Game Over

by Bill Moushey

  Gasper, a special education teacher, felt compelled to visit the statue. Some thirty-five years earlier she had been an eighth grade student in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, who was given a class assignment to write a letter to someone she admired. She chose Joe Paterno. And to her amazement, the coach wrote back, and they continued a correspondence through the years. When she heard JoePa’s condition had worsened, she reread some of his letters. One encouraged her to study hard; another cheered her commitment to run in her first marathon. She had once met the coach in person, and Sue Paterno, the coach’s wife, came to visit her in the hospital when Jonathon was born. To Gasper, Paterno did more than coach football players. He provided inspiration to little girls nurturing dreams of their own.

  “He meant so much to me,” said Gasper, sobbing gently. “You know it’s going to happen to all of us some time, but when the end comes, it hurts.”

  Just moments after Gasper left for home in a sport utility vehicle adorned with lion’s paw decals, word officially came that Joseph Vincent Paterno had passed away at twenty-five minutes after nine o’clock. His death came sixty-five days after his family announced he was being treated for lung cancer, and seventy-four days after he was fired in the fallout from the Jerry Sandusky scandal. In his final moments Paterno had the opportunity to say goodbye to his wife, his five children, and his seventeen grandchildren in his hospital room. The Paterno family issued a statement: “He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been.”

  Police blocked off the entrance to McKee Street to discourage mourners from descending on the Paterno home. There was nothing but stillness at the stone-and-glass home at 830 McKee Street. A single sign on the snow-covered lawn read, “We Love You JoePa.”

  Reaction to his death came from everywhere. One of the first statements read, “He maintained a high standard in a very difficult profession. Joe preached toughness, hard work and clean competition. Most importantly, he had the courage to practice what he preached.” It came, jarringly, from Jerry Sandusky, confined to his home in State College by an electronic monitor as a condition of bail. It had been thirteen years since Sandusky resigned from Paterno’s coaching staff. What Paterno did or didn’t do after first learning of Sandusky’s conduct had led to his departure as head coach.

  A solemn mood descended over all of central Pennsylvania as word spread of Paterno’s death, which inexplicably had been announced prematurely on some websites. Four days of mourning would follow for a father figure who had come to Penn State sixty-one years earlier and had been head coach of a storied program for forty-six years, longer than any college football coach had served at any one school. Flags flying over state office buildings were lowered to half-staff by the executive order of Governor Tom Corbett, who had begun the Sandusky investigation as the state’s attorney general. As governor Corbett served as an ex-officio member of the Penn State board of trustees and had supported Paterno’s firing.

  Hundreds of football players who had been coached by Paterno made their way back to State College to honor their mentor. Among them was Shane Conlan, who was a freshman linebacker when Paterno won his first national championship in 1982 and who was captain of the 1986 national championship team. A native of Frewsburg, New York, who now resides in Pittsburgh, Conlan was a two-time All-American at Penn State and was an All-Pro three times in a professional football career with the Buffalo Bills and St. Louis Rams. Conlan and a former Penn State teammate, Dan Delligatti, had visited Paterno a week after the coach was fired. They sat around Paterno’s kitchen table, the gathering place for so many eventful sessions over the years, and talked about life.

  “It was a tough time for him, but the first thing he asked about was our families and our kids. He remembered my parents by their first names,” said Conlan, vice president of Esmark Inc. “People have said that he died of a broken heart. Not in my view. He was too tough for that. He was too much of a fighter. He wanted to have a press conference to tell his story, but his health wouldn’t let him. One of the last things he said was that he was very demanding of us—maybe too demanding—but I didn’t want to hear that. I’ve known from day one that he was not so much about X’s and O’s as a football coach but more about making sure we graduated and molding us as men. He wasn’t coaching us for professional football, he was preparing us for life. He took eighteen-year-old boys and turned us into men. Outside of my father, he had more influence on my life than any other man. I gave him a big hug before I left and told him I loved him. All of us are devastated by the way this thing went down. I have more respect for him now than I ever did. He didn’t deserve this. The world lost a great man.”

