Gambit keeps Paterno grave site secret

Did former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno pull the equivalent of a quarterback sneak Wednesday on his way to burial?

The family of Paterno, who died Sunday at age 85, had been adamant that the funeral Wednesday on campus at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center and the burial that would follow would be private.

It now seems that it, indeed, was private, even though it was the last stop on a slowly paced funeral motorcade through campus and the heart of State College that was watched by thousands late Wednesday afternoon.

Family surrogates said Wednesday that the former head coach would be buried at Pine Hall Cemetery - a plot about a mile from campus, where Centre County also buries its unidentified indigents. A well-placed source told an Inquirer reporter in a telephone voice message early Wednesday that Pine Hall was the site, and the newspaper reported it.

Another cemetery, in nearby College Township, appeared early Thursday to be a more likely candidate.

The flower arrangement that adorned Paterno's casket during two days of public viewing adorned a patch of overturned dirt at Spring Creek Presbyterian Cemetery near the Centre Hills Country Club. There was no marker in place on the grave, in a secluded spot overlooking Mount Nittany. The site was viewed by a photographer for The Inquirer and later by an Inquirer reporter.

A woman hovering near the site Thursday, who declined to give her name, said the family had hoped to avoid releasing the location of Paterno's grave until the thousands who have flocked to State College in the wake of his death had left.

Paterno family spokesman Dan McGinn declined Thursday to release the burial location. A memorial service for Paterno was held Thursday afternoon at the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State.

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