Paterno Succeeding, However He Does It

They had more than 76,000 fans at the spring game, a school record.

They are the defending Big Ten champs and will be among the favorites again. And their coach, over one three-week period, symbolically got a new hip and a new contract.

How perfect for Joe Paterno.

The end is this: Paterno wins. For the past few years, it seems, Penn State has tried to figure out the best way to get rid of him, nodding toward the door, clearing their throats, looking at their watches.

Paterno got the hint, but refused to go.

The argument is over now. Divorce denied. Eighty-two years old, and Paterno is here now for the long run.

"We're just all glad he's out of the golf cart (in practices)," defensive coordinator Tom Bradley said Wednesday afternoon. "You couldn't hear him when he'd drive up. It was like stealth. He'd be everywhere with it.

"He ran into me three times. Once was on purpose, I think. We told him we were going to pad that cart up.''

Yes, Paterno can walk again, having had the hip replacement. And he isn't planning to sit in the pressbox during games anymore, thank God.

It was awful when he was up there. He wore the headphones all cockeyed, and didn't seem to be involved, pushing the argument even more that maybe he's not really doing much anymore.

He wouldn't move at all, at times looking as if he had visited a taxidermist.

If there's a message in Paterno, I don't know what it is. It's about as clear as his eyeballs behind those double-thick, old-man glasses. Something about pushing out old people, probably. We all look for the next young, hip thing. But really Paterno doesn't represent anything.

It has been sport watching him the past few years.

"This has been a fun off-season in the spring for me because I'm more involved,'' he said. "I'm out there and I'm pushing and shoving kids and having fun with them and the whole bit. That's why I like to coach. If it'll be a fine year in the fall, we'll find out.''

It'll be fine. The Big Ten is not in for the best of years, and while Penn State has to rebuild its offensive line and worry about its defensive backfield, the Nittany Lions will still likely be picked to finish second, behind Ohio State.

But Paterno used the word "involved,'' and that's still a question about him. How involved is he? Is he still running the team, or is he just a figurehead?

The thing is, either way it's a success story about him. If Paterno is still in charge, having won two of the past four Big Ten titles, then that's amazing in itself. If he's not, and his assistants are doing most everything? Well, Paterno brought in that staff, and it has stuck with him with more loyalty than you ever see anymore. That says plenty about him. The best leaders bring in the best staff.

Bradley said that Paterno is still doing it all, but you wonder if that's just the loyalty talking.

Thirty-one years of loyalty in Bradley's case.

"He's in charge of everything that's going on,'' Bradley said. "I told him I'd probably cost him at least 40 wins over the years. He told me 'Fifty.' He likes to look in the players' eyes and talk with them. If he wants to get us, he gets us. Sometimes we pretend not to hear him, but he gets us.



"On the sideline, he's the same way he always was, making changes and giving you his insight. But he lets us coach. That's one of the best things, why we stay with him.''

I suspect that Paterno is doing less and less, and letting his staff handle things.

But in 2005, after four losing seasons in five years, Paterno was already fighting to stay. And that's when he brought in some speed,and switched to a modern spread offense. Some of his players got their playbooks in the form of a computer game.

Yet Paterno said at the time that he didn't own a cellphone and didn't even have "an e-mail.''

Today, Paterno can still close a recruiting deal. He doesn't have a generation-gap with these high school kids. It's 3 1/2 generations. Yet they still want to play for him.

It's not easy forcing out a legend. When Purdue dumped basketball coach Gene Keady, they actually stuck Matt Painter there on the bench with him for a year, sort of forcing him out but allowing him to stay at the same time.
At some point, it really is time to let the young guys take over.

Paterno probably should have left after last year, but it has to be his call. And it has been funny watching Penn State trip over itself trying to figure out how to ditch him. They let him coach through the final year of his contract last season, trying to drop the hint that a new one wasn't coming. Then, he went to the Rose Bowl. It would be impossible to kick out a legend after that. So he was given a three-year extension.

How has he changed over the years?

"I get asked that a lot by former players,'' Bradley said. "At the end of practice, he used to run conditioning with the skill guys. Now he runs with the offensive linemen and defensive linemen. That's it.

"What he wears and how he does it, there's no difference. Sometimes you put a practice film on and you'd have a hard time telling what decade it is if you didn't know the players.''

Whatever is happening at Penn State, it works. And it was a waste to make Paterno's new contract for three years. It should have said this:

Till death do us part.