  Conlan was among the football players who served as honor guards in two-man shifts on Tuesday as tens of thousands of mourners filed into the worship room of Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, an interfaith gathering place on campus that had benefited from a $1 million contribution by the Paterno family. White roses sat atop Paterno’s undraped casket. Twelve white candles burned in the background. A black-and-white portrait of a smiling Paterno was hung just off to the side. The family arrived first to have a private moment. Joining them was the university’s new football coach, Bill O’Brien, who had been hired from the staff of the Super Bowl-bound New England Patriots. Like Paterno, O’Brien had attended Brown University. The football family came next. Members of Paterno’s last team arrived in blue university buses, the same ones they took to Beaver Stadium on game days. Among the former players who came to pay final respects was Mike McQueary, who had sat at Paterno’s kitchen table in 2002 to tell his boss that he had seen Sandusky sexually assaulting a ten-year-old boy in the showers of the Lasch Building. McQueary entered and exited the spiritual center without speaking to anyone. Then the doors opened to the public. A line of mourners stretched for a quarter of a mile. For some, the wait to view the casket was nearly two hours. An estimated 27,000 mourners passed by the casket during the ten-hour vigil.

  On Wednesday a private Roman Catholic Funeral Mass was held inside the spiritual center, located not far from the campus library that bears Paterno’s name. A family spokesman said Paterno’s grandchildren escorted the casket down the aisle during the opening procession. Among the nonfamily members attending the service was Tim Curley. When the mass was over, pallbearers, including two of Paterno’s three sons, Scott and Jay, lifted the casket to begin JoePa’s final journey. The casket was gently placed into the back of a hearse painted in Penn State blue.

  Family and close friends boarded blue Penn State football buses to take part in a funeral procession that would roll through State College. JoePa always sat in the right front seat of the first bus on game days; this time that seat was occupied by his wife. Moving slowly, the motorcade drove by Beaver Stadium to near the Paterno statue, now overflowing with mementoes. Along with the little stuffed lion Kim and Jonathan Gasper had placed at the monument was a rewritten newspaper headline. The word “FIRED” had been crossed out and replaced with the words “Killed by Trustees.” Hundreds of spectators rolled up their trouser cuffs to expose black shoes. Inside the football stadium, the electronic scoreboard was lit up with the image of a smiling Joe Paterno. At the place called Paternoville, the makeshift camp where students slept in tents to get the best seats for football games, students held a sign that said, “We Are Because You Were.” The procession proceeded to College Avenue, the main artery in State College, where people stood ten to twenty deep along the sidewalks. The thumping blades of news helicopters could be heard overhead. Some mourners stepped out to touch the blue hearse. Every shop, restaurant, and tavern had a Paterno tribute in the window. On a wall of the Student Book Store at Heister Street a yellow halo was painted above Paterno’s image adorning Michael Pilato’s mural Inspiration. On the far side of the avenue across from the Penn State engineering building, which is constructed in the shape of a slide rule, Moyer’s Jewelers had a sign on its building that said, “Happy Val
ley Welcomes Coach O’Brien.”

  An estimated 38,000 well-wishers—more than the population of the town—lined College Avenue in response to a Facebook posting to “Guide Joe Paterno Home.” Jay Paterno tweeted a message on Twitter that said, “Thank you to all the people who turned out for my father’s procession. Very moving.” The motorcade proceeded to Pine Hall Cemetery, where the casket, in a private ceremony, was lowered into the soil of a grieving valley.

  A public service called “A Memorial to Joe” was held Thursday at the Bryce Jordan Center, where Penn State plays its basketball games and stages music concerts. Cardboard cutouts of Paterno’s figure, called “Stand-up Joes,” greeted the 12,000 mourners as they entered. A who’s who of Penn State dignitaries quietly found their places among the blue and white folding chairs set up on the arena floor while others filled the stands. Hugs were exchanged. Tears flowed. A hush set a solemn tone. It was the quietest the arena had been for any event.

