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This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.
Legendary coach Joe Paterno has died. The man synonymous with Penn State football developed complications from lung cancer. He was 85. Paterno was an iconic figure. He coached at Penn State for 61 years. His long tenure ended amidst a child sexual abuse scandal late last year. NPR's Tom Goldman has this remembrance.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: The man Penn Staters fondly called JoePa seemed to cement his golden legacy last October 29th.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JOE PATERNO: Something like this really means a lot to me, an awful lot.
GOLDMAN: Joe Paterno had just won a Division I record 409th game, the capper on a Hall of Fame career that included two national championships and five undefeated seasons. But days later, the golden legacy turned a distinct shade of gray when the Jerry Sandusky bomb went off. Paterno's longtime assistant coach was arrested and charged with multiple counts of child sexual abuse. And then, this announcement, by Penn State Board of Trustees Vice Chairman John Surma:
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JOHN SURMA: Joe Paterno is no longer the head football coach, effective immediately.
GOLDMAN: It was a stunning, abrupt end to 46 years as head coach. One of the reasons why Paterno was fired - he didn't do enough when alerted to Sandusky's alleged crimes. That was the biggest irony: Joe Paterno, not doing enough? This was the guy who did so much for the school he loved.
Longtime Penn State football broadcaster Fran Fisher remembers Paterno winning his first national championship in 1983, and then speaking before the Penn State Board of Trustees.
FRAN FISHER: Challenging them to make this university, in all aspects, a champion, if you will - a national champion.
GOLDMAN: What followed, says Fisher, were wildly successful fundraising campaigns, one after the other.
(SOUNDBITE OF PENN STATE FOOTBALL GAME BROADCAST)
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
GOLDMAN: To be fair, there were those - mostly outside Happy Valley - who felt like telling Paterno the same thing. His prickly nature rubbed some the wrong way, as did the way he was deified in State College - to which the deifiers said, fine, show us a famous head coach who will interrupt his morning jog - in khakis, no less - to stop and take pictures with a local and her family, the way he did once with State College resident Andrea Blumstein.
ANDREA BLUMSTEIN: That was it for me, you know. That was the top thing that you could ever do in this town - is meet Joe Paterno. So I will cherish that day that I met him.
GOLDMAN: Or, the argument continues: Show us a head coach at a huge football school for whom student-athlete is more than an empty phrase. Paterno, the literate guy who translated classic readings from Latin to English in high school, embarked on a grand experiment at Penn State to prove that top-notch football players still could excel in school.
For the most part, it worked. Final confirmation came just last month: Penn State football was ranked first academically among the top 25 teams in the country, by the New America Foundation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Chanting) One more game! One more game!
GOLDMAN: The night Joe Paterno was fired, Penn State students took to the streets, demanding that Paterno coach the final home game of the season - which, of course, he didn't. An unfortunate end, says Andrea Blumstein, to Paterno's professional story.
BLUMSTEIN: You know, everybody in this town - and in the Penn State community - would always say ah, he'll die on that field; he'll die on that field. And he'll never have that exit, that grace of leaving that field on his terms.
GOLDMAN: Of course, even Paterno acknowledged that was partly his fault. On reporting Sandusky's alleged behavior, Paterno said: I wish I had done more. It's now part of his legacy. But those who knew him, and revered him, stress only part.
1987 Penn State graduate Chris Raymond wrote this in Esquire magazine: If the Paterno way is discarded along with Paterno, then this tragedy will have been miserably, terribly compounded.
Tom Goldman, NPR News.