What should Paterno do for an encore?

By Nate Crossman  |   Monday, March 06, 2006  |  Comments( 1 )

Penn State Nittany Lions
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Life is good for the bespectacled, warm-up jacket and orthopedic sneaker-wearing senior citizen from State College. A year after having the last shovel full of dirt thrown on his otherwise-illustrious coaching career, Penn State Nittany Lions head coach Joe Paterno performed CPR on his legacy by guiding the Penn State football program to an 11-1 record and a win in the Orange Bowl. After that run, he was feted with every major coach of the year award. Beano Cook stopped yelling "JoPa must go!" and the "Fire JoPa" Web sites went out of business.

So what should Paterno do for an encore? How about retire.

Of course, he won't. For one, it's too late. Spring practice is almost upon us. Also, he may never retire. Paterno is more terrified of life as a civilian than one as a geriatric coach trying to relate to 17-year-old players. But he should, because it's not going to get any better than 2005.

Now, you might say that 2006 has the potential to be just as good as last year. There's a quarterback in Anthony Morelli, who should pick up right where Michael Robinson left off. There are playmakers aplenty, including Deon Butler and Derrick Williams. And the recruiting cupboard is stocked with more athletes than people in State College have seen in quite a while.

While all that is true, the only direction that Penn State football can go is down. Even if they do go 11-1 and win a Bowl Championship Series bowl game, it's not going to be as good as this year, when nobody expected it. And what if they do worse? Well, let's just say I wouldn't sell that "Fire JoPa" domain name quite yet, because it might come in handy again.

The alternative could have been to bow out gracefully, do the talk-circuit, let everyone tell you how great you are, and then enjoy your free time. Maybe college football would name a coach of the year award after him.

It's not going to happen, so for Paterno's sake and the mental health of Nittany Lions fans everywhere, let's hope he doesn't take a step backwards.
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