Experts say Joe Paterno's dismissal could have hastened his death

Did the hammer blow to Joe Paterno's lifelong legacy hasten his death?

At least one national expert on aging said Paterno's firing as football coach at Pennsylvania State University, and the accusation that he should have done more to prevent a sex-abuse scandal, could have diminished his will to live.

"When you feel that you've lost your place in this world, death is never far behind," said Bill Thomas, a Harvard University-trained geriatrician and a pioneer in improving the quality of life for the frail elderly.

At the very least, said several other experts in end-of-life care, even if Paterno's will to live was not eroded, the immense stress from the chaos in his life would have weakened him in his fight against lung cancer. Furthermore, the swirling scandal and tumult could have prevented him from doing critical things a patient in chemotherapy needs to do. So, in a very practical way, the controversy could have made death come sooner.

Paterno, 85, who coached at Penn State for 62 seasons, first as an assistant and then as head coach, and won more games than any other major-college football coach, was fired in November after Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant, was indicted on multiple counts of child sex abuse. Many at Penn State and around the world thought Paterno should have done more to stop Sandusky once he became aware of the allegations in 2002.

Around the time the scandal broke in November, Paterno announced he had lung cancer and would begin chemotherapy. He quickly deteriorated from complications associated with the treatment, and his family decided Sunday to withdraw life support.

Paterno had long refused to retire, always believing that without football, he would die. He was shaken by the fact that Bear Bryant, another football legend, had died a month after he retired as coach at the University of Alabama. (The 29th anniversary of Bryant's death is Thursday.)

"What am I going to do?" Paterno once said. "I don't fish. I don't golf. I don't cut the lawn. I don't want to die. Football is my life."

Thomas, the aging expert, who founded the Eden Alternative and the Green House Project, major efforts to end the institutionalism of nursing homes, said people must have meaning and purpose at the end of their lives, and must feel the swirl of life around them to survive.