Joe Paterno
Joseph Vincent Paterno (born December 21, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York), nicknamed Joe Pa, has been the head coach of The Pennsylvania State University's college football team since 1966.
Early life
Paterno began life as a child of the Depression. He nearly had to leave high school because the tuition of $20 a month was such a burden for his family. In 1944, Paterno graduated from Brooklyn Prep and headed to Brown University to study and play football. There, he was a capable but unspectacular quarterback. He did hone his skills as a leader, which allowed him to go into coaching after graduation in 1950, joining Hall of Famer Rip Engle at Penn State as an assistant coach. Paterno thought his stint as an assistant coach would be brief, before going to law school. He never went to law school, and instead became one of the most famous coaches of any sport in the United States.
Head Coach
Upon Engle's retirement in 1965, Paterno was named coach of the Nittany Lions for the 1966 season. That year his team went 5-5, but the following season he led the Lions to 8 wins and an appearance in the Gator Bowl. Two years later, in 1968, Paterno had his first undefeated season, and repeated that achievement in 1969. From 1973 to 1983, Penn State went to a bowl game every year.
Although the 1968, 1969 and 1973 teams went undefeated, it was not until 1978 that Paterno would coach in his first national championship game. The 1978 Nittany Lions cruised through the 1978 regular season at 11-0, but lost to Bear Bryant's University of Alabama team 14-7 in the Sugar Bowl. In that game, the Crimson Tide stuffed 4 runs up the middle at the goal line, in one of the most famous goal-line stands in college football history. Penn State's unimaginative, goal-line play calling garnered much criticism.
Paterno claimed his first national championship in 1982, with a 27-23 Sugar Bowl victory over a University of Georgia team led by Heisman Trophy winning running back Herschel Walker. Although Paterno has a reputation as a run-oriented coach, his 1982 team, led by future first-round draft picks quarterback Todd Blackledge, running back Curt Warner and wide receiver Kenny Jackson, was the first team to win a national championship with more passing yards than rushing yards over the course of a season. The only loss during the 1982 campaign was again to Bear Bryant. The following season, a struggling Penn State team staged a major upset in Beaver Stadium on national television by beating the number 3 ranked Crimson Tide, but only after Bryant had retired.
In December of 1986, Paterno was named by Sports Illustrated as their "Sportsman of the Year". He was the first college coach to be so honored. His team subsequently went on to win a national championship that season by defeating the University of Miami (Florida) in the Fiesta Bowl.
Penn State football has the plainest and, at the same time, one of the most easily recognised uniforms in American sports, and this is not by accident. Paterno does not like flashiness and he does not believe in putting players' names on their jerseys. Paterno's philosophy is to emphasise the team over individual players. Consequently, Paterno does not permit school-sponsored Heisman marketing campaigns, which became common place during the 1990's, especially among non-traditional football power schools with a Heisman candidate. Some people believe that Penn State's failure to hype and promote Larry Johnson, Jr.'s Heisman campaign in 2002 had more to do with Johnson's failure to take home the Heisman Trophy than any media bias against Penn State.
1994 National Championship controversy
The 1994 team featured statistically the best offense in Big 10 history, with quarterback Kerry Collins, running backs Ki-Jana Carter, Mike Archie and Stephen Pitts, wide receivers Bobby Engram, Freddie Scott and Joe Jurevicius, tight end Kyle Brady and lineman Jeff Hartings. The 1994 team was the opposite of the 1985 and 1986 teams, in terms of strengths, with an unstoppable offense and adequate, but unspectacular, defense. The 1994 Nittany Lions went undefeated for a fifth time in Paterno's tenure and their Rose Bowl victory over Oregon made Paterno the only coach in history to win each of the 4 traditional New Year's Day Bowl Games (the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl being the others). They were denied the national title in the AP and Coaches' Polls, however, finishing second to the undefeated Nebraska Cornhuskers. The New York Times Poll ranked Penn State number one and Nebraska number two. Penn State was denied the national title by the two major polls, despite playing the 17th toughest schedule in the nation in 1994, while the Cornhusker's played the 57th toughest schedule. This strength of schedule disparity has led the Penn State faithful, as well as neutral observers, to believe that Nebraska was voted national champions out of sympathy for venerable Nebraska coach Tom Osborne, who at that point in his career had not won a national championship, while Paterno had already won two.
Some college football analysts point to a game in which neither Penn State nor Nebraska played as determining the 1994 national championship. On an amazing play which would go down as the second most famous Hail Mary play in college football history, behind only Boston College's Doug Flutie to Gerard Phelan Hail Mary against Miami (FL) in 1984, future NFL star Kordell Stewart lobbed a 64 yard desperation pass, which was miraculously hauled in by Michael Westbrook for the winning touchdown with no time left on the clock, lifting the Colorado Buffaloes to a 27-26 victory over the Michigan Wolverines before a stunned 106,427 fans in "The Big House." Colorado's rally from a 12 point defecit with just 2 1/2 minutes remaining meant that Michigan had one loss when Penn State would later defeat Michigan 31-24, while Colorado was undefeated and sharing first place votes with Penn State and Nebraska when the Cornhuskers beat the Buffaloes, and in the process, took all of Colorado's first place votes.
