Jay Paterno says now is not the time to name Penn State’s football field for his dad
Follow the wishes of president Neeli Bendapudi, Paterno said, and postpone the effort, “with an eye toward future recognition.”
A Pennsylvania State University trustee on Friday asked that Beaver Stadium’s football field be named for coach Joe Paterno, but then withdrew it at the request of Paterno’s son, Jay, who is also a trustee.
Jay Paterno said he visited his father’s grave on a cold quiet morning as the light was just coming up over Mount Nittany and thought about what the former football coach would have wanted: Given that President Neeli Bendapudi’s administration has asked that the focus stay on current challenges, Paterno said, the university should not move forward with the resolution, though “with an eye toward future recognition.”
The university is amid a budget crunch and is contemplating widespread cuts to its Commonwealth campuses and other areas.
“At this moment, were Joe Paterno standing here, right now, he would respect the president’s opinions,” Paterno said at the trustees meeting Friday afternoon. “He would not want the focus on him to be the issue of the day.”
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The development comes, according to Spotlight PA, after trustees met privately twice in January to discuss the possibility of naming the field for Paterno, seeking to restore the coach’s public stature at the university and turn back the clock more than 12 years. Paterno was fired by the trustees board in 2011 in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. A statue outside the football stadium was removed days after Sandusky’s indictment, as the university sought to distance itself from its iconic coach.
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There were allegations that Paterno had become aware of the accusations against the former assistant football coach but had failed to do enough; Paterno and his family have denied those allegations and Paterno, who died in January 2012, was never charged. The NCAA vacated more than 100 wins from the record of Paterno, who had been head coach since 1966. The wins were later restored, and Paterno holds the record for most wins in NCAA football history with 409.
Whether the matter will get board support in the future is uncertain.
Board chair Matthew Schuyler said in a statement: “The opinions expressed were those of a few trustees and they withdrew their proposal. This is not on the board’s agenda.”
Trustee Anthony Lubrano, who noted he reserves the right to reintroduce the resolution at a later date, said it was long past time for the university to honor Paterno and his wife, Sue, who recently turned 84. He called on the university to establish a Joe and Sue Paterno Day in the fall and name the stadium for the coach at that time.
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“Joe Paterno was an educator first and a football coach second,” Lubrano said. “We were incredibly blessed to enjoy the benefits of his visionary thinking and all of us in this room should be immensely proud of the culture that his thinking helped to create. Joe Paterno’s contributions to this university can never be erased, and he will never be forgotten.”
Lubrano has long defended Paterno and is part of a group of current and former trustees who have asserted that the university and its administrators were unfairly accused of wrongdoing in the case.
In 2012, Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of child sex abuse and sentenced to up to 60 years in prison. Former Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and former senior vice president Gary Schultz pleaded guilty in 2017 to endangering the welfare of children and served jail time. Former president Graham B. Spanier was convicted of misdemeanor child endangerment and also served jail time.
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Jay Paterno noted the challenges that higher education is facing, including attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, free speech issues, a generation that is questioning the value of college and the debt it brings, and “donors who want to dictate decisions and curriculum.”
“If Joe Paterno was here right now, he’d respect the vision of our president and implore us to do the hard things required for the future of Penn State, the things being asked by President Bendapudi,” Paterno said. “He’d be more concerned about improving academic rankings ... than seeing his name on the field.”
Brandon Short, a former Penn State and NFL player, said he supported the resolution, but not in the way it was introduced.
“I love Joe Paterno,” he said, noting he came to Penn State from a housing project in McKeesport near Pittsburgh. “Joe Paterno saved my life.
”As much as I support this resolution and honoring Joe and Sue, I don’t support continued political stunts in Joe Paterno’s name. To put out a resolution, to say all this and pull it back is insulting to me personally ... Please stop using Joe Paterno as a political football.”