STATE COLLEGE, Pa., (Reuters) – Legendary former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, fired in November after 46 years as head coach in the wake of a child sex abuse scandal involving an assistant, died yesterday, his family said in a statement.
Paterno, 85, whose legacy as the winningest coach in major college football history was indelibly tarnished by his inaction in the abuse scandal, had been suffering from lung cancer.
“He died as he lived,” his family said. “He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been.”
Paterno was surrounded by his family when he died at Mount Nittany Medical Center, in the shadow of his former team’s Beaver Stadium. He disclosed he had treatable lung cancer shortly after university trustees ousted him for failing to tell police about a sex abuse allegation years earlier against longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
The sex abuse case at a highly respected football program like Penn State brought national attention to the issue of child sexual abuse in the same way that pedophilia charges involving Roman Catholic priests did years earlier.
Before the Sandusky scandal Paterno was a beloved institution in Pennsylvania known as JoePa as he made the Nittany Lions one of the most consistent winners in college football. His tenure was a rarity in collegiate sports and his legions of supporters shouted down critics who thought he was too old to be coaching as he entered his 80s.
In a Washington Post interview this month Paterno said he was unsure about how to handle the matter when one of his assistants came to him in 2002 after allegedly seeing Sandusky in the shower with a boy. “So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did,” he said. “It didn’t work out that way.”
While his inaction led school officials to fire him, it did not change how many fans felt about Paterno.
Within minutes of news of his death on social media sites, dozens of sobbing students, alumni and fans streamed into the bitter cold to a makeshift shrine of votive candles and flowers at the foot of a statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium.
