The passing of the winningest coach in Division I college football history has given us a puzzle to ponder: When assessing a legacy, how much should one scandal weigh against decades of service? Should a single moral failure, no matter how vast, undo decades of good works that preceded it?
Joe Paterno became a victim of his own nurtured legend. He was felled by our perception of him, which we believed would predict his actions when he faced difficult choices.
This was more than a coach; this was a campus sun king who never complained about his crown. The statues of Paterno on the Happy Valley campus, the academic courses bearing his name, and even the Peachy Paterno ice cream for sale at the campus creamery elevated him beyond comprehension.
Yet the legend wasn't built around wins or championships alone. The reverence many feel for the man was less about bowl appearances than a standard of morality that became inseparable from the Nittany Lions. As Aurin Squire wrote, "When Penn State won the NCAA championship in 1987, it was seen as a victory for the Constitution, flag pins, and whole milk."
This is what made the grand jury report accusing a longtime assistant coach of serial child rape so devastating to Paterno's entire legacy. When the abuse was reported to him, JoePa informed those above him. That was the minimum he had to do, and the minimum is what he did. But according to our conception of him, there was no authority above Joe Paterno. There was an expectation that this man of integrity would, without hesitation, do far more than the minimum.
Is that fair? When it's your statue on campus and when the buildings bear your name, most would say hell, yes.
When it was further demonstrated that Jerry Sandusky continued to be a presence on campus and even on Paterno's sideline with young children by his side, damning questions rose to a din: How could JoePa have been content with silence given the possibility that children were still at risk? Was a football program that had become the economic, social, and cultural center of an entire region more important than all other concerns?
In the end, after decades of service, Penn State fired Paterno with a cold 10 p.m. phone call, causing a campus riot. Since then, Penn State's leadership has gone out of its way to protect "the Nittany Lion brand" (their words). Paterno was, in the end, far less important than what he had built. In the end, it was just business.
In his last interview, Paterno defended himself by saying he had "never heard of rape and a man." For a man who always took pride in his worldliness and erudition apart from football, this strained credulity. Paterno in his last days was sounding like another fallible person in power, corrupted by deification. We've seen this character throughout American history. It was thought that Paterno had more character.
Let Paterno's last lesson be this: If your football coach is the highest-paid, most revered person on your campus, you have a problem. If a booster pays for a statue of him, tear it down. And if you think children are being raped, the minimum isn't good enough, even if you wear a crown.
Dave Zirin is the author of "Bad Sports." This was distributed by Agence Global.