In response to being snubbed by poll voters, The General Assembly of Pennsylvania unanimously passed a symbolic proclamation, which was signed by Governor Tom Ridge, declaring Penn State the 1994 college football national champions.
Records and controversies
Still coaching at age 78, Paterno has completed his 55th season at the University as an assistant or head coach, the record for any football coach at any university. Following the 2004 season, Paterno had amassed 343 wins, second in the NCAA's "Winningest All-Time Division I-A Coaches" category to Florida State coach Bobby Bowden's 351 wins. Some Joe Pa loyalists argue that 31 of Bowden's wins should not be counted as they came while Bowden was the head coach at Howard College, which is now Samford University, a Division I-AA football program. However, during Bowden's tenure at Howard, there were no distinctions between Division I and Division I-AA in college football. Bowden is credited with the record because the NCAA rule states that to be eligible for the record one needs 10 years at a Division I-A school, at which point all wins at any four-year school are counted toward the career total. Paterno's 20 wins in bowl games give him the all-time lead among Division I-A coaches; Bowden is second with 19 bowl wins. Despite the comparisons of on the field performances, and bickering amongst college football fans, Paterno and Bowden are actually friends, often spending time together when they attend coaches' conventions.
In 2002, Paterno chased down an official in a dead sprint following a 42-35 overtime home loss to Iowa. In the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, wide receiver Tony Johnson made a clutch catch, which would have given Penn State a first down and put them in range for a game winning field goal. Although Johnson was ruled out of bounds, replays clearly showed that Johnson had both feet in bounds and the catch would have been complete even under NFL rules. Paterno, and the 108,247 fans sitting in Beaver Stadium, saw both of Johnson's feet stay in bounds on the stadium's big-screen TV's. To add insult to injury, Penn State had rallied from a 35-13 deficit with 9 minutes left in the game to tie the score at 35, and were driving for the game winning score when the officials blew the call. The image of the septagenarian coaching legend running down the official was shown repeatedly on sports highlight shows throughout the 2002 season, as many found it both amusing and amazing that a man his age could run so fast.
In 2003, the Big Ten Conference became the first college football conference to adopt a form of instant replay. The blown call in the Iowa game is often cited as a catalyst for the adoption of instant replay.
Because some of his more recent teams have been less successful than those coached up through the 1990's, Paterno has endured a controversial period with the media and many disgruntled fans and alumni calling for his retirement. Paterno has rebuffed all of this and has stated he will fulfill his contract which expires in 2006. Paterno announced in a speech in Pittsburgh on May 12, 2005 that he will consider retirement if the 2005 football team has a disappointing season. "If we don't win some games, I've got to get my rear end out of here", Paterno said in a speech at the Duquesne Club. "Simple as that". However, much of the criticisms and questions regarding his continued competency subsided in the wake of Penn State's surprising 6-0 start to the 2005 season.
Stances on college football issues
Paterno has long been an advocate for some type of college football play-off system. The question has been posted to him frequently over the years, as only one of his five undefeated teams has been voted national champions.
Paterno believes that scholarship college athletes should receive a modest stipend, so that they have some spending money. As justification, Paterno points out that many scholarship athletes are from poor families and that other students have time to hold down a part-time job. On the other hand, busy practice and conditioning schedules prevent college athletes from working during the school year.
Paterno believes that all true freshmen should be red-shirted by NCAA rule, as was done in the past. He does, however, play exceptionally talented true-freshmen so as not to be at a competetive disadvantage. In fact, some Penn State recruits, like recruits at many other schools, now graduate from high school a semester early so that they can enroll in college during the spring semester and participate in spring practice.
Paterno has been an outspoken opponent of gambling on college sports. He would like to see legalised college sports gambling in Nevada ended. Cynics point out that college football would not be as popular as it is and garner such high TV ratings if no one gambled on the sport.
Penn State was scheduled to play at Virginia in a nationally televised game on ESPN on Thursday, September 13, 2001. Paterno, who grew up near the site of the World Trade Center, immediately spoke out in favour of postponing or cancelling the game. Shortly after Penn State and Virginia officials decided to move their game to December, the NCAA and NFL followed suit, and no college or pro football was played on a fall weekend for the first time since the assassination on John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Philanthropist and educator
Paterno is highly regarded for his contributions to academics as well as his football coaching. In the 1970s, Paterno began a "Grand Experiment", requiring his players to excel in academics as well as football. Over the decades, Penn State's football players consistently had above-average graduation rates that were often among the top 10 in Division I-A. The former English major emphasizes proper grammar among his players during interviews with the media, and, consequently, rarely does one hear Penn State players saying things like "we played good," "he don't" or using double negatives. Additionally, he and wife Sue have donated over $4 million to expand the library and helped raise another $13.5 million in private donations for its construction. The expanded wing (formerly East Pattee Library) was named the Paterno Library in their honor.
Political interests
Paterno is a poltical conservative and is a personal friend of George H.W. Bush, endorsing the first president Bush in a speech at the 1988 Republican Convention. Some people believed that it was not appropriate for a publically-funded university's most famous faculty member to campaign for a presidential candidate. In 2004, his son Scott Paterno won a hotly contested Republican congressional primary election, but lost in the general election to Baby Boomer conservative Democratic incumbent Tim Holden.