JoePa Retiring... What? - Joe Paterno's Health and the Capitol One Bowl

by: John Tecce

In the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, corporate villain Gordon Gekko proclaims that the mother of all evil is speculation because of the problems it ends up causing. In the case of Penn State football, speculation has turned into a circus surrounding the future of legendary head coach Joe Paterno.

I’ve heard rumors from every source imaginable, most of them coming from “credible sources”. A friend of a friend receives a text message from a former player. A friend’s brother’s roommate’s father is a big-time donor and received a letter from President Spanier. And then, there’s the most widespread source of all: “the e-mail”.

This e-mail, which has been forwarded more times than any off-color joke or YouTube link could ever dream, has been everywhere. It has been a topic of conversation everywhere from the local hangout to a family Christmas party. It is a conglomerate of almost every rumor surrounding Coach Paterno that has made its way around the Penn State community during the 2010 season. It details the various health issues that Coach Paterno is said to have, which apparently outnumber his career win total if you care to believe them all. It also discusses the secretive plans for Coach Paterno’s retirement and names Tony Dungy (former Super Bowl-winning head coach for the Indianapolis Colts) and Dan Mullen (current head coach for Mississippi State, former Florida offensive coordinator) as potential replacements.

In my opinion, “the e-mail” is full of garbage, and I’m not alone in thinking that.

It was reported late Sunday night that Penn State wide receiver and senior captain Brett Brackett has gone on record saying that there is no truth to any of these rumors. On Monday, Joe’s wife Sue also dismissed any notion that her husband is dealing with serious health issues and contemplating retirement.

Surprisingly, the only potential validation of any rumor surrounding Coach Paterno comes from Penn State itself. Curiously, the Penn State Athletic Department and University President Graham Spanier have been silent on the topic since the end of the regular season. A month ago, Athletic Director Tim Curley stated that he “looks forward to the annual postseason discussion with Coach Paterno about next year” after being asked about Joe’s comments on coming back in 2011. Since then, rumors of retirement and replacements have been a constant presence. In addition, no comment was made regarding an embarrassing interview between Coach Paterno and Tampa sports radio station WDAE that made its way around the Internet in mid-December.

Further driving the rumors is the unusual amount of activity among the assistant coaches in pursuing other coaching vacancies. Longtime assistant coaches Tom Bradley and Ron Vanderlinden have been prospects for coaching vacancies at schools like Temple, Pitt, and Ball State. Both interviewed for the vacancy at Temple and expressed interest in other jobs, and many have read this as a sign that the staff may not be together in the near future.

Still, the question remains, will the Outback Bowl on January 1, 2011 be the last time we ever see Joe Paterno on the Penn State sideline? And the answer is, quite simply, that none of us really know for sure.

After Saturday’s game, Penn State will not play another football game for almost nine months. The sad truth is that nine months is a very long time for anyone, let alone a man older than nylon and sliced bread who still holds the high-pressure position of head coach/CEO for a major college football program. Coach Paterno is an icon, but he isn’t immortal, and at age 84 his future will remain in doubt until, well, it isn’t.

While I am not confident that plans have been made for the Outback Bowl to be Joe’s final game, I cannot be completely certain that he will return as head coach in 2011 either.

For this reason, I plan to treat Saturday’s game and the festivities that surround it as a celebration and I urge you to do the same. Take a moment and watch Coach Paterno lead the team out of the tunnel, usually attempting to jog a few awkward steps to show that he’s “still got it”. Watch him make his way around as the team stretches before the game, stopping to give words of encouragement to nearby players. Have a good laugh at Joe’s halftime interview, which is always inadvertently amusing, with ABC’s Suzy Kolber. And, most of all, appreciate every little thing that makes Penn State football unique and special, because without Joe Paterno it wouldn’t have been possible.

How I truly feel about the Joe Paterno retirement rumors can be summed up by a simple quote from the original Wall Street movie, when Gordon Gekko barks, “You stop sending me information, and you start getting me some.” And, until that happens, there is no sense in trying to predict the future, especially when the only person who can is more concerned with winning his 402nd game and 25th bowl as the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions.