The Lions' Pride

Rest in peace JoePa, canes nation mourns with you.

Greatest. Coach. Ever! Probably a greater human being. As a Buckeye fan I had the utmost respect for Coach Paterno and equally for Penn State. My heart is heavy for the Paterno's and the legions of PSU! God Speed Joe!

Big Canes fan here and I have to add this:

I will say this, I GUARANTEE Paterno knew what happened there. He didn't know how to go about it and that's what upset him in the end. I PROMISE EVERYBODY ON HERE THAT MORE PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT THIS THAN WHAT IS BEING TOLD. That said, Joe Paterno is at fault for NOT going over the head of SAID personnel. When dealing with a child/children, you have to come to the defense of the child first and foremost over EVERYTHING else. Joe Paterno DID NOT do that.

He did a WEALTH of good for the community and Penn State University.

In life, one mistake can mar your name for ALL eternity REGARDLESS of your accomplishments.

Live like you'll die tomorrow.

Learn like you'll live forever.

RIP JoePa

This is a story I will always remember...

http://www.startribune.com/sports/11718886.html

This is just too funny to forget. I'll miss him, because, who else could pull this off?

I remember camping out at Paternoville in 2006 for the Michigan game with my friends/roommates. Joe and Sue pulled up in their BMW and delivered 50 pizza pies to the students camping out at Paternoville. One of the few interactions I had with Joe, personally. I thanked him and Sue for the pizza and for stopping by to see Paternoville. He told us to make sure we are still going to class and keeping up on our studying. Typical JoePa. LEGEND!

Stole this from the Rivals main board from a USCe fan. Great story.

I have always hesitated telling this story, because, incredible as it seems, my life is based on a true story ... but it has more to do with my family, my father and his father, than my own life. But since I am his son and grandson, I've been fortunate enough to meet some famous people in my short lifetime. Joe Paterno was one of them.

In 1958 my grandfather was one of the highest recruited QBs in the country, as things went back then. He was a rare passing QB who, for decades, held a lot of HS passing records in the state of Tennessee. Memphis, Treadwell HS. He was offered by the likes of Bear Bryant at Alabama. Still, to this day, my Grandfather has a framed copy of the Memphis Commercial Appeal in his office where The Bear is on the front page sitting behind his desk, his elbow on the desk, with a puff cloud over his head and a picture of my grandfather contained within that cloud throwing a football. The headline read, "Will Bryant Get His Wish And Sign (insert my Grandfather's name). I have the same picture here in my house ... I'll try to scan it and include it in this post if possible.

Pa Pa was also recruited by Frank Broyles at Arkansas (via Barry Switzer), by Wally Butts at Georgia, by Bowden Wyatt at Tennessee, by the guy at Tulane who's name escapes me at the moment, Piney something maybe (?), Paul Dietzel at LSU and many other schools including So Cal, Clemson, Johnny Vaught at Ole Miss, et al. But you get the idea. His best friend was a Tight End named Claude Pearson who signed with and played for Baylor. He had over 1,000 yds receiving as a TE in HS, which was huge in those days.

Anyways, so Pa Pa was selected for a number of All-Star games. He played in the East-West All Star game and The Hershey Bowl in Hershey Pennsylvania. One of those bowls, I cannot remember which, he had a wide receiver by the name of Jerry Stovall. Stovall was being recruited by LSU at the time and Pa Pa connected with Stovall and another guy for over 300 yds passing in the game - which made him a national name at the time. Stovall was the MVP for having over 200 of those yds in the All-Star game.

(Side(lines) Note) - Pa Pa was invited to attend the Sugar Bowl that year and was on the sidelines with Stovall, who was trying to get him to sign with LSU.

Anyways, so at the Hershey Bowl, Pa Pa had a big game. In attendance was an asssistant coach at PSU at the time named Joe Paterno. He went into full bore recruiting mode trying to sign Pa Pa. Ended-up sending him a bunch of personal letters. Very cool letters that he still has. And while Pa Pa never considered going north, he always said the most impressive guy that recruited him was Joe Paterno. He kept all the letters and has always spoken highly of him every since.

Pa Pa ended-up signing with several schools, because in those days you signed Grant in Aids with one school from each conference if you were highly recruited, that's how you narrowed down your list. Then on deadline day, you enrolled at the school of your choice. He signed with Tulane (because he wanted to be an Architect), and Arkansas (because they were good to married players with children and my Grandmother was pregnant with my Dad at the time), and Clemson, (because my Grandmother's family are all Clemson people), and he signed a letter with Penn State because he liked Joe Pa and the campus up there ... but he readily admits he never intended to go there, it was just too far from home. In the end he enrolled at Arkansas with Frank Broyles.

Well, we traveled a lot when I was a kid. Lived overseas because my Dad was in Foreign Service. But we came home as often as possible, and because my Dad played ball for South Carolina, he was active in with the football stuff when we were home in Charleston, and he was a member of the Touchdown Club there. He wanted me around football from the day I was born and we spent a lot of time doing football things when I was a kid, when we were stateside.

While we were home in Jan/Feb of '96, I was just a kid, but we attended the Charleston TD Club annual meeting. Joe Pa was the guest speaker. He was recruiting a defensive end at the time, out of Macedonia HS named Courtney Brown who had narrowed his choices down to Penn State and South Carolina. He ended-up signing with Penn State but that is neither here nor there for this story. Because after Joe Pa gave his speech, we got in line to meet him and shake his hand.

See, my Dad had told my Grandfather that we were going to see Joe Pa speak that night and my Grandfather had said, "he will not remember me but if you can, get a signed hat from him for my collection."

