Editor's Note: This is the 17th of a 19-part daily series that seeks to answer the questions surrounding the 2010 Penn State football team. Check back every weekday until the Blue-White Game this Saturday to see the question of the day. Wednesday, we asked: "What are the Blue-White Broadcast Plans?" Today, we ask: "What's the Secret to Joe's Employee Retention?"

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For a couple of decades, a peculiar sight during the Blue-White Game was looking down along the sideline and not seeing Joe Paterno. It's a tradition that the head coach would allow the assistants to totally run the show during the annual spring scrimmage.

Then Joe broke his leg in the Wisconsin game in 2006 and had a bum hip in 2008. Both forced him to the press box to coach.

So, now, a Joe-free sideline isn't quite as startling. (He'll be on radio and TV during the game on Saturday.)

Nevertheless, it does aim the spotlight a bit more than usual on the coaches who are on the sidelines. Except for Mike McQueary; that guy has logged more network TV minutes than any redhead this side of Lucille Ball – albeit, half of it has been with Paterno's mouth five inches from his ear.

The point remains. Less Paterno means more ESPN2 face time on Saturday for every other Penn State coach.

And here's the thing: It could be a rerun. Or a rerun of a rerun. Or even Spring Game Classic for all we know.

It's been practically the same group of coaches down there for every Blue-White Game this decade. Bill Murray in Groundhog Day had nothing on these guys.

They are the ultimate fifth- and six-year seniors. They just can't leave Happy Valley. And that's an understatement. Senior citizen Dick Anderson, who coaches the offensive line, has been on the Penn State coaching staff for 33 years, while Senor Scrapper, defensive coordinator Tom Bradley, has been on the staff for 32 years.

(OK, Anderson did leave Penn State in the 1980s, to be the head coach at Rutgers. But he came back in 1990 and never left again.)

Every single member of the Nittany Lion coaching staff has been at Penn State since at least 2004, when offensive coordinator Galen Hall returned to coach his alma mater.

The rest have been here longer. Much longer. Every coach on Penn State's staff has been a part of the program for at least a decade. After Bradley, offensive tackle/tight end coach Bill Kenney is next in service (23 years), followed by quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno (16), defensive line coach Larry Johnson (15) and linebackers coach Ron Vanderlinden (10).

McQueary, the wide receivers coach, is in his seventh year as a coach and his 10th working for Penn State football. Kermit Buggs has been on the Nittany Lion staff since 2003 and has been safeties coach for three years.

Since 2001, only three coaches have left the Penn State coaching staff -- Kenny Carter, Brian Norwood and Fran Ganter. Remarkedly, that comes during a stretch when PSU weathered three losing seasons in four years. Most places, there would have been a sacrificial Lion -- or six. Figure, too, that Ganter left only a little bit. He stuck with the program, becoming associate athletic director for football administration in February 2006.

Throw in the longevity of three key Paterno lieutenants, and the Nittany Lion coaches and critical staff have lasted longer at Penn State than Saturday morning classes. That trio: Tom Venturino, director of football operations (27 years); John Thomas, strength and conditioning coach (19) and Spider Caldwell, equipment and facilities coordinator (since the dawn of time).

Paterno knows what he has. As far back as 2004, he's said, "I've been telling people, the most important thing has been keeping our staff together. If we can do that, we will be all right."

They didn't leave.

In a press conference the day after the Capital One Bowl game, Paterno said that he has had to fire only two people in his 45-year head coaching career. Even Ghandi let more people go.

Being an assistant football coach at Penn State is about an ideal position as there is in all of major college football. Think of it as a job, which it is. Compare it to your job and look at it in that light. Then you'll better understand "Joe Paterno's 12-step program for employee retention."

JOE'S 12 STEPS FOR RETAINING EMPLOYEES

1. It's a family business. Five of the nine full-time coaches played football at Penn State. One even grew up in the head coach's house.

2. Success breeds job security. Other than that messy stretch at the beginning of the millennium, the Nittany Lions have been winners for decades. And winners do not get pink slips.

3. Loyalty. Paterno sticks by those who stick by him.

4. Power. Paterno has the authority and wherewithal to make the situation work for his employees, even if it means battling the A.D. or president. Where else does that happen in college athletics? Remember when Larry Johnson Sr. was reportedly ready to leave for the Land of Lincoln? LJ subsequently received an offer he couldn't refuse.

5. No nomad life. Coaches typically change jobs the way The Tonight Show changes hosts. Not at Penn State, a Land Grant university where owning land they can keep for awhile is not taken for granted by the coaches. And not packing up every three years plays well with their wives – and kids.

6. Family values. State College, a small town actually, is a great place to raise a family – which many coaches are doing or have done. It's even a great place to work well into your 60s, as Anderson and Hall can attest.

7. A short commute. Many of the coaches have a 10-minute or less drive to work. And the airport. It matters.

8. Autonomy. The most stressful jobs are those in which the employee can't control the amount or flow of work. Sure, the assistant coaches work like crazy during the season. But Paterno is a master delegater these days, and having done the job for so many years in the same place, the assistants know what has to be done without being told. (And the summer months are a killer, either.)

9. The boss is not always in the house. Think about it: You may not work any less harder, but don't you – or didn't you – like it when the head honcho wasn't in the office?

10. Take your kids to work day. Three of the current assistants, and two prominent former assistants (Ganter and Jerry Sandusky) had players who played for Penn State -- and, by extension, their dads.

11. No outside scrutiny. I saw Dick Anderson in the basement hardware section of O.W. Houts a couple of years ago. (When there was an O.W. Houts.) And Galen Hall in the grocery store not too long ago. And no one was bugging either one. In fact, I don't think anyone knew who they were. Couple that with the fact that the assistants do not have to talk with the media, and most of the staff can toil in anonymity -- with McQueary, Bradley and Jay Paterno being the exceptions.

12. The benes. Sticking in one place helps your IRA (Penn State has a good match) or adds years of higher salary to your state retirement plan. Your kids pay only one-quarter tuition. The health care is great. The facilities are top-notch. The bowl trips constant and cool. Bonuses are determined by an appreciative coach. And you get lots of neat stuff from Nike.

And hey, maybe the assistants' workday on Saturday doesn't really count anyway. After all, it's only a scrimmage.