Joe Paterno is one of college football’s most decorated coaches, but his tenure at Penn State came to an abrupt end amidst a child abuse sex scandal involving longtime defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.
Paterno was fired on November 9, 2011 by the Penn State board of trustees and died 74 days later due to complications from lung cancer.
Conversations about honoring him remain divisive, as earlier this year, a proposal to name Penn State’s field after Paterno was brought up and then quickly withdrawn at a university Board of Trustees meeting.
Paterno’s son, Jay, spoke that day, and said the timing wasn’t right for his dad to be honored, but told Sports Talk Philly this week that he strongly believes his father’s legacy at Penn State will be remembered fondly.
“When I walk around town, people stop me all the time to talk about him in very positive terms,” Paterno said. “The reality is that history will get it right as it looks at it, and it’s already started to.”
In what seemed like an instant, Penn State football icon Joe Paterno went from revered patriarch to reviled pariah. Now, ten years after the Penn State sex abuse scandal, E60 looks at The Paterno Legacy. pic.twitter.com/VleWpbtoje
— E60 (@E60) April 3, 2022
Paterno believes the facts surrounding his father’s involvement are clear, that he followed protocol when alerted to Sandusky’s crimes, and believes others see it similarly.
Former FBI director Louis Freeh reported in a 2012 investigation that Paterno covered up the abuse of a young boy, and the NCAA subsequently vacated all of Penn State’s wins from 1998 through 2011.
However, state senator Jake Corman sued in 2013 on the basis that Freeh’s conclusions were orchestrated with the NCAA and lacked due process, using emails between the parties as evidence.
In a 2015 legal settlement with Penn State, the NCAA reversed its decision and restored all 112 wins in that timespan. While several others at the university served jail time for their roles in the scandal, Paterno was never charged.
“I think there is more of a recognition of the fact that, at the end of the day, his only involvement in this case is that he was given a report about an allegation, and he reported it to the fullest extent he was allowed to,” Paterno said. “He did nothing wrong. The people that prosecuted the case said that. A number of attorneys general have looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, Joe did the right thing.’ So I think most people know that.
“But you know social media. We live in a hashtag society. You can write a hashtag, and no amount of evidence to the contrary is going to convince certain people of certain things. You’ve just got to ignore those people.”
Joe Paterno, now officially in the NCAA record book with 409 wins, is college football's winningest coach once again.
— Onward State (@OnwardState) January 16, 2015
It’s been more than a decade since Paterno’s passing, but Jay’s mother, Sue, is still alive.
While Jay is fine with allowing history to ultimately be the judge, he was asked if he wants his mom to witness a potential tribute for her late husband at Penn State.
“Whatever she wants,” Paterno said. “I don’t want to speak for her. Whatever she feels is right is probably what should happen. People don’t realize she’s raised money for Penn State. Not athletics, but other elements, for years. She’s been part of efforts to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for this university. She’s tutored football players, just done so many things for this university over the course of many years. So whatever she feels is right is her call, and I’d certainly support whatever she wanted to do.”
Jay Paterno played quarterback at Penn State from 1986-1990 and was an assistant coach under his father from 1995 to 2011, but was fired when Bill O’Brien took over in 2012.
Despite his father’s unceremonious ending and his own dismissal, Jay has stuck around the school and is currently on the Penn State Board of Trustees.
“I’ve always been around,” Paterno said. “I never wanted to be around the program in terms of, a former coach at practice, a former coach saying, ‘When we were here, we did this.’ I go to games, I sit upstairs, I keep my mouth shut.
“I was at the Ohio State game when somebody came up to me. I said, ‘Would you relax?’ He didn’t expect me to say that. I want to beat those guys, but as a realist you have to say, ‘Relax. We’ve got a 12-team playoff. It’s like the NFL. You can lose one or two and still be in the Playoff.’ So I just try to let everybody do their business. And where I feel like I can help, I try to help.”
Even after the turbulent ending for his dad, who won two national championships at the school, Jay Paterno said he never felt like distancing himself from Penn State.
“No, and it was the way I was raised,” Paterno said. “My dad, he and my mom had made a $150,000 commitment. Even after he was fired (on November 9), in December they honored it. They gave $7-8 million to the university over the course of their lives, at a time when coaches weren’t making what they’re making now.”
Paterno is involved in the NIL collective at Penn State, and has used his decades of first-hand experience within the college landscape to write multiple books.
The most recent is called BLITZED: The All-Out Pressure of College Football’s New Era where he dives into the complicated world of NIL.
“Everybody hears about the NIL stuff and it’s great the players are getting paid, but they don’t know the pressures that come with it,” Paterno said. “Families now feel like, why aren’t you getting this amount of money? We’ve been counting on this. And now the kid feels that pressure. It really gets into a lot of the stuff that would surprise people.”
Joining Full Ride Show on @SXMCollege with @CoachNeuheisel at 11:30….taking PSU vs UCLA, college football & the new novel out now at https://t.co/dK5RIwlaVS & on Amazon pic.twitter.com/eElLEgCe2K
— Jay Paterno (@JayPaterno) October 3, 2024
Paterno said the coaches are dealing with a rapidly-changing scene as well.
“Boosters are saying, I want this kid on our team and I’m going to pay for him,” Paterno said. “Well when he gets there, he’s not as good as they thought he was. But the booster is calling the coach and saying, ‘We bought this kid for you. Why isn’t he playing? I don’t want to be sitting up there in my suite looking like a jackass. I paid for this guy, and I bragged to everybody all offseason that I paid for him.”
Paterno has dipped his toe into several different arenas since his coaching career ended at Penn State. The NIL collective, the board of trustees, public speaking engagements, even a political run for the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania.
But his last name will always be synonymous with Nittany Lions football, and as the years go by, he steadfastly believes a historical examination of the scandal will exonerate his father in the eyes of the public.
“We always felt like, that certainly there were some decision-makers at the university that got some things wrong as it related to him,” Paterno said. “But they’re not the university, and they will be gone. And now all of them are gone. The people that were on the board at that time aren’t on the board anymore. I’ve always had that long-arc-of-history view of this place.”
