@McMurphyCBS
Brett McMurphy
RT @cvmikesisak: BREAKING: Penn State coach Joe Paterno near death, family summoning close friends to hospital for final goodbyes.

He's one of the greatest men who's ever roamed the sidelines and done a lot for the community. One incident, the full extent we don't even know, doesn't change that.

Joe Paterno's condition 'serious'

Joe Paterno, Division I's all-time winningest coach who was fired by Penn State in November, has experienced further complications from treatment from lung cancer and is in serious condition, a family spokesman said in a statement Saturday.

"Over the last few days Joe Paterno has experienced further health complications," the spokesman said Saturday. "His doctors have now characterized his status as serious. His family will have no comment on the situation and asks that their privacy be respected during this difficult time."

Paterno's cancer diagnosis was revealed Nov. 18, just nine days after he lost his job in the fallout of sexual abuse charges against former assistant Jerry Sandusky. Paterno recently re-entered the hospital after complications arose from his cancer treatments.



A source told The Citizens' Voice of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Saturday that Paterno's family has asked close friends and former staff members to come to the Mount Nittany Medical Center in State College, where Paterno has been undergoing treatment.

Paterno won two national championships and a Division I record 409 games over 46 seasons at Penn State and the family has donated millions of dollars to the school.

But his legacy was clouded in the wake of a sexual abuse scandal that has resulted in 52 counts of child molestation against Sandusky. Paterno had announced his retirement early on Nov. 9, but the Penn State board of trustees fired him and university president Graham Spanier about 12 hours later. That day, Paterno called the scandal "one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."

In his first public statements since the scandal broke, Paterno recently told The Washington Post that he did not know how to deal with the situation when he received a report from a graduate assistant that his former defensive coordinator was accused of abusing a boy in the showers.

"I didn't know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was," he told The Post in an extensive two-day interview at his home in State College, Pa, that was released to the public on Jan. 14. "So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn't work out that way."

The Post account described Paterno, who is not accused of any wrongdoing, as physically weakened from his chemotherapy treatments, speaking with a rasp. The interview, conducted on Jan. 12-13, was monitored by his attorney, Wick Sollers, and a communications adviser, Dan McGinn.

Sandusky says he is innocent and is under house arrest after posting $250,000 bail. His next court appearance is a March 22 pretrial conference.

In addition, Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, who is on leave, and a school vice president, Gary Schultz, face trial for charges of perjury and failing to report suspected child abuse and have left the school.

Paterno said he wished he knew how allegations against Sandusky didn't come to light until this year. "I don't know the answer to that," he told The Post. "It's hard."

The trustees' firing of Paterno has come under scrutiny from several former players, as well as some alumni critical at meetings this week with school president Rodney Erickson about the motivation to oust Paterno.

In an interview with The Associated Press on the Penn State campus Thursday, the trustees said they fired Paterno in part because the football coach didn't meet a moral obligation to do more to alert authorities.

A day after the graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, came to see him, Paterno relayed the accusations to his superiors, one of whom oversaw campus police. Board members didn't think that was enough.

"There's an obligation, a moral responsibility, for all adults to watch out for children, either your own or someone else," trustee Mark Dambly told The AP. "It was in our opinion that Joe Paterno did not meet his moral obligation and for that reason -- me, personally for that reason, I felt he could no longer lead the university and it was unanimous."

Paterno remains employed as a tenured faculty member at Penn State, and details of his retirement were being worked out and would be made public when finalized.

The schools trustees have said they intend to honor Paterno's contract as if he had retired at the end of the 2011 football season and in Thursday's interview with The AP, Dambly and three other trustees said they still intended to honor Paterno's accomplishments and contributions to the school.

"Obviously Joe Paterno is a worldwide icon and has done a tremendous amount for the university," trustee Joel Myers said. "We have sorrow and all kinds of emotions, empathy, sympathy for what has occurred. That's universal."

Information from The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...plications

(01-21-2012 06:31 PM)Coopdaddy67 Wrote:  He's one of the greatest men who's ever roamed the sidelines and done a lot for the community. One incident, the full extent we don't even know, doesn't change that.

As a winning coach? Not sure he is a greater man than any other man who was a coach or roamed the sidelines.

