Joe Posnanski remembers the coach who should have blown the whistle one more time
Joe Paterno died last week. The 85-year-old coaching legend, who headed Penn State’s football program for 46 years before his late-2011 firing, had lung cancer. His death prompted a waterfall of teary farewells, including one from former Kansas Citian Joe Posnanski.
Posnanski left KC last year, upgrading from Kansas City Star columnist to Sports Illustrated scribe. Also last year, Joe Po started working on a book about Joe Pa. So it was only fitting that Posnanski would have a few public words about Paterno, to whom he’d likely begun to feel close. But after the events of last year, Posnanski can no longer write a sunny look at a beloved coach in his twilight years. For this souring of narrative, the sportswriter can blame the allegations of child rape on Jerry Sandusky, a longtime assistant coach under Paterno.
In 2002, a graduate assistant reported to Paterno that he’d seen Sandusky raping a boy in the showers of the Penn State locker room. Paterno called his bosses but didn’t call the cops — and didn’t stop associating with Sandusky. When this came to light, in November 2011, the school’s board fired Paterno and Penn State President Graham Spanier.
Posnanski’s obituary for Paterno is short and flowery and gives the coach a pass. “I asked Paterno, at one point in that last month, if he hoped that people would come to see and measure his full life rather than a single, hazy event involving an alleged child molester,” he writes. “ ‘It doesn’t matter what people think of me,’ he said. ‘I’ve lived my life. I just hope the truth comes out. And I hope the victims find peace.’ ”
