Joe Paterno Biography

Joe Paterno of Penn State University was the winningest football coach in NCAA Division 1 history and a popular national figure until he was fired in 2011 in the wake of a child abuse scandal involving his staff. Paterno was 84 years old when he was fired, and had been head coach of the Penn State football team since 1966.  Joe Paterno was born in Brooklyn in 1926. He served in the U.S. Army and then played quarterback and cornerback at Brown University, setting a school record for interceptions with 14. After graduating from Brown in 1950 he went straight to Penn State as an assistant coach. In 1966 he became head coach; two years later Penn State went 11-0 and Paterno was on his way to 409 wins over 45 years at the school. As the wins piled up, Paterno became a local and then national legend known as "JoePa," beloved for his squeaky-clean image, Brooklyn accent and plain-Joe look -- thick glasses, rolled-up pant legs and brushy hair. Penn State won national championships in 1983 and 1986, and Sports Illustrated named Paterno its 1986 Sportsman of the Year, saying "In an era of college football in which it seems everybody's hand is in the till or balled up in a fist, Paterno sticks out like a clean thumb." As he coached into his 70s, people began to wonder if Joe Paterno would ever retire, but he kept winning right into his 80s. He won his 409th game on October 29, 2011 (a 10-7 victory over Illinois) to become the winningest coach in major-college history. Just a few days later, a scandal erupted when a longtime assistant coach on Paterno's staff, Jerry Sandusky, was charged with the sexual abuse of eight boys over a 15-year span from 1994-2009, including some incidents that occurred in the Penn State locker room. Paterno had been told about one incident in 2002 but didn't take decisive action at the time. He announced his end-of-season retirement on the afternoon of 9 November 2011, but he was fired by the Penn State Board of Trustees that night, along with college president Graham Spanier.  He was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after his firing, and died of complications while being treated early in 2012.