The best leader is the one with the best followers.
These are heady times for Joe Paterno. The boys are rolling. The base is rowdy. Better still, the boss himself is getting the Lions’ share of the credit—which would be the feel-good story of the season if only it were rooted in truth.
Good coaches let their players play.
Great coaches know the letting isn’t even up to them in the first place.
I’m not shallow enough to spit on an icon. Paterno has done great things in his several centuries at Penn State, and it’s hard to criticize an 81-year-old who’s still paying into Social Security. But even FDR knew the limits of paternalism. No matter how well the executive primes the pump, it’s ultimately the people who make the water flow.
Offense wins games.
Defense wins championships.
The guy in the headset, well—he’s just there to pander to the crowd.
The Cult of the Coach isn’t exclusive to State College. Fans, analysts, Kurt Cobain—everyone who’s anyone pays lip service to the power of the Big Cheese. The problem, as Paterno may well know, is that maturity makes milk harder to digest. The more time you spend nibbling on dated dairy products, the more likely you are to come away feeling just a touch lactose intolerant.
Some leaders are born.
Some leaders are made.
And some leaders are invented in the minds of those who can’t live without them.
We’re all messiah-seekers at heart. We put our faith in salvation from On High, because life hurts and death’s worse and surely Daddy knows how to make it better. Joe Paterno’s dirty secret is that he pulls on his Depends one leg at a time, just like the rest of us—and that he owes his success to all those kids who call him Pa. After a day of deliverance at the ballot box, the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For would perhaps behoove themselves by drawing a parallel.
Keep your Change We Can Believe In—I’d rather have Experience I Can Mock:
Joe Pa is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He hikes his pants up to his armpits;
He shouts incoherently from his golf cart;
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for His name's sake.
Even if he can't remember it most mornings.
Because there's no Valley so Happy it isn't haunted by the shadow of mortality, and any player who swears off the comfort of a coach is either stuck in Ann Arbor or only just saying, is all...
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2 months ago
Tremendous lack of class.
2 months ago
Kindof sad that Joe can hurt himself doing an onside kick
2 months ago
Your family must be very proud
2 months ago
As a Pitt Alumni,
I can honestly say that Ryan Alberti is a jealous no body. He claims to have played college football in Southern California but does not say where? One could and should deduce it was a Division Three school, pathetic. The second thing that one could deduce that our Barneget Bay NJ high school football player was not recruited by JoPa because he was not named on the Jersey shore all team, sourer grapes. Now for the third and final reason why Ryan hates Penn State and Jo Pa is because Kerry Collins stood up our San Francisco chum and he felt used and abused, wink and a nod. So Ryan before you go around spewing this garbage just go crawl back into your fetal position and finish that cry you had when Jo Pa did not respond to your "highlight reel." YOU SUCKED GET OVER IT, KERRY COLLINS DOES NOT LIKE YOU GET OVER IT !!!!!!
from 2 months ago
Guilty as charged—this is all about Kerry Collins. I never quite got over the '93 Blockbuster Bowl. Damn that Bill Walsh.
from about 1 month ago
robert,
I think more careful reading might reveal that Ryan played college football in Central New Jersey before alighting to the West Coast.
Entertaining rant, but I don't know that you're qualified, sir.
from about 1 month ago
Details, details. I spent the weekend fondly recalling my high school days on the Jersey Shore...then realized I was just singing Bruce Springsteen songs to myself. Sourer grapes indeed.
2 months ago
You don't have a clue. Joe is much more than football to Penn State. 30 years ago I found myself walking beside Coach Paterno as I was moving between classes. He asked me what class I was heading too, how my grades were and what I was going to do after college. He was sincere. I felt important and I knew why he is the great leader that he is. He believes in the university. He believes in the students (athletes and non-athletes alike). He believes, and we believe. That belief will live beyond any one individual. Before Joe and after Joe....WE are...Penn State.
from 2 months ago
All very true. But faith doesn't win football games.
2 months ago
Alberti; That ranks as the dumbest sports article of all time. You obviously have no clue what Paterno has meant not only in Happy Valley but to college football period. He is everything that is right about college football. His sports ideology stands in stark contrast to everything that is wrong in most college and professional sports.
Your attempt at being clever is revealing about your lack of character. We don't treat our heroes w/ the same disdain that you spew. Most PSU fans that I know hope Joe is given the freedom to hang around as long as he wants.
Happy in Happy Valley
about 1 month ago
+1 for the obscure Nirvana song.
Hope it does you some good in College Football's 7th circle of Hell. Oh, and way to write this two days before PSU choked against Iowa.
I do have to wonder about these fans who are worshiping JoePa this season. Were they among the large segment of the PSU fanbase who's wanted the man gone at two different points in the last decade? What happened to those fans? Talk all you want about a coach who cares, truth is half the fanbase wanted him gone.
And how come we've rarely heard about this:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08212/900389-194.stm
this season?
Oh - that's right - they're ranked in the top 5. Winning can Jesusify almost anyone.
from about 1 month ago
All apologies for having jinxed Joe Pa and Co. (and for taking the Nirvana allusions one step too far).
Good point too about the Jesusification dynamic. We're all messiah-seekers at heart...but no one wants a savior who can't win in Iowa City.
about 1 month ago
And for all the Joe Pa fans out there, it seems how easily we forget that the man once told an NFL scout that Michael Robinson "didn't have the mental skill set to play quarterback in the NFL." C'mon...you don't have to be Willie Beaman to read between the lines there.
Everything right about college football? I sure hope not.
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