Sports Illustrated / Ronald C. Modra

Joe Paterno

Penn State football coach Joe Paterno on the cover of Sports Illustrated in December 1986.  The magazine named him its Sportsman of the Year, and Penn State won the NCAA Division I championship shortly afterward.  At the time, Paterno had been head coach at Penn State for 20 years. He continued to coach another 25 years after that, finally being fired in 2011.

See our biography of Joe Paterno