  Then Sue Paterno, a picture of grace under pressure, entered the arena from the left. An ovation shattered the silence and then grew in intensity as the throng realized she was in the room. She paused to hug her five children, their spouses, and her seventeen grandchildren before taking her seat.

  The memorial began with a video tribute to Paterno that was shown on the scoreboard’s giant TV screens. The montage of good times was put together by Guido D’Elia, Penn State’s director for communications and branding. D’Elia, head of a Pittsburgh consulting firm called Mind Over Media, had been hired by Penn State with Paterno’s blessing to burnish the school’s image. He was in control of the on-campus message about Paterno’s legacy, and his version, reverent and sanitized, showed moments of football glory and footage of Paterno mingling with adoring fans.

  The most heartfelt part of the program was provided by players representing each of the decades in Paterno’s long coaching career. Among those to take center stage was Charles V. Pittman, the first African American recruited to play football at Penn State and one of the first participants in Paterno’s Grand Experiment stressing academic and athletic excellence. A newspaper publisher and a member of the board of directors of the Associated Press, Pittman spoke as his son, Tony, who also played football under Paterno, sat in the audience with former teammates.

  “Joe worked hard to recruit me at Penn State and it seemed, through my young eyes, that he worked ever harder to break my spirit. Nothing seemed good enough for him. He pushed me so hard that he once had me in tears. I called my parents my sophomore year and told them I wanted to come home. My father talked me out of that one,” Pittman said, eliciting laughter from his rapt audience.

  “What I know now is that Joe wasn’t trying to build perfection. That doesn’t exist and he knew it. He was, bit by bit, building a habit of excellence. He was building a proud program for the school, the state and the hundreds of young men he watched over for a half century. He cherished honesty, effort, academics, sportsmanship and citizenship. I was forged from that crucible, from Joe’s Grand Experiment, and I think the life I have lived is one of Joe’s thousands of gifts to the world. Like Joe, many of his former players have tried to make society better in the way that we can.

  “Joe made his program his second family—thank you, Sue, for sharing him with us—and family brings comfort. Family survives hard times. It outlasts controversy. Our Penn State family has always lived by Joe’s edict that you take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves. That is not gone and it will not go away simply because the architect is no longer here. Joe built something fine and good and long lasting and I am humbled by the good fortune of having known him as a coach and a friend. My son, Tony, was so impressed by Joe that he turned down Harvard, Yale and Princeton so he could play football for Coach Joe Paterno.” Pittman paused and asked Tony to stand. “That’s my boy,” he said.

  “So now with grown children, grandkids and forty-two years removed from my playing days, I thought Joe Paterno had taught me all that he could teach me. I was wrong. Despite being pushed away from his beloved game and under the extreme pressure of the events of the past few months, Joe’s grace was startling. Though his body eventually failed, his spirit never did. Like the great teacher he was all of his life, he had one more lesson for me. I got the call that he passed away on my birthday. What an omen. For me, it means that there is still much to do in this world and those who believed and still believe in Joe’s spirit must continue that Grand Experiment. It is needed now, more than ever. Rest in peace, Coach. We’ll take it from here.”

  Michael Robinson, a Penn Stater who is a fullback with the Seattle Seahawks, took an eleven-hour flight from the Pro Bowl in Honolulu to speak at the memorial. What Paterno taught his players will live on, Robinson said. “Just because he’s not with us, don’t let the dream, don’t let the experiment, don’t let the values go away. He’s in all of us.” Robinson returned to Hawaii the next day on Nike Inc.’s corporate jet.

