R.I.P JOE

i feel the need to say something.  my dad passed away in 2004..he was a diehard football fan and paterno was his idle so i grew up with paterno everywhere. i have mixed emotions about the whole scandal. getting into an argument with people over how that was handled is pointless..whats done is done. i can respect both sides. part of me believes he  was somewhat innocent as he was up there in years when the scandal broke through.  on one hand he has his "good friend" being accused of something (that to someone of his age and error is a little foreign...a lot of this happened in the church in his era but was never talked about)  so he goes to police and its swept under the rug..could he have done more...ya probably...but then i think if my best friend was my coach..accused of this...then im told its nothing by campus police id probably forget about it too. i mean im not going to go running to the state police trying to throw my good friend under the bus. i understand both sides though.  in the end ill try to remember joe for 1960 to 2004. in those years there isnt a player to talk bad about him. and those were HIS players..those were the people that were influenced by him and went on to lead productive lives. he never compromised school for athletes...unlike most programs these days. you were a student first and a football player second.  there are 100's of kids he did change. im gonna remember him for that and being a great coach.  the heart is a powerful thing..and the way this ended killed him..without a doubt..and that without a doubt is on sandusky.  

Well said, I'm kind of torn too, because he looks exactly like my grandfather who passed from prostrate cancer, and basically raised me as a kid. When I see him, I see my grandfather,

With all due respect to you badlands,,,,,, I say, fuck him. Such duplicity for Joe Pa to claim that he passed it on up... Fuck him!
You know it and evrybody knows it..... What a fucking bag of shit to claim ' i dont even know what rape is' ' It is all so vague ' ,

' I passed it on up the line '

FUCK HIM ! ! !

Where is the honor? This was his defensive coach !

Archdiver's comments may of been harsh but..

there is an IMMENSELY HUGE difference between being a perfect person and not doing all you could to stop a grown man from raping little boys.

Lets face it JoePa was probably one of the most powerful people in the state of Pennsylvania for a long time. He was the "Don" of the Penn St family for a long time. If he was not the sole person who could of made the biggest difference in this situation than I am confident that he was top 3 or so.

by the way my comment above is not to place further blame on Joe Pa. I am just commenting on the notion that unless any of us are perfect than we can not point out that this scenario is very unfortunate and not handled well by all involved.

agree with most everything bad...except the fact that joe and jerry were far from best friends.  much more to that story.

apologies to all  for blatant disrepectful language.,.... was plenty drunk after the  Giant win....

Joe Paterno deserves the benefit of doubt here, 

 

Just  galls me somewhat that he passed along the issue as if  that  were his  only duty.  McQueery too.   A crime of this  nature should  not get  swep under the rug.

let the many great men who have come to say such nice things about him be your answer in the man's character.  from coach k to mack brown to brent musberger to mike ditka to lou holtz to every and any former player he led.

and who determines what is "doing enough"? 

oh yea all the public determines what is enough after the fact. everyone is a genius years later.

RIP Joe

No man has ever had the impact of any school that you had on Penn State.  You will be greatly missed.

This coming from a diehard Michigan fan!

you are right in that it is easy for us to sit here and criticize after the fact. but it is also hard to argue that the guy probably called all the shots in that circle (Penn St and beyond) for a long time (or atleast had the means to get things dones if he wanted) and despite all the great he apparently did he also severly underperformed on the Sandusky matter.

I am not trying to gang up against Joe Pa here but if he knew what I think many of us think that he knew (and is reported in the media) and only did what was reported than that is hard to ignore.

And I am sorry decades of well doing do not all of a sudden get you off the hook of doing what should be done.

At the time Sandusky was canned, the two men were hardly friends. Joe basically forced his retirement. After Sandusky's retirement in '99, the two rarely spoke to each other. PSU administrators, not Paterno, negotiated a lucrative retirement agreement with Sandusky. That agreement included emeritus status of Sandusky, which meant he had a legal right to use the campus facilities. Joe Paterno did not have to ability to kick an emeritus professor off campus. And if you think he had enough power to do so, how then did he not have enough power to save his own job? I guess that you are also aware that after the 2002 incident was reported to him, that Joe reported it to his superiors, including the head of campus police, per protocol. I assume that you also know the exact dialogue between Joe and the grad student when the incident was reported to him...Please understand that I do realize that the actual facts are more than likely worthless to you, but I figured I'd try.

I obviously know that the blame for the situation goes well past Paterno. But (as far as he is concerned) he built a legacy on doing more and he said it himself that he wishes "he had done more" in this matter. 

None of us know the facts about any of this. If we take that approach than none of us even know if Sandusky actually did anything bad at all. I am just commenting on the story as we know it from the media reports.

https://werebucked.com/2011/11/09/why-did-jerry-sandusky-retire-in-1999/

 

Sandusky had  been  with the  team 32 years  and  Paterno barely knows him??????

 

Something Ive wondered about,the Grad Student that was worried about his future seeing the freak having sex in the shower,or raping the kid,why didnt he stop it?Was he that worried about himself,so he goes and mentions it to Joe who reported it and nothing came of if.
I dont know why all the heat is on Joe,he was a football Coach,not a cop,what else should he have done after reporting it and the police didnt think there was enough to file charges.
Need to get off Joe and remember who was doing the crime,JIMO.

Guys. Can we still remember. A wife lost her husband. Five people lost their father. Seventeen kids lost their grandpa. Love him or hate him now, a man still died. A man who was very important to a lot of people. The allegations against Jerry Sandusky aren't going away. The past isn't going to change. Could the haters relax a little while, and let the rest of us honor his life?

I'll relax when the victims get to relax, which is never.  Shame on anybody for defending this enabler.  It was more important to protect the program and his legacy, than to do what was right, and stop that monster from RAPING CHILDREN.  

Completely wrong you fucking retard.

He didn't enable anything. He reported it to the man who was IN CHARGE OF THE FUCKING POLICE at the time.....his name is Gary Schultz who is currently awaiting trial for perjury.

So Paterno reports it to his superiors and the man in charge of the police, yet he is still labeled an enabler?

Most of you are idiots and its quite sad. I love when people say "Joe Pa was in charge of Pennsylvania." Or.." Joe Pa was the Don of Penn State, he could had done anything."

What exactly does that mean? What more was he suppsoed to do? I mean, the guy was so fucking powerful...he clearly could have ordered a lightning bolt to come from the sky and hit Jerry Sandusky right? I mean..the guy was the President of Pennsylvania..he could have just ordered his own swat team to take out Jerry.

You guys have all the answers.

Telling the AD and President of the school as well as the man in charge of the police is more then enough.

Joe Paterno did what he was supposed to do. He is a legend and he built Penn State.

The world lost a great man.

and Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky didn't like eachother....so whoever said they were good friends is completely wrong.

its pretty fun how many of you are clueless about this entire situation, yet still continue to comment on it like you know exactly what was happening in State College.

Your a sad soul.

No normal human is a fan of child rape.

You are a complete embarrassment and I wouldn't be surprised if your parents commit suicide after realizing the monster they created.

Have a good day.

jersey, this is the same senseless and ignorant argument any of these covers clowns have.  they always say the same thing in response.

let them burn in hell...this week must have been tough on them, with the outpoor of joe paterno support from anyone with a clue on how to be a man.  even espn looked like they had a deer in headlight look.  i loved it.