Joe Paterno, 1926–2012

Just four months ago, Joe Paterno was celebrating a crowning triumph to his six-decade career. Pennsylvania State University had just defeated Illinois, giving Paterno his 409th win—a record for a major-college football coach. The 85-year-old was presented with a commemorative plaque in a postgame ceremony, and his legacy seemed guaranteed. But within days his former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky had been indicted and arrested on charges of sexually assaulting young boys. Soon after, it emerged that Paterno had been told of an accusation against Sandusky in 2002, but failed to report the incident to police. He was abruptly fired three games short of completing his 46th season as head coach.

Paterno was born in Brooklyn to second-generation Italian Americans who “expected big things from the oldest of their four children,” said the Los Angeles Times. “If we had a classroom spelling bee, I was expected to win it,” Paterno later remembered. In high school he played basketball and football and graduated second in his class. He enrolled in Brown University as an English literature major, played quarterback on the college team, and had plans to attend Boston University Law School. But when Rip Engle, Brown’s head football coach, left for Penn State in 1950, Paterno went with him to coach quarterbacks.

“Paterno proved intense, brash, and ambitious,” said The New York Times. He was named Penn State’s associate football coach in 1964, and when Engle retired two years later, Paterno took his post. His opening season was a flop; Paterno lost three of his first five games. But after losing to UCLA in October 1967, Penn State went 31 straight games without a defeat. It was the start of a glorious career.

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“Joe Pa” was always more than just a coach, said the Harrisburg, Pa., Patriot-News. He cared deeply about his players and pushed them to study hard. Year after year, players on his teams achieved far higher graduation rates than did those on rival teams. “If he was generous to his players, he was even more generous to the university he loved.” His family gave more than $4 million in endowments, and he persuaded wealthy donors to part with up to $1 billion for Penn State, helping to build it into both a football powerhouse and an esteemed university.

Yet “Paterno must be remembered for what he did not do,” said TheDailyBeast.com. In 2002, an assistant told him that he’d seen Sandusky sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy in a shower. Paterno notified a superior, but when university officials took no action, he remained silent—leaving Sandusky free to abuse more children. “I didn’t know exactly how to handle [the allegations],” Paterno said, shortly before his death from cancer. “So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.”