"I didn't want to take away from the Paterno family," Masser, 60, said in an interview a few hours after the service ended. Asked what it was like for him, a top university leader, to be unable to attend a memorial where the trustees would normally be front and center, tears seemed to well in his eyes.
"I don't want to go there," said Masser, whose father is dying of lung cancer, the same disease that killed Paterno.
But he wanted to be on the 45,000-student campus to bid Paterno goodbye, albeit from a remote location.
With Paterno buried, it's Masser and Peetz, among others, who now are charged with leading the university out of the wreckage - to somehow heal and fix the school in the aftermath of the sordid child-sexual-abuse allegations leveled against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, the subsequent firing of Paterno, and the forced resignation of president Graham B. Spanier.
The situation is unprecedented, and the trustees face serious challenges. Among them:
A vocal, angry, and mobilized alumni-and-fan base that's working to seat new board members in a coming election and overhaul how the board is organized and run. Many are furious that Paterno was fired without a hearing or waiting for the outcome of investigations.
A faculty doubtful of the board's ability to conduct its own impartial inquiry into the scandal.
A Paterno family whose leadership and fund-raising helped create the university as it exists today - and who have been deeply wounded and disaffected by Paterno's abrupt dismissal in an infamous phone call.
A quiet discontent among child-abuse survivors and advocates who fear the focus on Paterno and football has minimized the brutality and damage suffered by Sandusky's alleged victims.
