Just look at Joe's bowl record. Dude was a beast. Stop the other nonsense. Here's how I remember him, in case you needed to know.
My father worked at Penn State for about 30 years, from 1986 on until 2012. My dad looked up to Joe. My dad was a high school football coach, and I think missed his calling to be a coach his whole life, so he kind of lived through Joe because I think what he saw in Joe was a guy that did things the way he would like to have done them had he still been a coach. I will always remember that about my dad and always relate that to how great of a guy Joe was viewed as being by most people.
Paterno was an American with full Italian ancestry hard-headed, hard-nosed, and conservative (and politically too -- so dont forget, some people hate him just based on that). I remember shaking his hand as a kid, in the Nittany Lion Inn, and just being in awe that I was shaking the hand of a person I recognized from our cardboard stand-up Joe at home. He seemed genuine and warm, to me.
All of the stories I heard about Joe and his family over the years only solidified my belief that he was a truly great man. He and his wife cared so much about the players and the school, and really did do things, not just the right way but the best way.
It is so terribly sad, not only what JS did to others but what it caused to the reputation of so many other people who would never even be able to comprehend the monstrosity of what in some cases did and in some cases was alleged to have occurred.
I only ever associate Joe with the bad stuff in the context of a grand jury presentment that was not exactly irrefutable, and so I still believe that Joe was a great man and was not somehow a deceitful faker, as the media would like to project. He just wasn't actually an omniscient being, as so many wish he had been, and probably even began to believe he was!
But in any event ---- JOE WAS A BEAST OF A COACH SO STOP SAYING OTHERWISE. FOUR HUNDRED AND NINE WINS! LOL That is absolutely outrageous. His bowl record alone has more wins than Franklin does as a HC at PSU after 3 years. Think about that....LOL!!!
And by the way, I'm definitely no JoeBot. I hate how there has to be two camps and no nuance in between. You're either a JoeBot or "you get it" and are "woke" to the realities of what "the real story is." Okay, sure.