'Iron Man': Joe Paterno's Longevity is Simply Legendary

However, I was genuinely amazed at the youthful candor - and immensely accurate statement - recently made by current Penn State star linebacker, Paul Posluskny, when he said of his legendary coach, "He knows everything that's going on. He might not know what an iPod is, but he still knows how to deal with young players."

Paterno has been coaching so long at Pennsylvania State University, that when the now legendary head coach first arrived on the storied campus in 1950 as a 23-year-old graduate out of Brown University, to take a position as an assistant to head coach Rip Engle, his former college coach at Brown, gasoline prices were soaring at an average of 27 cents per gallon. Heck, by the time Paterno took over as head coach in 1966, the same year I was born, prices had risen to an unbelieveable average of 32 cents per gallon.

Humor aside, (and there certainly is no humor in today's gasoline prices) Paterno's longevity has become the stuff of legend - particularly, after overcoming a major wave of adversity, led by calls for his resignation that lasted for almost a decade and petered out just a couple of seasons ago when the Nittany Lions unsuspectingly rose back into the ranks of the country's elite football programs.

With the tumultuous times now firmly behind him, Paterno continues to have the same youthful enthusiasm for the profession he started out in 56 years ago - and just last week, stated that he will apparently honor the remaining two years of his contract which runs through 2008 despite suffering a gruesome injury a few weeks back that resulted in a broken leg for the living legend.

''I'm not going anywhere,'' the 79-year-old Penn State coach told his team, according to a statement posted Wednesday on a team website. ''I expect to be around a while and coaching through each of your careers.''

Paterno, who turns 80 next month, addressed the team last Tuesday, when he returned to practice for the first time since breaking his shinbone and injuring two knee ligaments during a sideline collision with players on Nov. 4 at Wisconsin. Paterno stayed at practice about 30 minutes, speaking to his team from a wheelchair.

''You might not see as much of me as I would like for a few weeks, but I'm still involved with your coaches and what you are doing,'' Paterno told the players, according to the statement.

Paterno's longevity at Penn State, which has spanned 11 U.S. presidencies, has produced some eye-opening numbers. This season, Paterno joined another college football legend, Amos Alonzo Stagg, as the only major college coaches to have served 40 years as head coach at a single institution. (Stagg was a head coach for 57 years, including 41 at the University of Chicago from 1892-1932).

Paterno is the only coach to win the four traditional New Year's Day bowl games - the Rose, Sugar, Cotton and Orange bowls - and he owns a 6-0 record in the Fiesta Bowl. His winning percentage of 74.5 is sixth-best among active Division I-A coaches and Paterno ranks second all-time in games coached (462) and trails only Florida State head coach, Bobby Bowden, among major college coaches in victories, compiling a career record of 362 wins, 121 losses, and 3 ties.

Paterno is also the all-time leader among coaches in bowl appearances (31) and postseason triumphs (21) and has compiled a postseason record of 20-10-1, giving him a winning percentage of 66.1, ranking him No. 3 among the bowl season's best of all-time.

Paterno has also sent more than 250 former players on to the National Football League, 29 of them first-round draft choices, and has fielded teams that have registered seven undefeated regular-seasons and 26 Top 20 finishes.

Since Paterno took over as the head coach in 1966, there have been 764 head coaching changes among Division I-A programs, an average of more than six changes per I-A institution.

One of the most astonishing statistics about Paterno's lengthy tenure at Penn State, is the fact that he has been on the coaching staff for more than half of the football games played by the Nittany Lions since the program began in 1887.

Jaw-dropping statistics, and the small contingent of people that still want Paterno to retire, aside, it is obvious that Paterno is still very much needed at the school - and not just for football reasons.

Listening to some of Paterno's former players speak about the impact he's had on their respective lives, it becomes easy to see where Paterno's longevity has had its greatest impact - on his players' lives.

Explaining his decision to spurn the pros, Paterno once told Penn State graduates in his 1973 commencement address: "Money alone will not make you happy. Success without honor is an unseasoned dish. It will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good."

Former Penn State All-American linebacker, Lavar Arrington, said of his former coach, "If you're not a man when you get there, you'll be a man before you leave. Joe has his system so that you're prepared for life. Joe trains you more mentally than physically so that nothing will rattle you."

Another ex-PSU All-American linebacker Matt Millen, the president and CEO of the Detroit Lions , said of Paterno, "the main thing Joe gives you is perspective. He's a teacher. He does more than football stuff. He's always giving you these little speeches, and after a while you hear them so often and understand them and they're pretty true."

Former Penn State wide receiver Kenny Jackson, who returned to Penn State in 1993 as an assistant coach under Paterno after a stellar collegiate career and mild success as a professional, offered some of the most poignant words ever about Paterno when he said, "he doesn't realize how much I respect what he did for me, for my family, and other Penn State football players. He doesn't understand how much he helped us, not just from a football standpoint, but from an emotional and dedication standpoint.

"He doesn't realize," Jackson continued, "how much so many guys out there think of him. And if you walked in a room, walked up to him and said, 'Thank you,' he wouldn't want to hear it. He wouldn't even want to listen to it. "But he needs to hear it. He needs to have people come back and say thanks. It's no different than it is with your own father. He was my father when I was here..."

Paterno once said that, when he called his parents to tell them the news that he was going to be a football coach, the feelings were mixed at best.

"I got hooked, so I called my dad and I said to my dad, 'I'm going to coach,' and he said, 'Oh, God.' And my mom, crying, said 'What did you go to college for? And then my dad said, 'You better have an impact,'" Paterno said.

"I've had an impact, I hope, on a lot of kids who've come through here, and I feel good about that part," Paterno said. "I feel when they bury me, it's not going to be a question of 'hey, he won X number of games, period.'"

Wins and losses have never defined what Joe Paterno has been all about, but after hearing what some of his former players had to say about Paterno, I think Paterno has earned the right to go out on his own terms - and if he doesn't retire in 2008 - I guess more young men will benefit from the experience of being around the man they call JoePa - and in the end, isn't that something we should all be thankful for?

Even former president, Ronald Reagan, once characterized Paterno as a person "who has never forgotten that he is a teacher who's preparing his students not just for the season, but for life."It's funny that such an in-depth - and honest - statement would come out of the mouth of a young man barely the legal drinking age, but knowing Paterno and the values he has taught young men for over a half-century, it really shouldn't surprise anyone at all.Being a former Penn State student, I guess loving Joe Paterno comes naturally to me as it does most PSU alums. However, former Penn Staters aren't the only ones who love Paterno dearly. I have also heard thousands of wonderful quotes about Paterno uttered over the years by everyone from former players and opposing coaches to dignitaries and politicians that have nothing at all to do with atletics.