Joe Paterno: Farewell to a Champion

Sunday morning was a sobering one for most of us who hold college football dear in their hearts. As the fog was slowly lifting from the night before, the sad news was delivered that the world had lost Joe Paterno. For people like me who grew up watching this amazing man on and off the field, it was a devastating blow.

Joe Paterno was a part of everything that drew me into the world of college football as a child, and for a lifetime, I was in awe of him. As the news poured in from media sites and statements were made by family, friends and former players, I could not help but feel that even I had lost a dear family friend.

For the past twenty-four hours I have received a ton of messages and e-mails from friends and readers asking how I can mourn the loss of a man like Joe Paterno who, in his final weeks, was brought under fire for something so heinous? To this I simply say... 'How can I not?'

I spent a lifetime looking up to Bear Bryant and Joe Paterno. I waited each year with baited breath for the college football season and when it finally arrived, it was like coming home. I watched as those coaches paced the sidelines and I felt their joys, their frustrations, their excitement and their love for the game and for the players. In so many ways, they touched my life from miles away and they were always 'my heroes'. How could those feelings ever go away or be swayed?

It saddens me to see the way things ended for Joe Paterno. My heart hurts for a man who was revered on Saturday and then fired on Wednesday and treated as a blemish on Penn State by the following week. I watched as people's view of Joe Pa shifted from respect and love to disdain and hatred within minutes and it changed me a little as well. It didn't change how I felt about Joe Paterno or the incredible things he had done in the lives of so many young men, but it did change the way I looked at people. I felt sad for Joe, I felt sad for college football, but mostly I felt sad for those wavering souls who chose to give away their right to think for themselves. In an instant these people managed to know more about the Sandusky case than even the victims and they knew that Joe Paterno was guilty. They knew this because they saw it on the news or Twitter or Facebook and that made it real for them. They chose to believe the very thing they wanted to believe, not because they knew one way or the other, but perhaps because they always felt deep down that Joe Paterno was just too good to be true.

What do you think it says about a person whose loyalty shifts in a millisecond? Should we praise them, slander them, pity them? For me it was a simple thing, If I respected and loved Joe yesterday, then today I respect him and love him the same. Before the hate mail starts to fly, let's get a few things clear... I was a victim of multiple molestations as a child, so please don't say I am forgetting the victims. I could never forget the victims, I was one. I make a decision everyday to no longer be a victim and I pray for that kind of peace and understanding for Jerry Sandusky's alleged victims as well.

Now ask me again how I can be a supporter of Joe Paterno or how I can be so saddened by his death and I will tell you...

I am sad at the loss of an incredible man who did amazing things with the time God gave him on Earth. I am saddened that the wonderful things Joe Paterno accomplished in his life are cheapened and lessened by the naysayers, band wagoners and pitiful sheep who have no mind to lead, but instead only follow.

I am deeply saddened when I try to wrap my mind around what it must have felt like to be in Joe Paterno's shoes toward the end... to give everything; your whole life to a place and its people only to have them turn on you and throw you to the wolves. What must that kind of heartache feel like to a man that loved and gave all that he was and ever had to the University of Penn State?

There are questions that we will never have answers to and his story will never be told, but I know the things that he accomplished in the years leading up to his death. I know that he gave his money, time and heart to that campus. I know that he was instrumental in establishing college funds and that he took the time to see his kids get an education. I know that he was active in his community and that he and his wife were revered and highly thought of by everyone for over forty-five years. I know that the list of awards and acknowledgements he has received is so extensive, you need to download a whole file in PDF just to grasp the magnitude. I know that Penn State has one of the highest percentages of graduates of any FBS school in the nation and Joe Paterno is credited with so much of this. I know that his life's body of work is something the rest of us should strive to do in our own lives. If we can do a small percentage of what he did in his life, imagine the possibilities!

My questions for those of you reading this post are pretty straight forward... Did you look at Joe Paterno as an inspiration, as a leader and as a class act? Was he always at the top of the list when someone said 'college football' or 'all-time best caoches'? If your answer was 'yes' then what changed? Were you given some inside information that the rest of us were not privy to? Do you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Joe Paterno was anything less than what you always believed him to be?

I can answer those questions for you... No! You know nothing any different than the rest of us and what you learned, you got from CNN or NBC or CBS. Don't be a follower. Be a leader. Ask the tough questions and use that brain for its intended purpose... to make your own decisions. No one can tell you how to feel or what to believe and at the end of the day, you will remember Joe Paterno the way YOU want to remember him.

If there are any lessons to be taken away from this terrible situation it is...

The things you do in life matter...

Sometimes, the things you don't do in life matter...

and the most important one that I hope you will all take away from this is...

A lifetime of good can be erased in an instant. Every choice we make is somehow important and it impacts, not only us, but those around us. How do I want to be remembered when I die? Before every decision I make I should consider that it could be my last, I will do my best to make the right choice. I only hope my timing is good, if it's not, then I could be remembered for a bad decision in spite of all the good ones I have made.

Joe Paterno was a part of the life that I chose for myself and he made me want to be a better person. Will people say the same about you once you are gone? To those who have called him a child molester and slandered his name and memory, I ask you... What did you do today to speak out against child abuse? What have you done to make this world a better place for our children?

We can't point fingers and never lift a single one to make change.

Joe Paterno will be greatly missed by me. There will never be another like him and the world is a bit colder and sadder without him in it. I will forever remember him as I have always seen him... a true class act and a man among men.

CK

IF

by: Rudyard Kipling

*read to Joe in his final hours by his grandson*

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!