Joe Paterno Passed Away Tonite

**ranrod7** · Jan-22-2012, 03:43 PM

...hard for me to even put into words how great Joe Paterno was...to me...let alone thousands and thousands of other people....

My daughter called me today....I told her..."Your granddad died this morning" She said "Ya, that's why I called"....
We always thought of JoePa as our dad/grandpa around this house...he meant that much to me, my wife, and daughter even though I never actually met him personally....Just a big part of the Penn State experience for my whole family.....

My wife says they outta try the ****in Board Of Trustees for MURDER....cause they KILLED HIM!!!

..bad deal for Joe....he deserved alot better.....

**ranrod7** · Jan-22-2012, 04:06 PM

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**ranrod7** · Jan-22-2012, 04:27 PM

**Palmetto Steel** · Jan-22-2012, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by ranrod7

My wife says they outta try the ****in Board Of Trustees for MURDER....cause they KILLED HIM!!!

While I understand your feelings, that's a bit harsh.... Joe lost his job for not dealing with the situation properly... Actually, I think he lost his job because he sorta threatened the board after the fact (reference a USA Today article... I'll post in a separate thread if I can find it from last week).

... But any old person will find living difficult if they do not have something to live for. My dad has faced that situation, and uses his grandkids for motivation... Maybe Joe died from a broken heart, maybe Joe died because he had nothing else to motivate him, maybe Joe died because he didn't rely on his family for support.

Or... Maybe Joe just died from cancer, and the circumstances are there for folks to spew all sorts of theories.

**ranrod7** · Jan-22-2012, 05:12 PM

...I understand what you are sayin...but tough to take. This all started with the Board Of *******s....certainly cancer did not help, but to undergo harsh chemo and radiation right after being dismissed** after SIX DECADES of working.....too much...I am sad AND very ****ed off as well...

**wrongly

**bleedBnG58** · Jan-23-2012, 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by Palmetto Steel

.... Joe lost his job for not dealing with the situation properly... .

That is the most ironic part of this whole dilema....the board did the EXACT same thing when they decided to fire him, especially the manner in which they did it. Yet they accused him of it and still did the same.

I always felt that the board misinterpreted his statement when he said "you won't after worry about me anymore, I will resign after the season" (in so many words, not an exact quote). I think the board took it as he was writing the rules and making the decisions instead of them, which I believe wasn't his intent. He truly felt he would make it easy on the board and bow out, they read it otherwise.

I heard that he made the statement on his own without school or board approval thus another reason they could not appreciate his decision.

Perhaps if they would have just gone to his house in person and said Joe we need to clean this up and part of that involves you voluntarily resigning....things could have finished up better IMO. I believe he would have gracefully resigned in the best interests of the school, because that is all he ever cared about, after all.

They ****ed the pooch as bad as he did.

**exNCite** · Jan-23-2012, 01:34 PM

Originally Posted by bleedBnG58

That is the most ironic part of this whole dilema....the board did the EXACT same thing when they decided to fire him, especially the manner in which they did it. Yet they accused him of it and still did the same.

I always felt that the board misinterpreted his statement when he said "you won't after worry about me anymore, I will resign after the season" (in so many words, not an exact quote). I think the board took it as he was writing the rules and making the decisions instead of them, which I believe wasn't his intent. He truly felt he would make it easy on the board and bow out, they read it otherwise.

I heard that he made the statement on his own without school or board approval thus another reason they could not appreciate his decision.

Perhaps if they would have just gone to his house in person and said Joe we need to clean this up and part of that involves you voluntarily resigning....things could have finished up better IMO. I believe he would have gracefully resigned in the best interests of the school, because that is all he ever cared about, after all.

They ****ed the pooch as bad as he did.

I'm glad that he had the opportunity at the end to make the statement he did about the scandal and his involvement in it. I truly believe he didn't know what had been going on and when he was told about it, reported the instance to his superiors. Say what you will, but that's the ONLY thing he could have done. The fact that his superiors didn't take it further was not Paterno's fault, but it will always be part of his legacy now. That's a ****ed shamed.

**vandelay industries** · Jan-23-2012, 10:09 PM

A tweeted pic from Beaver Stadium tonight.

Breathtaking.

http://twitpic.com/show/iphone/8ayj6d

**ranrod7** · Jan-24-2012, 12:55 AM

Great pic..............

**vandelay industries** · Jan-24-2012, 03:29 PM

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...rno/index.html

Paterno's final days: no bitterness, just marveling at his fortunate life

Joe Posnanski is writing a biography about Joe Paterno, called PATERNO, that will be published by Simon & Schuster in September. Posnanski interviewed Paterno and family members multiple times in the last days of Paterno's life. He wrote a short piece for the Jan. 30 issue of Sports Illustrated about those final days and the lack of bitterness he found.

* * *

In the moments after Joe Paterno died, it became common for people to write and say that he died of a broken heart. He did not. Joe Paterno died of lung cancer and the complications it caused. He did not die a bitter or broken man.

I know this because I spent time with Paterno in his hospital room during the last weeks of his life. I am writing a book about Paterno. We spoke different times about many things -- from his days playing stickball in the streets of Brooklyn, to his time in the Army after World War II, through his playing days and his many coaching days, to, yes, the day a graduate assistant coach told him about seeing Jerry Sandusky in the shower with a young boy -- and what stood out above everything else is that Paterno refused to be bitter or sad about the way it all ended.

"In every life," he told me, "there have to be some shadows. Look at me. My life has been filled with sunshine. A beautiful and caring wife. Five healthy children. I got to do what I loved. How many people are that lucky?"

This is how he talked in those final days. Oh, sure, he did not like the way the board of trustees fired him without asking him any questions. He was disappointed that so many people fastened dark motives to the way he handled what he was told about Sandusky, his longtime assistant coach. ("I made a lot of mistakes in my life," he said. "But I thought people could see that I tried my best to do the right things. I tried to do the right thing with Sandusky too.") He was hurt that the program he had spent his life building was in trouble.

But he kept coming back to his own good fortune and the wonder of his career and life. ("I read this book by Joseph Conrad," he said. "That was a mistake. It's depressing.") He watched M*A*S*H quite a lot ("I never got to watch it when it was on -- that's a good show," he said), and he spent most of his time with family, friends and former players. His 85th birthday party in December was a family celebration. He told stories, and he was full of life. Christmas was hopeful. When he would see bald people, like yours truly, he would point at his own head, bald from the chemo, and say, "Hey, at least mine will grow back."

The last week or so was filled with pain and goodbyes, but even then Paterno did not falter into self-pity. In the last moment of his life, his son Jay recalled saying to his father: "You've done all you can do." And then Jay saw his father's shoulders shrug and his eyes close, and he stopped breathing. "My father did not have a broken heart," his daughter Mary Kay says. "His heart was too strong. It couldn't be broken."

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. "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."