JoePa - Dead. Wait. Not Dead.

Townhallsavoy · « **on:** January 21, 2012, 09:20:05 PM »

Just heard that Joe Paterno passed away.

Got a bit sad. Wondered about his role in the Sandusky case. Checked Facebook. Lots of sad JoePa posts.

Few minutes later, I hear that Joe Paterno is alive but not doing well.

Here's an ESPN story. Could be germane. Could be outdated.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7487597/spokesman-says-joe-paterno-condition-serious-further-complications?eleven=twelve

JR4AU · « **Reply #1 on:** January 21, 2012, 09:26:06 PM »

deleted

Vandy Vol · « **Reply #2 on:** January 21, 2012, 10:24:37 PM »

Joe Pa is dead.

...unless he isn't.

RWS · « **Reply #3 on:** January 22, 2012, 09:47:55 AM »

Kind of sad to see how the media is circling like vultures waiting on him to die. I mean, I know it will be a big story. I know Paterno fucked up and made a poor decision. I guess the only silver lining to that (if there is any) is that he didn't actually do anything to those kids himself.

Anyway, the media should let the guy at least die in dignity.

AUJarhead · « **Reply #4 on:** January 22, 2012, 10:29:00 AM »

ESPN now reporting that he passed away at 10am Sunday.

Kaos · « **Reply #5 on:** January 22, 2012, 10:57:29 AM »

Gene Chizik has half as many national titles as Paterno*. And half as many as Bobby Bowden.

Think on that.

*No team has been screwed out of as many titles as Paterno/Penn State although Auburn (1983, 1993, 2004) comes close.

Jumbo · « **Reply #6 on:** January 22, 2012, 03:34:28 PM »

Roll his bones on over here and I'll dig up your daughter.

AUChizad · « **Reply #7 on:** January 22, 2012, 04:09:21 PM »

This is seriously on facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2841231943198&set=a.1063449659752.101040.1031283391&type=1&theater

Please, someone comment about all the smoke.

Vandy Vol · « **Reply #8 on:** January 22, 2012, 05:15:32 PM »

http://www.theonion.com/articles/joe-paterno-dies-in-hospital-doctors-promise-to-te,27125/

Saniflush · « **Reply #9 on:** January 22, 2012, 06:11:38 PM »

Quote from: AUChizad on January 22, 2012, 04:09:21 PM

This is seriously on facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2841231943198&set=a.1063449659752.101040.1031283391&type=1&theater

Please, someone comment about all the smoke.

I'm not at the shop but I envision a cut and paste onto a different, more "hot" background.

Kaos · « **Reply #10 on:** January 22, 2012, 09:13:25 PM »

What?

Saniflush · « **Reply #11 on:** January 23, 2012, 07:13:28 AM »

Quote from: Kaos on January 22, 2012, 09:13:25 PM

What?

Kaos · « **Reply #12 on:** January 23, 2012, 07:49:20 AM »

Needed something...

War Eagle!!! · « **Reply #13 on:** January 23, 2012, 02:31:02 PM »

A pretty good article by one of my favorite writers:

Quote

Maybe you will never be convinced Joe Paterno was a good man who made one catastrophic mistake, but do you have time for just one story?

In 2000, Penn State freshman defensive back Adam Taliaferro had his spine crushed when tackling an Ohio State player. He lay on that September field paralyzed and panicked.

The first person he saw when he opened his eyes was Paterno, who died Sunday at 85.

"He could see I was losing it, but his eyes stayed totally calm," Taliaferro remembers. "And I remember that familiar, high-pitched voice, going, 'You're gonna get through this, Kid. You're gonna be OK.' And I just trusted him. I believed it."

Taliaferro wound up in a hospital bed in Philadelphia, everything frozen solid below the neck. Doctors said he had about a 3 percent chance of walking again. And every other week Paterno would fly to Philly to see him.