So anyways, we finally make our way to Joe Pa, and my Dad says, and I'll never forget this, he says, "you recruited my father in 1958 ..." and before Dad could go any further Joe Pa asks, "who is your father?" So my Dad answers him with just my Grandfather's name, and Joe Pa immediately starts shaking his head in the affirmative and starts giving my Dad all this info he remembered about my Dad's forward passing prowess and what a great player he was and what an incredible arm he had and how accurate he was and how, to that day, he thinks maybe my Grandfather threw the most perfect spiral passes he had ever seen, "ole bullets). (I met Paul Dietzel when I was in college with my Dad when Dietzel came back to SC for a ceremony and he too told some good stories about my Grandfather's ability to throw the forward pass in those days and what a gun he had, which he can still throw today in his seventies - it's amazing.) But Joe Pa remembered everything about him - I mean right down to saying that he remembered my Grandmother was pregnant at the time with my Dad ... made a comment about how time flies and how he was honored to be meeting the baby that was now a grown man in my Dad. Was unbelievably personal and friendly and genuine. Asked my Dad about his playing days, made a comment about good genes, etc. But when it got around to finding a PSU hat for him to sign it was a no go ... Joe Pa's handlers had not brought anything like that for fear of a recruiting violation where Courtney Brown was concerned ... the only thing Joe Pa was allowed to do was shake Brown's hand when handing him the Player of the Year award. Couldn't even talk to Brown, he just shook his head like "yes, yes" as if confirming he was going to commit and sign with PSU.

Now, fast forward to later in the year, 1996, and my Uncle invites my Dad and me up to Michigan for the Penn State game. We stayed at this hotel in Ypsilanti where they had a golf course named The Eagle's Nest, but I cannot remember the name of the hotel. My Dad and Uncle were playing golf, I was caddying for my Dad, and we had just finished a round of 18 and were coming off the 18th green on top of this hill behind the hotel, when up drives all these Penn State buses. So we jump in the golf cart and drive around to the front of the hotel and lo and behold but who is the first one off in the first bus but Joe Pa. So we drive up to him to say hi ... and Joe Pa says, "you look familiar." So my Dad quickly reminds him about meeting him in Charleston and tells him we are staying there for the ballgame in Ann Arbor the next day between Michigan and PSU. And then, and I'll never forget this, Joe Pa says, I owe you a signed hat for (and he names my Grandfather by his first name, which to this day I still find incredible.) So he looks around, and Courtney Brown is getting off the bus with a PSU hat on his head and he says, "Courtney, come here, give me your hat." So Courtney, who was very soft spoken says yessir and hands Joe Pa the hat. Joe Pa asked this other guy standing beside him for a pen, and the guy hands him a black el marko and Joe Pa signs the hat and hands it to me and says, "give this to your Grandfather and tell him I said hello young man."

That's a true story.

I just hung up the phone with Pa Pa a little while ago. He is very sad tonight, I could tell. He said, "there are not many great ones left out there ... we just lost one of the last great ones. I hope he is remembered for the man he was his whole life, rather than for the things that transpired in the final months of his life. He deserves a better legacy than that and there are always two sides to every story."

Anyways, God Bless Joe Pa and may he rest in peace. He deserves some peace now.

PS: Grandfather ended-up transferring from Arkansas back to Memphis State to play for Spook Murphy because my Grandmother was homesick after my Dad was born. And Memphis State had hired his HS head coach from Treadwell, John Cobb, as an assistant along with Ray Malavasi. It was during that time that John Cobb was named Godfather to my Dad, and John Cobb is also Mack Brown's Godfather I have been told ... I include this for the Texas fans who have seen me type about Coach Brown - the connection had something to do with Melvin Brown, Mack Brown's father in Tennessee.

I'd explain why I call Roman Gabriel, "Uncle Gabe" even though he is not my uncle, and why he is often at our Cockaboose - but that's another story. It has to do with the big time QBs of that little time span and it ties-in with another great who we consider part of our family, "Uncle Billy Ray" Barnes ... Wake Forest and Philly (Eagles) fans will know who he is but he's a regular around here at the family farm as well.

(Pardon any grammatical or spelling errors in advance - posting without proof-reading because my wife is hounding me to come help her with a technical problem on her laptop.)

Regardless of Joe's position, he was probably the most affable person I ever met. In the late 1970s I was a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Economics Department. My office was in Kern Graduate Building, adjacent to Rec Hall, where Joe's office was located. I drove to work in the early AM and parked in our building's parking lot. Since Joe used to walk to work, we ended up on the same sidewalk. At our first encounter, before I could speak he said hello and engaged me in a conversation.

After that, we would occasionally run into each other, and what really floored me was that he remembered my name...after only a few minute initial conversation with someone he just happened to run into along a sidewalk. What a human being! He cared enough about a perfect stranger to remember his name. That is the kind of Coach we had at Penn State, not a man who would hide the truth about an alleged sex scandal. I wish the press knew him like we knew him.

I come from a Penn State family. I had relatives go to Penn State, and everyone was a Penn State football fan. So, as a child, Joe was my hero. I used to write very lengthy letters and make up packages to send to Joe. He would send me a polite letter back each time. One time he sent me the football program for that year, along with an autographed picture to me. Another time, he promised to say hello to Kyle Brady for me (Brady was older than me, but he lived right behind me and went to my high school).

I never met the man, and that is one thing I regret. But it didn't keep me from feeling like he cared about me, about all of us. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to, and believed in us. I have never known another PSU coach in my lifetime. I went to PSU for grad school, and I can't help but think Joe was the main reason for that. I think his legacy is all of us who've loved him, all of those who played for him, all the lives that we have touched, and will touch in the future. He's given us a model of how to be a good person. How to make a difference. I've shed quite a few tears this week, and I'm not a cryer. But, what comforts me is knowing he lived a full and worthwhile life, and that his legacy will live on through us.