One of the greatest coaches? absolutely.

One of the greatest men? Doubtful.

A great coach? Absolutely. A great man? Possibly. A failure to boys and young men? Completely.

My twitter feed is stating that he passed.

Joe Paterno Dies at 85: Report

By Rennie Dyball

Saturday January 21, 2012 09:00 PM EST

Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State football coach who won more Division I NCAA football games than any other coach, died Saturday night, reports CBS Sports. He was 85.

Paterno, a.k.a Joe Pa and known for his "success with honor" motto, thick glasses, rolled-up pants and black cleats, had been diagnosed with lung cancer, it was announced on Nov. 18. On Saturday, as friends and family were being summoned to State College Hospital, a family spokesman said the coach had taken a turn for the worse and asked for privacy for his family.

Paterno is survived by wife Sue Paterno, children Diana, Joseph Jr. "Jay", Mary Kay, David and Scott, and 17 grandchidlren.

A Brooklyn native and Brown University graduate, Paterno began coaching the Nittany Lions in 1966 and his tenure stretched to October, 2011, when he won his 409th game.

In his 46 years as head coach, Paterno holds the all-time Division I record for football coaching wins with a 409-136-3 record, and he won two national championships while going undefeated in five different seasons.

After a highly celebrated career and iconic status on the Penn State campus, Paterno's career as head coach ended as a result of a scandal involving former assistant Jerry Sandusky, who allegedly sexually assaulted young boys, including a 10-year-old in the locker-room shower.

Although Paterno was not accused of any wrongdoing in the scandal, he was criticized for failing to report what he heard to police. In announcing his retirement, he said, ?This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."

"I'm sick about it," he told The Washington Post on Jan. 14. "I didn?t know exactly how to handle it, and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was. So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn?t work out that way."

Success with Honor

Though the scandal landed Paterno in the headlines in his final days, the coach enjoyed decades of success and reverence on the campus he and his wife helped build. It was their donations that funded the school's Paterno Library.

"Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good," Paterno said.

Even in the aftermath of the scandal, the downtown College Avenue was peppered with Joe Paterno merchandise, and even bar bathrooms were scrawled with support for the longtime coach.

"It feels like a member of the family has died," Leslie Vink, a 2003 graduate and former Penn State gymnast tells PEOPLE. She was on campus Saturday to watch the women's gymnastics team compete when she heard the news of Paterno's passing.

"He meant so much to the school and it's students," said Vink. "He is survived by not only by the Paternos, but his entire Penn State family."

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,...pheadlines

Reports of Joe Paterno's death refuted by family
Posted on: January 21, 2012 8:47 pm
Edited on: January 21, 2012 9:29 pm

Penn State student website Onward State has reported that Penn State players were notified of longtime head coach Joe Paterno's passing via email, and CBSSports.com went on this report. Paterno, 85, had been receiving chemotherapy as part of his treatment for lung cancer.

However, Paterno family spokesperson Dan McGinn told a New York Times reporter that the report of Paterno's demise is "absolutely not true," and Jay Paterno tweeted that his father "continues to fight."

Paterno was the head coach of Penn State for 46 seasons before being fired in November as his role in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal came under greater scrutiny. Combined with the time he spent as an assistant, Paterno spent a total of 61 years on the Penn State sidelines. He left behind a legacy that, on the field of play, was unparalleled in Division I football. Paterno holds the all-time Division I record for football coaching wins with a 409-136-3 record, and he won two national championships while going undefeated in five different seasons.

Under Paterno, Penn State was a perennial powerhouse, known for decades as "Linebacker U" for its propensity to develop All-American linebackers. Paterno coached such great linebackers as Dennis Onkotz, Jack Ham, Shane Conlan, LaVar Arrington, Paul Posluszny, Dan Connor, and Sean Lee, along with many others.

Additionally, running back John Cappalletti won the Heisman Trophy in 1973 under Paterno, and Cappalletti was one of seven Penn State players to win the Maxwell Award for most outstanding college football player. All in all, 68 players were named first-team All-American by at least one of the major news services under Paterno; 13 of those players were two-year winners.

