Paterno's Final Months Not Befitting of His Legend

Joe Paterno, 85, passed away early Sunday morning from complications of lung cancer, but I can’t help but feel like he truly died back in November when Penn State fired him as a part of their high profile cleansing due to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

As everybody knows by now, Paterno was told of Sandusky raping a young boy and went to his superiors about it, but was seemingly at fault in the public eye for not going to law officials with this news. Everybody admitted that legally Paterno did was he was responsible for, but he was let go anyway.

Paterno is the winningest coach in Division I college football history and was a two-time national champion with over 40 years of his life devoted to the Penn State football program. He built that program from nothing into a powerhouse of college football and with him gone it shall be interesting to see if the school remains among college football’s powerhouses going into the future.

But, despite all of what Paterno did for Penn State the best that they could do for him was a late night phone call saying you’re fired even though you really didn’t do anything wrong. You know that that moment had to have killed Paterno inside. Sure, the official death for Paterno is cancer, something that afflicts and kills many, but I bet he felt a deeper and worse pain over his final two months of his life and for that you can’t help but feel bad and hurt for a great legend wronged by the university he loved so.