knack for molding champions?

Or was he simply another gridiron pragmatist, a detached football CEO, his sense of right and wrong diluted by decades of coddling from "yes" men paid to make his problems disappear.

History will decide whether the enduring image will be that of Paterno surrounded by all those reporters as he hurried to practice this week, or his signature look on the sidelines.

Rolled-up khakis. Jet-black sneakers. Smoky, thick glasses. That famous Brooklyn accent that came off only as whiny as he wanted it to be.

"Deep down, I feel I've had an impact. I don't feel I've wasted my career," Paterno once said. "If I did, I would have gotten out a long time ago."

Along the road to the wins record, Paterno turned Penn State into one of the game's best-known programs, and the standard-bearer for college football success in the East.

National titles in 1982 and 1986 - under defenses run by Sandusky - cemented him as one of the game's greats. In all, Paterno guided five teams to unbeaten, untied seasons, and he reached 300 wins faster than any other coach.

A year after he arrived at sleepy Penn State in 1966, Paterno began a 30-0-1 streak fueled by players such as Jack Ham and Dennis Onkotz.

But the Nittany Lions fell short in the polls, finishing No. 2 in 1968 and 1969 despite 11-0 records, and No. 5 in 1973 despite a 12-0 record.

In 1969, Texas edged out Penn State for the title with help from an unlikely source: President Richard Nixon declared the Longhorns No. 1 after their bowl game.

"I'd like to know," Paterno later said, "how could the president know so little about Watergate in 1973, and so much about college football in 1969?"

Elite status finally arrived in the 1980s. The Nittany Lions claimed national titles in 1982, with a 27-23 win over Georgia at the Sugar Bowl, and in 1986, intercepting Miami's Vinny Testaverde five times in a 14-10 win at the Fiesta Bowl.

They have made several title runs since then, including the 2005 run to the Orange Bowl and an 11-1 regular-season campaign in 2008 that ended with a trip to the Rose Bowl and a 37-23 loss to Southern California.

"He will go down as the greatest football coach in the history of the game. Every young coach, in my opinion, can take a lesson from him," former Florida coach Urban Meyer said after his last game with the Gators, a 37-24 win over Penn State at the 2011 Outback Bowl. Now Meyer's name will be among those raised as a possible successor.

Paterno's longevity became all the more remarkable as college football transformed into a big-money business.

The school estimated there have been at least 888 head coaching changes at FBS schools since Paterno took the job. He is the all-time leader in bowl appearances (37) and wins (24). And he sent more than 250 players to the NFL.

On Oct. 29, Penn State beat Illinois 10-7, earning Paterno win No. 409, breaking a tie with Grambling State's Eddie Robinson for most in Division I.

All he wanted to do, he had said two days earlier, was "hopefully have a little luck and have a little fun doing it. I've been lucky enough to be around some great athletes."

He said the success came because "the good Lord kept me healthy, not because I'm better than anybody else. It's because I've been around a lot longer than anybody else."

So long, in fact, that it seemed there was no getting rid of him, even as age and injuries crept up and his famous resistance to modern technology - tweeting, texting and other so-called must-haves of 21st century recruiting - turned him into a dinosaur.

But just as much, it was a string of mediocre seasons in the early 2000s that had fans wondering whether it was finally time for Paterno to step aside.

Others questioned how much actual work Paterno did in his later years. He always went out of his way to heap praise on his veteran assistants, especially if an injury or ailment kept him from getting in a player's face in practice or demonstrating a technique.

"I'm not where I want to be, the blazing speed I used to have," he said in October, poking fun at himself. "It's been tough. ... it's a pain in the neck, let me put it that way."

Paterno cut back on road trips to see recruits. He ended his annual summer caravan across Pennsylvania to exchange handshakes and smiles with alumni and donors.

He often said he never read the newspaper - though the critical comments got back to him somehow. Some suspected his wife, Sue, kept him abreast of the news.

"You guys write stories about how I sit around and don't do anything," Paterno said after watching his 409th victory from the Beaver Stadium press box. "I just hope we can help the team do the things that they want to do."

Still, the question persisted: How much longer was he going to coach?

It was, until this week, the biggest question to dog him. That made him no different from the handful of coaching lifers who stay in the game into their 70s and beyond.

"Who knows?" Paterno said with a straight face in October, when he was asked how his latest ailments affected his future. "Maybe I'll go 10 years."

The terms of his departure conflict significantly with the reputation he built in nearly a half-century of turning a quaint program into a powerhouse with instant name recognition.

