The Lion in Autumn

by Frank Fitzpatrick

  A short while later, Bradley, a Pittsburgh native, emerged from a coaches’ meeting. Paterno hated cell phones, and his assistants always turned theirs off when they were with the coach. Now Bradley, as he always did, switched his phone back on to see how many calls he had missed.

  There were fifty-three.

  “What the hell?” he muttered. “I hope everything is OK.”

  Bradley quickly found out why he had become so popular. And in between returning the calls and answering the questions, his phone rang again. This time it was Paterno.

  “Congratulations,” the coach said, “on your new job.”

  “Thanks, Coach,” said Bradley. “The first thing I’m going to do is give all my new assistants a big raise.”

  The two men laughed. Sometime soon the scenario they were now joking about might well become a reality. But today wasn’t going to be that day.

  “We’ve had a lot of laughs about it,” Bradley said later. “Coach knew it was just a dumb rumor.”

  Losing had revived a debate long absent from State College: Was Penn State being hurt by what were widely perceived as its higher standards? That week Paterno implied as much when asked how he planned to resurrect his slumping program.

  “There are a lot of ways to remedy different things, and some of them I don’t want to do,” he said. “I don’t think it is the way Penn State wants to do it. There is a great wideout in the country now playing for one of the best football teams in the country, if not the best football team in the country. He’s from New Jersey, and we never even looked at him because of the academics and things like that. We could take a step backwards, but that is not what I wanted to do for Penn State and I am not going to do it for Penn State.”

  The New Jersey receiver was soon revealed as Dwayne Jarrett of Southern California. He told the Los Angeles Times that Penn State had indeed offered him a scholarship but that he turned it down because they emphasized a run offense.

  “I heard that thing Paterno said about me,” Jarrett said. “I don’t have any words, no reaction, to that. None at all. Penn State [offered] me a scholarship, but I wasn’t too interested in going there.”

  Whatever his academic record, Jarrett would catch fifty passes in 2004 for 734 yards and twelve TDs as USC won a second straight national championship.

  Depending on how you viewed Paterno’s remark, it was either an honest assessment of where Penn State stood, or an example of the attitude that had irritated so many of his coaching competitors over the years. If Penn State only took choirboys, rivals moaned to one another, how come so many of them had ended up in trouble last year?

  Yet Paterno certainly appeared to be clinging to his principles. A week earlier he had shot down Sherrill’s junior-college-player suggestions, and he admitted that it had been at least four seasons since he had asked Spanier to grant him an academic exemption for a recruit.

  Football had made Penn State’s fabulous growth over the last half century possible. But administrators, though benefiting enormously from the success of Paterno’s program, traditionally tried to minimize the cause-and-effect. Penn State was much more than a football factory and that’s how it wanted to be seen.

  In a 1986 interview, then-president Bryce Jordan told CNN’s Larry King, “I think if you polled them [Penn State’s alums] on their feelings, they are every bit as proud of the success of the Penn State artificial heart as they are of the great success of the football team.”

  That was for public consumption. The university’s true feelings were expressed in a private memo from the university’s public-relations staff to Jordan just before that ‘86 interview:

  “Penn State football success, for example, has enabled the university to realize additional recognition for its academic programs,” it read. “It has provided a visible vehicle for us to talk about academic standards and achievements. . . . Athletics-generated publicity has a positive effect on high school students in the very critical area of student recruitment, apart from athletic recruitment. . . . It provides entry for nonathletic university components to approach potential contributors in connection with fund-raising efforts.”

  Eric Walker, who in 1956 had succeeded Milton Eisenhower as the university’s president, learned that immediately. Upon accepting the position, Walker asked renowned scientist and mentor Vannevar Bush how to go about building a great university.

  “Three things,” Bush told him. “More buildings, an outstanding faculty, and a great football team.”

  Following the Northwestern game, Paterno vowed to do some soul searching.

  “The problem with my soul searching,” he said a few days later, “is that I couldn’t find my soul.”