  The seminal moment was provided by Phil Knight, the founder and chief executive officer of Nike, a corporate sponsor of the Penn State football program and a donor to the Paterno Library. Knight regaled the audience with anecdotes, telling the story of the time a straitlaced Joe Paterno got up at a Nike-sponsored coaches conference to sing Wild Thing by the Troggs, a 1960s rock band that most assuredly did not have a lead singer with a Brooklyn accent. Knight called Paterno his hero, and he took it upon himself to address the issue of whether Paterno may have met his legal but not his moral responsibilities in the Sandusky investigation. Playing the role of a character witness in the court of public opinion, Knight said of Paterno, “He gave full disclosure to his superiors, information that went up the chain to the head of the campus police and the president of the school. The matter was in the hands of a world-class university, and by a president with an outstanding national reputation. Whatever the details of the investigation, this much is clear to me: If there is a villain in this tragedy, it lies in that investigation and not in Joe Paterno’s response.” Knight’s remarks triggered the loudest applause of the memorial. When the ovation died down, Knight asked rhetorically, “Who is the real trustee at Penn State University?”

  Some of the speakers had no direct connection to Penn State’s football program, but they still had words of praise for Paterno. Lauren Perrotti said she was able to enhance her education and study abroad because she had been chosen to participate in the Paterno Liberal Arts Undergraduate Fellows Program, which had been created by donations made to the school by the coach. “The Paterno Way has become the Penn State Way, and Success with Honor has become the standard,” Perrotti said. Also lending his voice to the memorial was Jeff Bast, the original mayor of Paternoville. He said Paterno had influenced every student at Penn State. “JoePa, thank you for being a father to all of us.”

  The last word belonged to Jay Paterno, the grieving son who served for seventeen years on his father’s coaching staff, including the last twelve years as quarterbacks coach. Greeted with a standing ovation, Jay imitated his father’s high-pitched Brooklyn accent when he told the audience “Sit down! Sit down!” In his remarks Jay said he was proud that the name on his driver’s license is Joseph Vincent Paterno Jr. He quoted Socrates, one of his father’s favorite philosophers, that one must wait until evening to see how magnificent the day has been. The line that evoked the warmest applause was when Jay said “Joe Paterno left this world with a clear conscience.”

  Jay said he once asked his father why, after every football game, he knelt down with his players and joined hands to recite the Lord’s Prayer. His father replied that he did so because all of the first-person pronouns in the prayer were plural, “our” and “us,” not the singular “I.” Jay then asked everyone in the arena to stand and hold hands to say one final prayer in honor of the coach.

  “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” Jay began. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our dai
ly bread”—Jay’s voice broke for a moment—“and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”

  Jay closed by sharing the last words he spoke at his father’s death bed. After a final kiss, he whispered into his father’s ear, “Dad, you won. You did all you could do. You’ve done enough. We all love you. We won. You can go home now.”

  At that moment Kurt Cleckner, a senior in the Penn State Blue Band, put his lips to the mouthpiece of his trumpet and, standing arrow straight, flawlessly played the school’s fight song, “Hail to the Lion.” SuePa wept.

  After the final note was sounded, a music video appeared on the scoreboard. It was Luciano Pavarotti’s spine-tingling rendition of the aria from the final act of Puccini’s opera Turandot. The final words of the song, translated from Italian, are “I will win! I will win! I will win!”

  Through the ordeal of the previous two and a half months Joe Paterno had been denied a grand send-off that his loyal supporters felt he was due. He didn’t know at the time that the game of October 29, 2011, the 409th win of his career, would be his last as a coach. Nor that the November 9 practice he watched from his golf cart was his last. The practice ended only hours before he was fired by the board of trustees. But at the conclusion of Pavarotti’s aria 12,000 people clapped their hands to acknowledge all the good JoePa had done. Their applause was his final farewell.

  The day was clearly reserved for Joe Paterno’s memory. Not a single mention was made of the ten young men who were prepared to testify under oath that Jerry Sandusky, counter to his saintly image as a Penn State icon, had sexually abused them over a fifteen-year period. They were not included in any of the prayers. No one spoke on their behalf.