Joe Paterno on the football field in Evanston, Ill., on Oct. 22 shortly before his next-to-last game as Penn State's head coach. (Jim Prisching / Associated Press)
The death of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno at age 85 conjures myriad memories and emotions but none more immediately indelible than a snowy day in State College, Pa.
The jubilant scene seems like years ago … it's actually been less than three months.
Chris Dufresne
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Paterno, in his 46th season as head coach, had just earned career win No. 409 with his team's 10-7 victory over Illinois. It was Oct. 29. The win pushed him ahead of Grambling legend Eddie Robinson as major college football's all-time victories leader.
PHOTOS: Joseph Paterno 1926 - 2012
Nursing leg, shoulder and pelvis injuries, Paterno coached from the press box but was toasted in a postgame ceremony. Then-university president Graham Spanier and athletic director Tim Curley presented Paterno with a plaque that read: "Joe Paterno. Educator of Men. Winningest Coach. Division One Football."
If only time could have stopped, on his legacy, on that last Saturday in October.
But it didn't, and the rest is a different history.
Less than two weeks after his crowning moment, Paterno was fired in the torrid, horrid middle of one of the worst unfolding scandals in sports history.
Never has 61 years of largely unimpeachable work, in one workplace, with one wife, unraveled so quickly and alarmingly.
The "winningest coach" never got a shot for victory No. 410. The next Saturday, an off weekend, the grand jury investigating the case unveiled a jaw-dropping indictment of longtime Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. The child sex abuse charges were salacious, scathing and damning.
Spanier and Curley, the men who handed Paterno his plaque, faced charges for failing to report allegations of criminal conduct as well as perjury and saw their Penn State careers abruptly end.
Paterno, the most powerful man in town for six decades, was left to unsuccessfully bargain for the last few weeks of his brilliant career.
It didn't work.
This was worse than a horror movie: It was "Plan 9 from Outer Space."
So this, really, is how it ends?
Paterno's death leaves open wounds and unanswered questions. He was never implicated directly in the scandal, but had to stand in judgment against himself — the high man of character he had proven to be since arriving on campus in 1950.
The bottom line in this scandal is now the forever, nagging gray area: Mike McQueary, a former Penn State quarterback and graduate assistant, had reported to Paterno in 2002 seeing Sandusky molest a young boy in the locker room showers.
Paterno did what was legally required: He reported the incident to his superior. And this is where the story disconnected from anything we would have imagined.
Paterno had built an empire on integrity, accountability and doing things the right way. He called it his Grand Experiment, the idea you could win big without sacrificing ethics or dignity.
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