"He'd bring our trainer and a couple of my teammates," Taliaferro says. "Nobody in the hospital knew he was there." Paterno would tell him all the dumb things his teammates and coaches had done lately. Pretty soon, Taliaferro would be laughing his IVs out.

"I can't tell you what that meant to me," says Taliaferro, now 30. "I'm stuck in that hospital, and here's Coach Paterno bringing a piece of the team to me, in the middle of the season. How many coaches would do that?"

Paterno and Taliaferro

For more of Adam Taliaferro's memories of Joe Paterno, click here.
One midnight, Taliaferro moved a toe and the first person his dad called was Paterno. His dad held the phone to Adam's ear and Paterno said, "You're gonna prove 'em all wrong, Kid!"

From then on, every visit, Paterno wanted to see Taliaferro move something new. "I got to where I wanted to be ready. A finger, a hand, whatever. I wanted to perform for Coach Paterno."

One day, five months into it, Paterno walked in and said, "What's new, Kid?" Taliaferro swung his legs over the bed, stood and extended his hand to shake.

"I'll never forget his eyes," he says. "They were already huge behind those Coke-bottle glasses, but they got even bigger." Paterno gave him a 10-second hug and then said, "Kid, ya make me proud."

A man is more than his failings.

I learned a lot about Paterno when I wrote a story about him in 1986 for Sports Illustrated. I've learned a lot about him since. He was a humble, funny and giving man who was unlike any other coach I ever met in college football. He rolled up his pants to save on dry cleaning bills. He lived in the same simple ranch house for the last 45 years. Same glasses, same wife, same job, for most of his adult life.

He was a man who had two national championships, five undefeated seasons, and yet for years he drove a white Ford Tempo. In 46 years as a head coach, he never had a single major NCAA violation.

He was the only coach I've ever known who went to the board of trustees to demand they increase entrance requirements, who went to faculty club meetings to hear the lectures, who listened to opera while drawing up game plans.

He was a Depression kid who wouldn't allow stars on helmets or names on jerseys. And he hated expensive tennis shoes.

He'd see a player wearing Air Jordans and say, "It's not the sneakers, Kid, it's the person in them."

One day Taliaferro wore an entirely different pair into his office, a pair of "Air Paternos" he'd made himself. "He freaked out," Taliaferro remembers. "He was about to call Nike. He thought they were real!"

EnlargePaterno Nikes

Courtesy of Adam TaliaferroAs a gag, Taliaferro made these sneakers to show Paterno. They represented everything the coach did not stand for.
If a player was struggling with a subject, Paterno would make him come to his house for wife Sue's homemade pasta and her tutoring. One time, he told a high-school blue chipper named Bob White he wouldn't recruit him unless he agreed to read 12 novels and turn in two-page book reports to Sue. They were the first books he ever finished. White wound up with two degrees and a job at the university.

Paterno was other things, too, like controlling and immovable. He lingered as head coach when he promised time and again he wouldn't. And when he needed to follow up on what he'd been told about Jerry Sandusky and a child in the shower in 2002, he failed miserably.

But he followed up for thousands of others.

Even though Taliaferro would never play football again, Paterno stayed on him to keep moving. "I came to Penn State to become a lawyer," he told him. "But I never made it. You could, Kid. You're smart."

He got the fully recovered Taliaferro a summer internship with the NFLPA in New York and, before you knew it, Taliaferro was a corporate lawyer in Cherry Hill, N.J. He successfully ran for local office there and is now running for the Penn State board of trustees, where he wants to help his school heal from a scandal Paterno made worse with his neglect.

"The last three months, I've just wanted to go up on a rooftop and shout, 'I wish you knew him like I do!'" Taliaferro says. "I know, in my heart, if he'd understood how serious this situation was, he'd have done more."

I believe that, too. But if you don't, I respect that. I only ask this:

If we're so able to vividly remember the worst a man did, can't we also remember the best?

