"I'll figure that out in the year 2020," Paterno said yesterday in his weekly conference call/grouchfest with reporters. "There will be a couple of openings in the NFL for me. . . . People keep saying to me, 'When are you going to retire?' For heaven's sake, I feel good."
Saturday's game at the Linc will mark the first time Paterno has coached in Philadelphia since 1994. Whether it's the last time is up to The Big Coach in the Sky, since JoePa shows no signs of letting up. The only reason he hasn't beaten Temple 24 consecutive times is that he has only coached against the Owls 23 times.
For Temple, the matchup is a quixotic exercise, a wistful what-if that will mean so much more if it can be realized while Paterno is still on the sideline.
"If there's an opportunity for us to win one of these games, somewhere along the line, it's going to mean a lot to a lot of people," Golden said at his weekly media luncheon. "If it ever happens, it's going to go a long way. And that's a risk that [Paterno and Penn State] take."
One thing is for certain. Paterno's long shadow has always reached North Philadelphia. Golden is not the first coach with a Penn State pedigree to try to beat the odds and establish a winning football program at Temple. Former Paterno assistant Ron Dickerson was Temple's coach for five difficult seasons in the 1990s.
"I told him not to take the job," Paterno said. "They promised him a lot of things, including Bill Cosby, and I said, 'Ron, black coaches have got to get good jobs. They can't turn bad jobs around all the time.' I didn't want Ron to take that job, but he took it. He gave it a good shot, and he didn't get quite the support he had to get."
Paterno's point - that minority coaches are less likely to get a second chance - was interesting if rather bluntly made. But Paterno also advised Golden against taking the Temple job last year.
