This is not the topic I had planned for my first Blog.  But……this needs to be said. –

Joseph Vincent Paterno, lovingly nicknamed “JoePa”, was the winningest coach in Division I College football with 409 wins.  In his 47 years of coaching Penn State’s football program, his teams have appeared in 37 Bowl games, with 24 victories, and 1 tie.  Paterno is the only coach to have at least 1 win in all 4 current major bowl games.  (Orange, Rose, Fiesta, and Sugar).  He is also the only coach to have won 3 bowl games in every decade since 1970.  Joe Paterno, as a man, has won every personal award, from the AP Coach of the Year, to the SI Coach of the Year, to the recently presented NCAA Gerald R Ford Award (2011).  I am presenting this information as a prelude to the following remarks.

Joe Paterno was a very, very special person.  He was loved, adored, and admired, by hundreds of thousands of people from all over this great land of ours.  To include some of the greats in College and Professional football.  His passion for football was unquestioned, but it was his guidance, counsuling and teachings, that turned young men into winners.  And, he did it year after year.

Paterno’s football program earned millions and millions of dollars for Penn State University.  Without Joe, Penn State would probably be just another underfunded, unheralded state college, like dozens of others throughout the nation.  And how did Penn  State repay him……let’s see…..Oh yea…..they fired him in November.  The Trustees yielded under pressure from the yellow-coated media, and some of the “holier than tho” alumni.  They ruined his name, his legacy, and his passion for life.

Joe gave up.  He had nothing more to live for.  Cancer may have taken his life, but, as far as I am concerned, Penn State murdered him.

Rest in peace “JoePa”.  My condolences to the whole Paterno family.