Paterno's longtime defensive coordinator and the architect of the defensive schemes that came to typify Penn State football was Jerry Sandusky, who's now more well-known for the allegations of underaged sexual abuse against him made by men who were involved in Sandusky's charity, The Second Mile, as boys. Sandusky is still awaiting trial for those allegations, and he pled not guilty to the charges in December 2011.

In an interview with the Washington Post released just a week before Paterno's death, he expressed remorse for not having done more to stop Sandusky's alleged crimes, and he also said he was "just sick about" the situation. Investigators did not bring charges against Paterno, and instead mentioned that he had fulfilled his legal obligations by notifying his superiors about an alleged assault when he was first notified in 2002.

After Paterno was fired in 2011, Penn State named Tom Bradley -- who, coincidentally, was Sandusky's replacement at defensive coordinator -- interim head coach. Bradley went 1-3, including a loss to Houston in the TicketCity Bowl, and was not retained as a coach when Penn State hired Bill O'Brien in January.

Paterno was well known for encouraging his players to excel in the classroom and earn their undergraduate degrees at Penn State, and his name will live on at Penn State after his firing and death. Paterno and his wife Sue were major financial supporters of Penn State University, as they donated millions of dollars for the Paterno Library on campus, and Paterno helped establish the Paterno Liberal Arts Undergraduate Fellows Program.

http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry...8/34497800

Now reports are saying he has not died.

Per ESPN and every other outlet, Joe Paterno has died.

My prayers for his family.

(01-22-2012 10:40 AM)converrl Wrote:  My prayers for his family.

Ditto. I tend to agree with what Matt Millen just said on ESPN, that Paterno died of a broken heart. He lost the thing that kept the drive alive and the incidents of the past couple months really damaged him, mentally and physically.

RIP JoePa...

Just anecdotal, but ever notice how some many elderly who keep working into later years, like Andy Rooney and Paterno, die so quickly after they retire?

It's common with people who have been married for a long time as well. After their spouse passes away, they simply give up, and die not long after. My Grandma was like that, she was in perfectly good health then my Grandpa died, a year later she was dead. She just didn't care anymore.

I have no doubt the stress and shame of this mess further complicated JoPa's health issues. Hopefully now he's found some peace.

Wow. When this scandal first broke and I figured his days as coach were numbered, I predicted he wouldn't live more than a year...

No doubt Paterno was good at managing the product on the field. The coaching aspects off the field are undeniably in question. A sad ending for the man who used the motto, "Success with honor."

(01-21-2012 08:28 PM)ctipton Wrote:  A great coach? Absolutely. A great man? Possibly. A failure to boys and young men? Completely.

I agree with your quote and BJ's.

(01-22-2012 12:57 PM)Eastside_J Wrote:  

(01-21-2012 08:28 PM)ctipton Wrote:  A great coach? Absolutely. A great man? Possibly. A failure to boys and young men? Completely.

I agree with your quote and BJ's.


I do too. I remember for the longest time I admired him, and then for the past decade I didn't. Of course, I had no knowledge of this sexual misconduct stuff going on at PSU. I do, however, remember a time when President Bill Clinton visited PSU. He wanted to visit Paterno, but Paterno refused the visit and boycotted Clinton's visit. Paterno always claimed to be a patriotic American and stated he couldn't accept Clinton's sex scandal. Ironic, huh?

BTW, patriotic Americans don't ever stand up their president. I don't care what party they support. (Paterno was a staunch Republican).

Like every other person, flawed or not, I wish him the best. I wish his family and the PSU community the best as well. I hope when the time comes our God Almighty accepts everybody.

I have no dog in this fight. I could care less as I have no love or hate for Paterno.

But if one of my lifelong friends had been accused of sex abuse, it would be hard for me to absorb and believe. I know he had other info, but I put myself in his shoes. I'd be both sick from the heinous act, and sick because I had been friends with this person for 30 or 40 years, and in his case probably longer.

Doesn't it make it right. But I can see how much I'd want to believe it wasn't true. I'm sure Paterno was very conflicted and disgusted at the same time.

Had an electrical contractor business owner that did work for our company for 20 years end up on the news for child pornography. The guy was a family man and didn't fit the type to me. Was always a nice guy. Still hard for me to digest, as he was good friends with our company. As I said, sometimes it's hard to believe stuff even when the evidence says otherwise.