  While he was kidding, it was true that failure tended to make Paterno more introspective. And these days, with his being questioned and criticized at every turn, that tendency was inflamed.

  He’d never thought that, with his esteemed record, he would have to justify himself to reporters young enough to be his grandchildren. But he did. He had never thought he’d be asked how he felt about hearing Penn State fans boo his players, chant “Joe Must Go!” or deride his quarterbacks coach–son on radio talk shows. But he was. He’d never imagined that his brains and will wouldn’t be enough to turn around a struggling team. But they weren’t.

  On Monday, two days after the Northwestern defeat, seeking a literary metaphor for the situation he and his team faced at the end of this miserable season, he thought of Hamlet. When Paterno addressed his players that day, he quoted a part of the Danish prince’s soliloquy, letting them know that their “outrageous fortune” required an existential decision: Would they surrender to the unpleasant reality of 2–7? Or fight to salvage their dignity?

  A day later, Shakespeare’s words surfaced again when the coach’s weekly teleconference began with a query about his own confidence. Had it been shaken by a second straight disastrous season? Paterno’s response initiated a series of answers that, overflowing with literary allusions, recollections, contradictions, and ramblings, may have hinted at his mental turmoil.

  “You would have to define what you mean by shaken,” he began, paraphrasing the Danish prince. “Obviously, I go back to Hamlet, ‘To be or not to be, that is the question. Suffer the slings and adversity of outrageous fortune or take arms and fight the enemy? By doing so eliminate the problem.’ I have a lot of confidence in my staff and a lot of confidence in this football team. Things haven’t gone, obviously, the way you would like them to go.

  “Sometimes people think it’s the planning, the plays, and sometimes the coaches or what have you. Yes, I get shaky once in a while. I would be less than honest if I told you I didn’t. That doesn’t mean that I lose faith. Even Christ said, ‘Take this away from me.’ ”

  The reference to Christ’s words on the cross sounded like an admission that Paterno had thought about quitting. So he was asked again, in a much less direct fashion this time, if his recent record didn’t warrant questions about whether he should return in 2005. His answer was lengthy, serpentine in its logic, and as enlightening as anything he would say publicly all season.

  “There’s no question about it. I have never disputed that. You have to understand that I have not spent this many years at Penn State or worked this hard to get Penn State football to a certain level [to just leave],” he said. “I could have had fifteen jobs that would have been more lucrative and a lot of different things through the years in pros and college. I won’t get into all of that stuff, but I have always felt that Penn State was a place that I was comfortable with and I wanted to bring my family up here, make the university and football as good as I could make it.

  “I go back to my dad when I decided to coach. My dad says to me, ‘What are you doing, thinking about coaching?’ My dad wanted me to be a lawyer. He graduated from high school, graduated from college, and then graduated from law school and passed the bar. He loved the law and always dreamed about my being a lawyer or my brother George being a lawy
er. George did go to law school for a year. When I got into coaching and I came home and said, ‘I think I’m going to make coaching my career,’ he said, ‘Well, do you think you can have an impact on anybody?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I think I can have an impact. I think I can have an impact on this university. I think there are some people around here who don’t realize how good they are and I am going to work my butt off to try to make them understand that Penn State can be a special place.’

  “I’ve spent fifty-five years doing that. If you think that I am going to back out of it because I am intimidated, you are wrong. If you think I am going to stay when I think I am not doing a good job, you are wrong. Those things have to develop and have to evolve. Right now, I think we can get this thing done and do a good job. We obviously have to recruit some people. We have to recruit some skilled people. I have said that before. I don’t want to hang around here and pull Penn State down. I have a great staff of coaches. I could walk out of this thing. I could call and tell you today I’m going. What does it mean to me? It doesn’t mean a thing to me. What impact does it have on the program, the coaches, and is it the best thing for Penn State? They are the things that I think about all the time.

