Quote of the Day: Editorial Suggests Media Treated Paterno Harshly Because He Was “Old School”

Posted by | 01/29/2012 at 1:10 pm

Former George H. W. Bush speechwriter Curt Smith — the man behind the line “America needs a nation more like the Waltons than the Simpsons” — appeared to suggest in a Sunday editorial that the fierce media criticism of late Penn State coach Joe Paterno was in part because he was old school.

To paraphrase Richard Nixon, they won’t have JoePa to kick around any more — dead last week, at 85, of lung cancer, climaxing a tragedy redolent of Dreiser or Dostoevsky.

Many words describe how sport’s greatest teacher was treated in the last winter of his life: hateful, incomprehensible, cruel. The truest word is shameful — something Paterno’s critics would never grasp, incapable of feeling it. …

Puzzlement shrouds JoePa’s vicious treatment. Media bile was explicable, if indefensible. Famously unhip, Paterno was old-school and old-world from an Italian Catholic family. To ESPN, that made Joe declasse. Decent people saw a hero. Trustees were as culpable: Having dishonored Joe in life, the board now hopes to save itself by honoring him in death — penance on the cheap. It is untrue that trustees and the media killed Paterno — lung cancer did. It is almost surely sure that they lessened his will to live.

Paterno was fired as Penn State head coach in November in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. He was diagnosed with lung cancer soon after and passed away last Sunday.

(Editorial from mpnnow.com)

  • Mr.Magoo

    What a bunch of self-serving crud being spouted by Curt Smith in his attempt to make Joe Pa into a martyr. OK lets make one thing perfectly clear Joe Pa was no innocent bystander he was derelict in his duty as he was more then happy to pass the buck. As de facto Czar of Penn State he wasn’t going to worry about what the President or AD was going to tell him in regards to handling the situation. 

     Joe Pa thought he was bigger then Penn State and allowed himself to become a benevolent dictator, but a dictator never the less. One that thought his interests and that of the football program where more important then what was the correct moral thing to do.  The fact is he chose to hide behind such terms as due process and university procedure. It ignores the fact (As Reported in the WSJ)  Joe Pa never let that stop him when it came to his football team. 

     Lastly ask you self this one question why did he allow Jerry Sandusky to come on campus with young boys (or even be allowed on campus at all or affiliated with the program) when he knew something was wrong in 1999 as he didn’t allow him to be the head coach of Penn State. Then even worse after the March 2002 sexual assault of the boy that Joe Pa only said your not allowed to bring boys onto the campus facilities, but yet still didn’t say anything about Jerry being involved with boys off campus.

     For Joe Pa it was “out of sight, out of mind”  and that was a moral dereliction of duty , so he was treated in the manner he deserved to be.

     

  • Hymnz1

    magoo….you are a disheartened fool. The man did what he did, you don’t like it, I am sorry they did not come to you for advice.
    The writers and media wanted him gone….now heis.
    Rest in Peace Joe.
    Anyone who knew the man, and I did, knew he was a straight-up guy who obeyed the rules of his employer, if that bothers you I hope yo NEVER screw up at your job.
    I can imagine how fearless you must be.
    Taking on the dead. Wow….cruelty thy name is man.