Penn State Said to Be Planning Paterno Exit Amid Scandal

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Joe Paterno’s tenure as coach of the Penn State football team will soon be over, perhaps within days or weeks, in the wake of a sex-abuse scandal that has implicated university officials, according to two people briefed on conversations among the university’s top officials.

The board of trustees has yet to determine the precise timing of Paterno’s exit, but it is clear that the man who has more victories than any other coach at college football’s top level and who made Penn State a prestigious national brand will not survive to coach another season. Discussions about how to manage his departure have begun, according to the two people.

Paterno was to have held a news conference Tuesday but the university canceled it less than an hour before it was scheduled to start.

At age 84 and with 46 seasons as the Penn State head coach behind him, Paterno’s extraordinary run of success — one that produced tens of millions of dollars for the school and two national championships, and that established him as one of the nation’s most revered leaders, will end with a stunning and humiliating final chapter.

Joe Paterno wasn't just a coach. He was a father figure, and then a grandfather figure. He ruled the NCAA with moral authority, not legal authority.

IOW, Paterno was God and a bad thing happened and it's God's fault.

His excuse was "I did the bare legal minimum, and then I didn't worry about what happened to the boys."

Oh, but that is not his excuse. In fact, I don't think he's offered one yet.

I think the reasoning for his actions is going to be the proper people were diligently watching things and had every under control, and that he didn't believe what was happening was happening.

Now, God would not make that kind of mistake but people do.

Maybe I'm dead wrong and Paterno was doing a total and cynical CYA. If so, I'm sure that's going to come out as things unfold and I'll take everything I said back.

But right now I think Paterno is a decent guy who was trying to do his best.

And if he really did "rule the NCAA with moral authority" he did a pretty crap job.

Still not as big an idiot though as someone who thought those janitors didn't report the crime because they were afraid of JoePa.

How much power did JoePa have at Penn State and in Pennsylvania?

In 2003, when Paterno was 78, the University - the Board of Trustees and President - asked Joe Paterno to retire. Joe said no. (he was still there until last night) That was the year after the 2002 molestation incident.

So how much power did JoePa have in 2002? In 2003, JoePa had the power to tell the Board of Trustees and the President to take a hike.

So, yeah, I think people might be afraid of JoePa.

Last night, after he was fired, students rioted, included flipping over a large television van.

When the Ohio State coach was fired for, among other things, covering up the fact that some players swapped jewelry for free tattoos, the students didn't rio. And Penn State, when Paterno was fired for his roll in facilitating long-term sexual abuse of pre-teen boys, and for not exercising moral judgment in reporting and/or following up on the molestation of a pre-teen in the football showers, students rioted.

That's how powerful Joe Paterno was. There no more 'facts' about Tressel. There wasn't even a Grand Jury report. There were no crimes; there were NCAA violations. Here, with a Grand Jury report (which those interviewed admitted they had never read), and at twenty boys molested, Paterno's suporters violently rioted.

Yeah. I would be afraid of Joe Paterno and his followers. I can only imagine the loyalty of his coaching staff in 2002 and the lengths they would go to not to embarrass him and Penn State.

Being a legend that is difficult to fire is not the same as having the power to fire other people.

What are you saying, that if the janitor wasn't fired JoePa would have had his cultists burn down the home of the president?

Hey, maybe Paterno was responsible for getting guys like this hired.

Or, maybe he's the real power behind these guys.

Penn State has a lot of problems but Paterno was not one of them.

And as much as I'm defending Paterno, I'm very glad to see Spanier gone.

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