When you lose a loved one, a tidal wave of emotion washes over you. At the funeral. The wake. After the first week, month, year. The waves - a mixture of grief, denial, anger, loneliness - ebb and flow with time, sometimes fast and furious, other times so slowly and gently that they barely skim the surface of your consciousness. But while the waters of time bring healing and hope for the future, they cannot completely conceal the fact that when a loved one leaves you, a little part inside of you dies. It is, without question, the worst experience one can endure in this life.
Only the support of family and friends makes such a monumental burden bearable. Soothing words, happy memories and the biggest bear hugs one can ask for - those are just three of the things that helped me on the path to peace when a loved one passed from my life. They help you remember and, more importantly, never forget how much the person meant to you, to others, to the world. Everyone deserves this. If you are lucky enough to have such a network of support in your darkest hour, an inherently sad and solemn experience can still yield positives. It fills you with a renewed sense of purpose, perspective and zest for life. It teaches you to take no person, place or thing for granted. It gives you the strength to smile even as the tears stream down your face.
No lives were lost when the Penn State board of trustees fired Joe Paterno Wednesday night, but a little part inside of me died nevertheless, and with my Penn State foundations shaken to their core, I am still searching for the positives. The board's announcement - by phone of all things - prematurely ended Paterno's 62nd season with the Nittany Lions amid sexual abuse allegations against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. The feeling upon hearing the news was far from the sucker punch my stomach sustained when I learned my dad - a diehard Penn Stater who truly bled blue and white - was not going to beat cancer last spring, but it still floored me, especially since I seem to be the only person outside of State College unwilling to crucify Paterno, or at least pick up my pitchfork and join the ESPN-sponsored witch hunt. The beloved coach is under siege because he couldn't bring himself to believe the accuracy of then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary's vague mention of a 2002 "incident" in the locker room showers enough to report it to the authorities. Instead, Paterno reported the incident to Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz, who have been charged with felony perjury and failure to report the incident.
Hindsight being 20-20, Paterno would have demonstrated the objective concern to report the incident immediately and directly to the police. Everyone from Rick Reilly to Ivan Maisel slammed Paterno for not fulfilling his moral obligation to the victims.
But before blasting Paterno, put yourself in his sneakers and ask yourself if you can blame him for trusting his longtime colleague and a man widely regarded as a charitable, respected figure rather than the word of one graduate assistant.
Sandusky started his coaching career at Penn State as a graduate assistant in 1966, the same year JoePa became head coach, and coached for Paterno from 1969 to 1999. While the relationship between the two men surely soured in 1999 when Paterno informed Sandusky that he would not replace Paterno as head coach, Paterno appears to have been completely oblivious to Sandusky's sinister nature. Paterno was an honorary board of directors member for The Second Mile, the charity Sandusky founded in 1977 to help troubled and disadvantaged boys. I refuse to believe the essence of the outpouring of criticism: that the coach an entire country deified as recently as last week was really little more than the tacit accomplice of a scumbag like Sandusky.
Admittedly, I've been greedily gulping down the Penn State Kool-Aid since before I could walk. I can name a ridiculous number of Nittany Lions from the 1986 national champion team which upset the Miami Hurricanes in the Fiesta Bowl.
I also can name at least a dozen family and friends who are Penn State alums or students. My parents met there. My brother is a sophomore there. We all bleed blue and white, and since news of the scandal first broke, we've all been hurting.
The Penn State community is shocked, saddened and sickened by allegations of Sandusky's alleged abuse and the subsequent cover-up by the highest rungs of the university administration. My heart bleeds for the victims and their families. But it also bleeds for a coach who came as close to college football sainthood as any coach before or since.
Forget his record 409 Division I wins. Forget the 24 bowl victories, the five perfect seasons and the two national championships. Forget his unflinching passion, even at age 84, to coach 'til he croaked. Joe Paterno put Penn State on the map in a way which is simply unprecedented for an employee of an American university. His combined on-field accomplishments and off-the-field contributions to philanthropic and educational endeavors - which total in the millions of dollars - set him light years apart from the norms of the modern college football world.
During Joe's 46 years as Nittany Lions head coach, the proliferation of NCAA violations and weasel coaches at most other premier football programs has irreversibly corrupted the profession. College football coaching has become a cutthroat business in which bending the rules is encouraged and loyalty to one's players, staff and school go only as far as the next lucrative paycheck.
The winningest and longest-tenured coach in college football history, Paterno didn't have to be a role model to his student-athletes - his lifelong success and larger-than-life stature were more than enough for any collegiate player.
But he mentored players anyway, made them better students and better human beings. The most recent NCAA statistics hold that Paterno's players achieved a Graduation Success Rate of 87 percent, well above the Division I average of 67 percent. In a statement Wednesday, Paterno said, "I have come to work every day for the last 61 years with one clear goal in mind: to serve the best interests of this university and the young men who have been entrusted to my care." I pray that 61 years from now, people remember that he succeeded.
In the aftermath of the scandal, I waded into the waters of my psyche, searching for answers. With the waves of my emotions lapping at my sides, I want to forget the reality that Joe is gone. I want to dunk my head into the murky depths and drown out the awful truth above the surface.
I want to splash my face, wake up groggily and realize it has all been a bad dream. I can't help but remember my dad, and when I think of how torn he would be right now, I find myself hurting for him, too.
But if there's one positive I can find in all this, it's that he didn't live to see his beloved Nittany Lions and their immortal coach become villainized by an entire nation. The world's biggest scoop of Peachy Paterno from the University Creamery won't erase the sickening taste which will forever haunt Happy Valley.
Joe Paterno was Penn State. More importantly, Paterno was the last person in college football to hold fast to that most precious of beliefs - that people are inherently good. It shakes me to the core that the last great football coach - and his legacy of coaching the right way - has been crucified because he, like all of us, refused to fathom that his team, his school or this world could harbor an individual capable of committing such atrocities. JoePa, you deserved so much better than this.
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