Snaggletiger · « **Reply #14 on:** January 23, 2012, 02:46:35 PM »

It's funny how the more I think about the entire situation, the more I tend to agree with K's scenario, saying don't be so quick to judge his actions, or lack thereof. I'm the first to say that anything that happens to a kid is magnified 100X. I watched my mom slowly die of cancer. It was horrible and I don't wish that on anyone. But, you let an 8 year old be afflicted with cancer and it rips my damn heart out. Same here with Sandusky. You abuse a child and no punishment is too harsh. Rot in hell, bitch. But, I say that sitting here about 800 miles from there.

Having said that, if I really try and put myself in that situation where someone comes to me and says the same thing about my best friend, someone I've known practically all my life....how do I handle it? I honestly can't say. I'm quite sure Joe Paterno did far more good and affected so many people's live's in a positive way. I just can't put all the blame on him for failing to do more. They all failed to do more, from the GA right up to the President.

Shug Dye · « **Reply #15 on:** January 23, 2012, 02:48:43 PM »

What, dear lord, if it were your.......BIL?

Godfather · « **Reply #16 on:** January 23, 2012, 02:52:00 PM »

Quote from: Snaggletiger on January 23, 2012, 02:46:35 PM

It's funny how the more I think about the entire situation, the more I tend to agree with K's scenario, saying don't be so quick to judge his actions, or lack thereof. I'm the first to say that anything that happens to a kid is magnified 100X. I watched my mom slowly die of cancer. It was horrible and I don't wish that on anyone. But, you let an 8 year old be afflicted with cancer and it rips my damn heart out. Same here with Sandusky. You abuse a child and no punishment is too harsh. Rot in hell, bitch. But, I say that sitting here about 800 miles from there.

Having said that, if I really try and put myself in that situation where someone comes to me and says the same thing about my best friend, someone I've known practically all my life....how do I handle it? I honestly can't say. I'm quite sure Joe Paterno did far more good and affected so many people's live's in a positive way. I just can't put all the blame on him for failing to do more. They all failed to do more, from the GA right up to the President.

Call it the cynic in me, but I just have a real hard time believing they all didn't know more. However whatever the case may be, only he and the lord know, and he is having that discussion with the Big Guy now.

Godfather · « **Reply #17 on:** January 23, 2012, 02:52:52 PM »

Quote from: Shug Dye on January 23, 2012, 02:48:43 PM

What, dear lord, if it were your.......BIL?

Then...

He would have one hell of a story.

GH2001 · « **Reply #18 on:** January 23, 2012, 03:01:47 PM »

Quote from: Snaggletiger on January 23, 2012, 02:46:35 PM

It's funny how the more I think about the entire situation, the more I tend to agree with K's scenario, saying don't be so quick to judge his actions, or lack thereof. I'm the first to say that anything that happens to a kid is magnified 100X. I watched my mom slowly die of cancer. It was horrible and I don't wish that on anyone. But, you let an 8 year old be afflicted with cancer and it rips my damn heart out. Same here with Sandusky. You abuse a child and no punishment is too harsh. Rot in hell, bitch. But, I say that sitting here about 800 miles from there.

Having said that, if I really try and put myself in that situation where someone comes to me and says the same thing about my best friend, someone I've known practically all my life....how do I handle it? I honestly can't say. I'm quite sure Joe Paterno did far more good and affected so many people's live's in a positive way. I just can't put all the blame on him for failing to do more. They all failed to do more, from the GA right up to the President.

I really think Joe Pa's biggest flaw in the situation is being too trusting of the chain of command. It is easy to backseat drive the whole thing, but he really believed he was doing the right thing by running it up the chain and trusting they would actually do their jobs AND the right thing by dealing with it appropriately with the police. THAT did not happen and JoePa was left with egg on his face.

Snaggletiger · « **Reply #19 on:** January 23, 2012, 03:03:04 PM »

Quote from: Shug Dye on January 23, 2012, 02:48:43 PM

What, dear lord, if it were your.......BIL?

Man, would that be a story or what?