  “It has nothing to do with Joe Paterno unless Joe Paterno feels he can’t get the job done. I think about it, but I really feel comfortable as long as I can go to practice and have some enthusiasm. I think the squad responds to some things that we challenged them with. I don’t see any reason to say, ‘I’m going to get out of here this year, next year, or whatever year.’ I don’t mean that to be cocky, stubborn, or anything like that. I’m just trying to do what is right.”

  The drumbeat for Morelli got louder in the days leading up to Indiana.

  It wasn’t unusual for fans of a losing football team to clamor for another quarterback, particularly at the end of a season. And besides, what else did Penn State fans have to look forward to?

  The ballyhooed quarterback’s continued inactivity baffled fans. Paterno wasn’t hesitant about playing the linebacker Dan Connor, another freshman who was by now a solid starter. Why did he stall with Morelli? Certainly, with the way Mills and Robinson had performed, he deserved a shot.

  Conflicting loyalties may have helped explain Paterno’s indecision. He felt that he had an obligation to stick with a veteran player like Mills, especially now that the quarterback had become the boobirds’ favorite target. But he also also felt he had a duty to get Morelli some work.

  “I haven’t been hesitant because of Anthony,” he explained. “I’ve been hesitant because I have an obligation to Zack Mills. Zack has worked through some things and Zack is a good quarterback. . . . Is Anthony Morelli better than Zack Mills? No, not now. He might be. I was going to play him last week. I kept telling him, ‘Warm up, Anthony.’ He is the most warmed-up quarterback that never played a play in the history of football. I have to make my mind up that we are going to play him a certain time in the football game and give him a shot. I think I owe it to the kid. I owe it to Zack not to give in to what some people think is the right thing to do, because I don’t think it is the right thing to do. Yet, for the good of the future of the team we should take a look at what Morelli can do.”

  All that raised another significant question for Penn State’s future. If Morelli, whose redshirt year was gone, were going to get some playing time, did that mean he’d be the quarterback next season, when Robinson would be a fifth-year senior? That certainly was the preference among Nittany Lions fans.

  “I don’t think that the permanent position for Michael Robinson is wideout,” said Paterno when asked about his plans for ‘05. “Right now he is a wideout because I want Zack to end up his career as best we can do and I want to give Anthony Morelli a chance to show us what he can do. Michael Robinson in the long run may end up being the best quarterback of the entire group we have, because he can do some things that the other kids can’t do. It depends, again, on whether we can recruit some skill people.”

  To many Penn State supporters, it seemed like he just kept talking in circles. It was maddeningly frustrating.

  If you parsed his words carefully, Paterno appeared to be implying that Morelli might not be as good as everyone had anticipated.

  “I see the pimples,” Paterno explained. “You don’t see the pimples. I know when they [freshmen] are good, when they are bad, and what they can do. You have to evaluate that as to whether they are better than the people you are playing. If they are better than the people you are playing, obviously, at times we have used freshmen because we think they are better,” he explained. “However, I have to be loyal to my people. I have to be loyal to my coaches and I have to be loyal to my team. Unless I am sure that the guy who is younger will help our football team more than the guy that has paid all the dues and has worked hard, I am very reluctant to change. We have had a lot of good years with that philosophy. . . . I don’t think it’s fair that some guy comes in here and you guys all read about him and he is so-and-so this, and so-and-so that. But that doesn’t mean he’s that good. It just doesn’t mean he’s that good.”

  Until the basketball coach left Bloomington in disgrace, Bobby Knight and Paterno, both admirers of General George Patton’s military strategy, occasionally got together when Penn State visited Indiana.

  The bawdy Knight used to like to kid with Paterno. Watching the Nittany Lions coach walk away once, he yelled, “Joe, you know what I never noticed about you before?” Knight said. “You’ve got no ass.”

  And before there was a Paterno statue at Beaver Stadium, the famously volatile Knight once advised him on how to earn bronze immortality. “Throw a chair across the field, Joe,” he said. “They’ll build a fucking statue of you.”

