Coach should leave despite season

By Dan Berrigan

OK Joe, now you can go.

Just a year ago, the Lions had wrapped up their fourth losing season in five years, and fans were calling for Joe Paterno to live out his Medicare years away from Happy Valley.

A school that proudly sold Joe-Pasta Salad in the University bookstore had the UHaul warmed up to drive the Hall of Fame coach out of town.

In the college football world, it doesn’t matter if you won a National Championship 11 years ago. It only matters what happened last Saturday. Therefore, it made perfect sense. You lose, you leave. Joe proved us wrong.

Oops.

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Paterno blew away his critics with an 11-1 season that culminated in a triple-overtime Orange Bowl win now running on ESPN Classic, and finished the year ranked third in the polls.

What better time to call it a career?

By leaving now, he can walk away as popular as ever, all while telling his critics to kiss his 79 year-old rear on the way out.

But he won’t do it. Instead, he’ll stay until someone carries him out with his feet dragging the whole way. That’s just his personality.

That’s his problem.

The same personality, which has made him such a success, will likely lead him to ruin as time rolls on. He’s harsh, stubborn and abrasive, and sooner or later, it could land him in some seriously hot water.

Take for example his comments about Florida State’s A.J. Nicholson’s alleged sexual assault of a girl at the team hotel.

“He may not have even known what he was getting into, Nicholson,” Paterno said. “They knock on the door; somebody may knock on the door; a cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do?”

Making light of a rape allegation would torpedo a lesser coach’s career, but not so for Joe Pa; he gets a pass despite the head of the National Organization for Women calling for his head – as if that would actually happen. She obviously doesn’t know how stubborn Joe is about his job.

Last year, school president Graham Spanier and athletic director Tim Curley went to visit Paterno at his State College home in the hopes of getting the aged coach to step-down. Neither could muster up the strength to flat-out fire the face of Penn State football.

In typical Joe-Pa style, he told them he wasn’t going anywhere, and the two most powerful people at the University left Paterno’s home empty-handed and with their tails between their legs. It’ll take a lot more than two administrators to pry Paterno from his post.

But getting back to his comments, we all know that as people get older they become less inhibited in what they say. What if the next time Paterno spouts off and the age defense doesn’t hold up?

Certainly one of the greatest coaches in college football doesn’t deserve to be forced out by a self-created storm of controversy.

Last year wasn’t the right time, but after this year’s success, he can leave on top.

Now is the time Joe. There’s no reason left to stay. The program has been turned around, and the Lions are back on the national scene. It wasn’t the full storybook ending with a National Campionship, but it was close enough.

He’s not going anywhere, and it’s a mistake. If he waits another 40 years, there will never be a better time than now.

Dan Berrigan is a senior in Engineering and can be reached at [email protected]