From where does this image spring? From the poets and the classicists who had mesmerized him as a young lad: "The Charge of the Light Brigade," The Aeneid, and Don Quixote. Through them was the making of Joseph Vincent Paterno into idealist, crusader, romantic, reformer, educator, motivator, philanthropist, champion of lost causes, sparring partner for windmills, an Ivy Leaguer, an English lit major coaching football, big-time football, and, oh yes, coaching it more successfully than anyone before or since.
Could canonization be far off?
And then, sadly, tragically, there came the shattering day no one had seen coming, the day the icon toppled, brought down by a failed and egregious attempt to preserve the image of his Camelot.
That image turned out to be fraudulent. And in his zeal to keep up appearances, Joe Paterno appears to have become a de facto enabler for an alleged sex predator, Jerry Sandusky, who had been a loyal lieutenant for years and had been considered a leading candidate to succeed Paterno as the head man for one of the most powerful and prestigious big-time football programs in the country.
The irony is, the tragedy is, in trying to keep his beloved school from suffering harm, Paterno had a hand in causing that very harm. When the scandal was brought before him, he reacted, but it was only the bare minimum, superficial, a shocking cover-up that flew in the face of all that he, and Penn State, had come to stand for.
The critics lined up eagerly for the chance to have at the Penn State hypocrites, whom they had long suspected and resented. St. Joe merely confirmed the notion that no one could be that clean, and this reaffirmed it.