  Knight was gone now, but basketball remained the sport of choice on Indiana’s campus. The Hoosiers’ football program could never get off the ground. Gerry DiNardo, now in his third (and last) year as Indiana’s coach, had an 8–25 record. Indiana had won one Big Ten cochampionship in the last fifty-eight years. That came in 1967. Since then, the Hoosiers’ conference record was 97–194.

  So it said something about the state of Penn State football when the Nittany Lions (2–7, 0–6) came into this game in sole possession of last place in the Big Ten. Indiana, which had never beaten Penn State in nine tries, had a 3–6 record that included one conference victory, a 30–21 upset at Minnesota.

  The Big Ten standings weren’t the only grim reminder of Penn State’s fall that day. It was here in Bloomington where Penn State had squandered—needlessly, in the minds of many—its last shot at a national title in 1994.

  On this crisp and windy Saturday, Senior Day for the Hoosiers, the game attracted a tiny crowd to Memorial Stadium, just about half of what the 1994 game drew. The Nittany Lions’ sudden lack of appeal, coupled with the traditional end-of-season ennui produced by Indiana football, resulted in a crowd of 24,092. It was the tiniest gathering for a Penn State football game since November 13, 1976, when only 19,627 saw the Nittany Lions win, 21–7, in Miami.

  The previous year’s meeting with Indiana had been Penn State’s last conference win, and homely Memorial Stadium was where the Lions got their last road victory, 58–25, on November 16, 2002, nearly two full years ago.

  “Penn State should never be on the level of a Northwestern or an Indiana,” said Lions cornerback Zemaitis. “I don’t care if any of those programs hear what I have to say. That should never happen. Every time we go against Northwestern and Indiana, it should be a constant ‘W.’ ”

  As had been their habit, the Nittany Lions immediately embarrassed themselves when the game began. Rodney Kinlaw fielded the opening kickoff in the end zone and then fumbled it. He retrieved the ball and appeared ready to kneel down for a touchback. But, his head swiveling from side to side in search of guidance, he froze. Finally, with Indiana defenders bearing down on him, Kinlaw attempted to run. He got only as far as the 5-yard line.

  “The kid just got a little nervous,” said Paterno. />
  Two series later, Mills threw another interception, his eleventh (against seven touchdowns) of the season. That turned into a quick Indiana score when, on the Hoosiers’ second play, wide receiver Courtney Roby took an option pitch from quarterback Matt LoVecchio and raced 26 yards for a touchdown. With 8:41 left in the opening quarter, Penn State trailed 7–0.

  That week Bradley had told friends that he was concerned about the mental state of his nationally ranked defense. They were performing superbly, but, largely because of the ineffective offense, Penn State was losing week after week. “We can’t keep playing like this without seeing results,” he had said.

  This time the offense responded. After the Penn State contingent in the stands cheered derisively when Hunt downed the next kickoff in the end zone, Mills led the Lions downfield. He ended the drive by completing a 33-yard pass to a sprawling Robinson in the corner of the end zone.

  The officials initially ruled Robinson out of bounds, but an instant replay reversed the call and Penn State had tied the game at 7–7.

  As Paterno often pointed out, it was the kind of play that Robinson, alone among his wide receivers, could make. The coach also was happy with the replay. And why not? Every replay ruling this season had gone in Penn State’s favor.

  “The replay is great,” he said after the game. “I mean that sincerely. Nobody would want to lose that football game because of bang-bang calls, including the officials. So I’m glad we have it and I hope we get it around the country.”

  Finally, as the second quarter neared its conclusion, Paterno inserted Morelli into the game. It quickly became apparent why the freshman had not yet played any significant time. He looked unsure of himself.

  His first pass went incomplete. His second was intercepted by Kyle Killian and returned 46 yards for a touchdown that, after the extra point was missed, left Indiana in front, 13–7.

  Morelli threw two more incompletions on the next series and was sacked (injuring his ankle) before finally completing one to Hunt for 13 yards on a third-and-18. With just under five minutes to go in the half, Paterno reinserted Mills.