Recently I attended the memorial service for former Penn State Football Coach Joe Paterno. The service has been well-covered, but I thought I'd add a few "extra points," if you will, before we turn the page. Here they are:
And, overhead on video screens, a black-and-white photo of a man with big glasses and a slightly crooked smile.
Brendan Beichert, a 2010 Penn State grad, came all the way from Baltimore. "Well, it just felt like the place to be. I wanted to be here with the Penn State community," he explained.
His friend Michelle Toennies, also a '10 grad, took off work for the service. "It's the best four years that I have ever had," she said of college. She believed Paterno made Penn State what it is today.
Jeff Cronin, walking with them, is the eighth Penn Stater in his family. "Joe Paterno has been a part of my family since I was born."
Chance Koons of Lewisburg left a copy of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" at the nearby Paterno statue. He'd heard that Paterno's grandson read it to him in the hospital. It begins: "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too..." It ends: "You'll be a man my son!"
As I stood with other media people on the gym floor, I noticed reporters with microphones by Someone Important. Then I heard the voice...That's Tom Bradley! He briefly served as interim head coach this fall.
So I slithered over. He shook my hand. Your hands are cold! he declared. Then he spoke about "JoePa": "There's so many people that have been blessed to have been around him." Bradley himself was "proud to call him a friend. I'm going to miss him."
JoePa always wanted others to do and be their best. "He always...saw the good in you," Bradley added.
It was a cloudy, drizzly day, as if all of nature were crying. Mt. Nittany, southeast of Penn State, was partially covered with fog like a widow of days gone by pulling a gray veil over her face.
Reporters gathered around the gym's edge and on a platform behind the blue and white chairs on the floor I counted around two dozen TV cameras back there.
Bradley and Franco Harris, who played football for Penn State and the Pittsburgh Steelers, sat in the back. Right near me! I saw another reporter try to interview Harris, but he politely declined. So I didn't try either.
But with the flash off, I snapped a picture. Wow! I got a photo of the back of Franco Harris' head!
"I worked with him for eight years..What are some new authenticcanada coming out in 2009?.met him," Tony Mancuso, an Athletic Communications staff member, told me about JoePa. "Great guy!"
If the coach met someone, he'd remember him, Tony said. How's your family doing, and so on, he'd ask. "He would remember all those little things," Tony said.
One day last spring he walked into the room or wherever she was. And she stood up as if he were the president. It just felt right.
Though JoePa acted like a regular guy, he had "a presence" around him, she said. And he was "always a gentleman."
Speakers included well-known football players, a liberal arts dean and the head of Nike. And also a student who got a scholarship...even the "first mayor of Paternoville" the tent city by the stadium where students camp to be first in for games.
I'm sorry, but I'm still not sure how everyone's related...You had Kayla and Koren and Cooper and Chris and Madison. Kayla stood and hummed to her infant nephew Cooper, wearing a Penn State bib. Koren and Madison joined her for a photo. Chris, a football manager, must have been there somewhere.
Chris is nephew to Kayla and Koren, and Madison is sister to Chris, and Cooper is
nephew to Kayla and...The point is, they're family. A Nittany Lion family. "Penn State's been a family for me...since we all grew up here,Replica canadagooseparkajackets online is a service shop." Kayla said. "We've been coming here since we can
remember." Three are grads.
And, overhead on video screens, a black-and-white photo of a man with big glasses and a slightly crooked smile.
Brendan Beichert, a 2010 Penn State grad, came all the way from Baltimore. "Well, it just felt like the place to be. I wanted to be here with the Penn State community," he explained.
His friend Michelle Toennies, also a '10 grad, took off work for the service. "It's the best four years that I have ever had," she said of college. She believed Paterno made Penn State what it is today.
Jeff Cronin, walking with them, is the eighth Penn Stater in his family. "Joe Paterno has been a part of my family since I was born."
Chance Koons of Lewisburg left a copy of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" at the nearby Paterno statue. He'd heard that Paterno's grandson read it to him in the hospital. It begins: "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too..." It ends: "You'll be a man my son!"
As I stood with other media people on the gym floor, I noticed reporters with microphones by Someone Important. Then I heard the voice...That's Tom Bradley! He briefly served as interim head coach this fall.
So I slithered over. He shook my hand. Your hands are cold! he declared. Then he spoke about "JoePa": "There's so many people that have been blessed to have been around him." Bradley himself was "proud to call him a friend. I'm going to miss him."
JoePa always wanted others to do and be their best. "He always...saw the good in you," Bradley added.
It was a cloudy, drizzly day, as if all of nature were crying. Mt. Nittany, southeast of Penn State, was partially covered with fog like a widow of days gone by pulling a gray veil over her face.
Reporters gathered around the gym's edge and on a platform behind the blue and white chairs on the floor I counted around two dozen TV cameras back there.
Bradley and Franco Harris, who played football for Penn State and the Pittsburgh Steelers, sat in the back. Right near me! I saw another reporter try to interview Harris, but he politely declined. So I didn't try either.
But with the flash off, I snapped a picture. Wow! I got a photo of the back of Franco Harris' head!
"I worked with him for eight years..What are some new authenticcanada coming out in 2009?.met him," Tony Mancuso, an Athletic Communications staff member, told me about JoePa. "Great guy!"
If the coach met someone, he'd remember him, Tony said. How's your family doing, and so on, he'd ask. "He would remember all those little things," Tony said.
One day last spring he walked into the room or wherever she was. And she stood up as if he were the president. It just felt right.
Though JoePa acted like a regular guy, he had "a presence" around him, she said. And he was "always a gentleman."
Speakers included well-known football players, a liberal arts dean and the head of Nike. And also a student who got a scholarship...even the "first mayor of Paternoville" the tent city by the stadium where students camp to be first in for games.
I'm sorry, but I'm still not sure how everyone's related...You had Kayla and Koren and Cooper and Chris and Madison. Kayla stood and hummed to her infant nephew Cooper, wearing a Penn State bib. Koren and Madison joined her for a photo. Chris, a football manager, must have been there somewhere.
Chris is nephew to Kayla and Koren, and Madison is sister to Chris, and Cooper is
nephew to Kayla and...The point is, they're family. A Nittany Lion family. "Penn State's been a family for me...since we all grew up here,Replica canadagooseparkajackets online is a service shop." Kayla said. "We've been coming here since we can
remember." Three are grads.
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