He made it to the big time without losing a sense of where he was - State College, population 42,000, a picturesque college town smack-dab in the middle of Pennsylvania.

Paterno and his wife raised five children in State College. Anybody could ring up his modest ranch home using the number listed in the phone book under "Paterno, Joseph V." Anybody could walk up to offer good luck as he walked to home games.

Former players would parade through his living room, especially on a busy game weekend, for a chance to say "Hello."

For the most part, Paterno shunned the spotlight, though he had a knack for making a joke that could instantly light up a room.

"You guys have to talk about something. The fans have to put something on those - what do you guys call those things, twittle-do, twittle-dee?" Paterno cracked at one Big Ten media day.

He was referring, of course, to the social media site Twitter - and no, the technology-averse Paterno didn't have his own account.

Paterno had no qualms mocking himself or the media, with which he could be abrasive at times. Stubborn to a fault, Paterno also had his share of run-ins with his bosses or administrators, as might be expected for someone who has spent decades with the same employer.

His status didn't make him immune from external criticism. As his reputation grew, so did the spotlight on his on-field decisions and program as a whole.

In 2002, following a stretch of run-ins with officials over controversial calls, an effigy of a football official, yellow flag in hand, was seen hanging on the front door of Paterno's home. Though he never said how the doll got on the door, Paterno hinted his wife might be responsible and it was all done in fun.

After he started the 21st century with four losing seasons in five years, Paterno faced growing calls for his dismissal - once considered heresy in Happy Valley - during the 2004 season.

The next year, Penn State went 11-1 and won the Big Ten. The Nittany Lions capped the campaign with a thrilling 26-23 win in triple overtime at the Orange Bowl against Florida State and Paterno's longtime friend coach Bobby Bowden.

Following a messy split, Bowden left the Seminoles after the 2009 season after 34 years, finishing with 389 wins.

Asked in 2010 whether any contemporary coach would stick around as he and Paterno had, Bowden said: "Not likely. It doesn't seem to be the style nowadays." He cited high salaries and the demands that come with the big paycheck as reasons, along with the allure of professional coaching.

"And there doesn't seem to be the desire to stay in it as long as Joe and I have had," Bowden said.

To be sure, Paterno has had other opportunities - and they didn't all have to do with coaching. A 1950 graduate of Brown University, Paterno said his father, Angelo, hoped his son would someday become president. Paterno himself had plans to go to law school.

He also played football at Brown. A quarterback and cornerback, Paterno set a defensive record with 14 career interceptions - a distinction he boasted about on occasion to his team.

Law school never materialized. At 23, he was coaxed by Rip Engle, his former football coach at Brown, to work with him when Engle moved to Penn State in 1950.

"I had no intention to coach when I got out of Brown," Paterno said in a 2007 interview before being inducted into the Hall of Fame. "Come to this hick town? From Brooklyn?"

In 1963, a fellow Brooklyn native, the late Al Davis, became the general manager-coach of the Oakland Raiders of the AFL and offered Paterno the job of offensive coordinator. He turned Davis down in spite of an offer to triple his salary to about $18,000 and a new car.

Three years later, Paterno took over as Penn State's head coach after Engle retired. The New England Patriots offered Paterno the head-coaching job in the early 1970, only to be rebuffed.

When Engle and Paterno arrived, Penn State had seen three coaches in three years and had an offense made up mostly of walk-ons. Engle never had a losing season at Penn State, but when Paterno took over in 1966, the Lions still were considered "Eastern football" - in other words, inferior.

As the program turned into something much bigger than that, Paterno's fans always insisted it was more than simply about football and winning.

But the program hasn't been a perennial Top 10 contender, like it had been through the 1990s - not that Paterno measured success entirely by the outcome on the field.

"He teaches us about really just growing up and being a man," former linebacker Paul Posluszny, now with the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars, once said. "Besides the football, he's preparing us to be good men in life."

Paterno was a frequent speaker on ethics in sports, a conscience for a world often infiltrated by scandal or shady characters. He made sure his players went to class.

As of 2011, Penn State has had 49 academic All-Americans - 47 under Paterno - the third-highest total among FBS institutions.

The team's graduation rates consistently ranked among the best in the Big Ten. In 2010, Penn State's 84 percent rate trailed only Northwestern's 95, according to the NCAA.

In the ESPN special, Krzyzewski said Paterno had been able to "change how you teach ... without changing the values of how you teach."