And on Tuesday, a day when thousands filed relentlessly past Paterno's closed wooden casket in a campus chapel, that question clung to the proceedings like the gloom, as deep a mystery as his salary used to be.
Would Paterno join his brother at a local cemetery? Had he opted to be near his parents in New York? Did he choose some out-of-the-way place? Or would it be at some yet-to-be-conceived monument on Penn State's campus?
Most people here had no clue. And those who knew wouldn't say.
"I'd like to help you," said one Paterno friend, "but I really can't."
Jeff Nelson, a university spokesman, said the Paterno family preferred to keep the location private. Others who might know - the State College funeral home handling the arrangements, cemetery employees, police officers, and family friends - all felt the same way.
To a large extent, the family's silence was understandable. After all, members of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church, known for their antigay beliefs, have threatened to protest.
And if I thought those Kansas-based funeral defilers, or clamoring cameramen, or satellite trucks might disrupt my loved one's arrival at the final resting place, I'd be concealing the details, too.
After a daylong investigation, I apparently was the only person in Centre County doing any digging on the question of where Paterno would be buried.
My inquiries included calls to the Koch Funeral Home, which is handling the arrangements, the local state police barracks, and many others.
I traveled to as many local graveyards as I could find. First stop was the Centre County Memorial Park.
I ruled that one out quickly since I was fairly certain the old coach wouldn't have wanted to spend eternity staring at a mall and a car dealership.
