Remembering JoePa
By Rachel Smedley
“You are… PENN STATE.” This was the cry that rang out from an otherwise silent throng of mourners lining the streets leading to Beaver stadium earlier this week as Joe Paterno, beloved Penn State football coach, took his final lap around the campus. Paterno died on Jan. 22, in the company of his family, after a three-month battle with lung cancer. Thousands of students, alumni, family, and friends came out to pay their respects during Tuesday’s procession to the coach of 47 years.
To the average High Point University student, this event simply marks the death of another coach in the football world. However, to many Northern students, especially those heralding from the PA and NJ regions, this ending has much greater significance.
“My Facebook and Twitter accounts have been devoted to Joe Paterno for the last week,” said sophomore Jenna Lehman, who lives only an hour away from the Penn State main campus. “So many friends and neighbors are either attending Penn State, are alumni, or are simply huge fans of the program. For my hometown, this really is the passing of a legacy who will not be forgotten.”
Coach Paterno has made the headlines more than once in the past few years. Once, in November of 2010, for his 400th victory with the Penn State University football program, a milestone never reached by any other coach in the history of Division 1 college football. More recently, his once pristine career took a hit when a child sex-abuse scandal ripped through the university in early November, involving Paterno’s defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky. The case led to the indictment of two university officials and to Paterno’s dismissal by the Board of Trustees half way through the season.
At his public memorial service held Wednesday in the Penn State basketball arena and attended by over 10,000 people, there was only love and respect in the air. Former players spoke, covering each of the six decades of Caoch Paterno’s career, while other eulogies were given by Paterno’s son Jay and Nike co-founder Phil Knight. Tears poured as one after another, these men stepped up to the microphone and poured out years worth of respect and admiration for a man who poured his heart and soul into the PSU football community. Coach Paterno was remembered for his incredible experience and wisdom on the football field, but above the strategies, plays and 409 wins, which made him a household name, Paterno was beloved most for the connections he made with his players and all those who watched him from the stands. Said Chris Marrone, a player from the 1990s, “His life can never, ever be measured in wins and championships. To do so would me a great injustice.”
Paterno was famous for the impact he had on his students, making them not only better football players, but better men. He was sure to maintain a strong emphasis on the value of education, always keeping the hype of college football in perspective. Even Mrs. Paterno was in on the coach’s agenda, having players over to their home for tutoring when her husband was done with them on the field. In a 2010 interview, Paterno said this about his recruits, “They’ve got to be comfortable in the environment that we create, academically as well as being part of the whole university community. I think kids ought to come to college to come to college, and play football as an extracurricular activity. And when it goes beyond that, where the football becomes more important than the whole educational experience, they’re picking the wrong spot.”
On the field and in the locker room, Paterno continued to provide a shining example for his boys. He took both his victories and losses with an unparalleled humbleness and grace, relying on his faith to guide the team through rough times. After every game, the young men and coaches would kneel together and say the Lord’s prayer. In addition, after every win, he would remind the players that it was never about any individual person’s performance, or even his coaching ability, but that their victories were reliant on the team as a whole. Following this sentiment, Paterno was also famous for his inability to take a compliment and to this, former player and fellow coach Kenny Jackson stated at the start of his memorial, “Today, my teacher, you have no choice. Today we are going to show you how much we love you.”
The spirit of Joe Paterno and the incredible legacy that he will leave behind can best be summed up in the legend’s own words which are inscribed on the back of his statue which stands on the East side of Beaver Stadium. “They ask me what I’d like written about me when I’m gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach.”