The storm in State College, PA is barely a week old and you don’t need to be a brilliant seer into the future to predict tumultuous times at Penn State for many days ahead.  University trustees announced late Wednesday night that school president Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno, the man whose name graces, or perhaps more aptly now disgraces their library, the esteemed Paternoville camping area outside Beaver Stadium’s ticket gate, and nearby statue depicting an exuberant Paterno proudly in trot with index finger pointed skyward as if to declare, “we are and always will be Penn State: number 1″, are no longer employed.  Fired rather.

For Paterno, it ends a 46 year career like no other in the face of the most shameful scandal in college athletics history.  Undeniably the preeminent ambassador of Penn State  and the coaching profession regardless of the sport, the prototypical architect of what we all thought remained to be good about collegiate athletics, Paterno’s legacy will be irreparably damaged.  Why?  Because he fumbled the biggest play those 46 years brought before him.  A play which did not involve tattoo parlors, agents, or boosters, but a play that involved innocent, helpless, already at-risk kids.

Coaches often preach, and Paterno was no different, that the mark of a truly complete student-athlete is that embodiment of excellence on and off the playing field.  Paterno’s program taught 18 to 22 year old men not only how to be great warriors on the gridiron, but great leaders outside those lines.  Though Joe’s teams were not always of Big Ten or BCS championship caliber, especially in the last decade, these teams were always prepared to be great, perennially filled with NFL ready talent, and, quite simply, they were Penn State.  The Nittany Lions.  Enough said.  On the field, one might argue that Joe’s legacy can not be touched.  But off the field is a different story.

Joe Pa could have done more.  So much more.  Yes, he donated money, and yes he was willing to go to work for less than Bob Stoopes, Jim Tressel and countless other colleagues with far fewer accomplishments, but none of that matters now when it comes to his enabling long time assistant Jerry Sandusky, accused of sexually abusing at least ten young boys over the course of several years.  Albeit indirect and out of his plain view, Paterno’s “involvement” in this nightmare is that he was in a position to do something; to help kids who were truly in danger.   This is to speak nothing of Penn State and the football program he spent over half a century building into a power.  What was that something he needed to do?  I don’t know.   But I do know it included more than nonchalantly reporting it to the athletic director and then bottling it up inside for the better part of a decade.  I know it did not include permitting Jerry Sandusky on football program premises whenever he felt like it.

You have to wonder how much regret stewed inside Paterno as he has made his infamous daily pilgrimage, humbly on foot from his nearby home to the football offices on campus.  Didn’t knowledge of something gone very wrong in 2002 irk him?  It must have.  After then graduate assistant Mike McQueary approached Joe on that March 2, 2002 day to inform the head coach he had seen Sandusky and a 10 year old boy in a shower the night before, what has Joe thought about that matter since?  Before this scandal broke.

Did he wonder about that boy’s, or other boys’ outcomes in life?  Moreover, did he ever dream things could lead to his exit in this fashion?  In his wildest dreams, did Joe fathom that his final goodbye would be anything but that fairytale ending?  No way.