AMERICAN FOOTBALL:The patrician 84-year old, who took over as head coach in 1966, had represented honour. He was Penn State

IT IS hard to fully capture the stature and impact of Joe Paterno. You can start with the numbers: 409 victories at Penn State, more than any other major college football coach; two national titles; 62 years, the most of any head coach at one institution; $53 million (€39 million), the profit of the Penn State football team last year; more than $5 million (€3.7 million) donated by Paterno, enough to build a university library and a spiritual centre; and hundreds of millions of dollars generated so the once agriculture-centric university could grow into a major research institution, a place whose greatest symbol was a bookish-looking, Ivy League-educated coach with thick eyeglasses who roamed the sideline in a blazer and tie.

But in Pennsylvania and beyond, in a country where football reigns supreme, Paterno seemed to be much more than numbers. He preached and stood for integrity, family and principle.

And, unlike other football powerhouses – Alabama or Michigan, for example, where there are always wins but also frequent turnover in recent years among the coaches – Paterno represented absolute stability. He was Penn State.

Now, with it all but certain he will not coach beyond this year, one question that looms is how much of that epic accomplishment – the wins and losses, the university’s reputation for honour and righteousness, the money given to foster academics – might be diminished, over the short term and the long.

Some, in truth, had wanted Paterno, 84, to leave the job in recent years, many because they loved him and feared for his health, others because they had grown weary of his power and stubbornness. But no one could have imagined – much less wanted – Paterno to exit as he seems destined to: with his decency and care for young people called into question after his failure to act aggressively on a report that one of his former coaches sexually assaulted a 10-year-old boy in the football facility.

Even those raised in a world that only knew of Paterno as JoePa, a mythical figure, are shaken and troubled by the recent events. “It’s almost like a death in the family,” Michael Brown, a 22-year-old Penn State senior from Lancaster, Pa, said. “And part of it is the unfortunate realisation that it is going to kind of ruin his legacy. He’s done so much good for the university and the state, but people remember the end of things.”

Lou Prato, who graduated from Penn State in the 1950s and has written four books about Penn State football, said he was most upset for those Paterno’s former assistant, Jerry Sandusky, is accused of sexually abusing.

But, Prato added: “Things may change when all the facts eventually come out, but if not, I’m very sorry for the Paterno family, Penn State and college football. He did run a clean, honourable program. So this would be a catastrophe.”

For all the Hall of Fame players Pennsylvania has produced in the last 75 years, Penn State was a good but not great football power when Paterno took over as the coach in 1966. He had spent 16 seasons as an assistant at the university, a curio in central Pennsylvania – Brooklyn-born, degree from Brown University, neither hunted nor fished, but instead read the classics and routinely quoted poetry (without having to look it up).

His first team was 5-5, but his next team was ranked 10th in the nation, and the following two Paterno teams, in 1968 and 1969, never lost a game, finishing second in the final national Associated Press polls. Going to bowl games soon became routine for Penn State, and winning them was hardly uncommon as well (the Nittany Lions have won 24 of Paterno’s 37 bowl appearances).

By the mid-1980s, Paterno had won two national championships, and produced four undefeated teams and five more that had lost just once. Penn State was the pre-eminent Eastern college football power that dared to challenge the prevailing titans of the sport in the South and the Midwest and on the West Coast.

“We were from a little cow town, but Joe wanted us to be a world-class university,” Prato said. “When Penn State started winning all the time, he got a lot of invitations to go places. And Joe was a sophisticated guy who could walk into any room and talk someone into giving money to Penn State – and often the money wasn’t for football.

“He mixed with all kinds of people, not the usual football coach crowd, and he raised our profile. The school started getting more applicants and better students. The extra money started a building boom on campus. There is no question Penn State would not be the same place without Joe.”

Paterno’s standing in the state grew to the point that some political types tried to talk him into running for governor. Paterno laughed it off. As his scholarly image became Penn State’s, his players did graduate at rates higher than the average for Division I programs.

When people asked him to rate his best team ever, he would answer he needed another 20 years. “That’s when I’ll know what the players on my current team will have accomplished outside of football,” he said. “That’s how I assess the success of my teams.”

Penn State’s Beaver Stadium, which sat about 46,000 when Paterno took over, grew to accommodate nearly 107,000, and fans packed it faithfully. Loyalty permeated the Paterno program – his coaching staff was filled with former players and other Penn State alumni.

Paterno lived in a modest ranch down a quiet, tree-lined street just off campus and routinely turned down invitations from the NFL, whether it was the New York Giants, the Pittsburgh Steelers or the New England Patriots. In 1990, when Penn State agreed to join the Big Ten, it boosted the university’s television revenue and strengthened a sometimes indifferent schedule of opponents. But it also aligned Penn State with some prominent, nationally-renowned academic institutions.

There were immediate successes, but by the turn of the century, there were surprising down years for Penn State and its coach, now in his mid-70s. He sustained injuries, had other infirmities and delivered the occasional odd news conference performance. This season, a pre-season collision with a player resulted in fractures to his shoulder and pelvis and forced Paterno to watch games from the press box. In public, he has sometimes appeared in pain.

Still, it was rare for him to have to publicly answer when he would step down, and when he did, Paterno maintained he considered retirement almost a form of death.

On Tuesday night, when it became clear the Penn State board of trustees was planning Paterno’s exit, more than 200 students gathered outside his home chanting, “We love you, Joe.”

Outside Beaver Stadium, where the usual assembly of small tents known as Paternoville had sprouted – students who wait for days to get front-row seats to Saturday’s game – Tyler Quinzan-Singer, a 20-year-old junior from Southampton, Pa, said the allegations and Paterno’s role in them had shrouded the campus in depression.

“Even the professors in class, that’s all they talk about,” Quinzan-Singer said. “It’s gotten to everybody. We knew it was about time for Joe to leave, but not under these circumstances. Not like this.”

New York Times Service