The best I can tell:
Joe Paterno does not have cancer. He is 84 years old, so occasionally he misspeaks and meanders off-topic. He needs a hearing aid. He plans on staying on as head coach at Penn State. Tom Bradley — likely and if so, correctly, I believe — saw the vacancies at Pitt and Temple as his best two career bets.
In some ways, that is the end of the story.
In others, though, this story is about the power of the Internet and its ability to take octane-fuel and untrue rumors and rocket them literally across the country.
You may have seen “the e-mail.” I have. Countless times, from countless sources. None with any attribution, other than a “higher-up” in Penn State athletics.
Many blogs that cover Penn State football, and college football in general, have posted that e-mail in its near-entirety. I won’t do that here.
In a nutshell, it says that Paterno’s health is dire, that he will retire after the Outback Bowl, that Tony Dungy is the top candidate to replace him, that Joe wants Ron Vanderlinden to succeed him and that planes are filling up with Paternos to see Joe’s swan song.
None of which is true, from what I know, other than multi-generations of Paternos – five kids, 17 grandkids – are jetting to Florida, as per family custom for decades when Penn State is playing a bowl game.
I have seen two versions of the e-mail with names attached. One version shows the e-mail winding its way through a chain of recent Penn State graduates, most of them affiliated with THON. It did not appear to originate with them. I attempted to contact the key people on the e-mail chain and did not get a response. It’s ironic and appropriate that I reached out via social-media avenues, because that is the route the ugly Paterno rumors have taken.
The second version with names attached is like the first, but digs deeper. It lists as the originator – the last name on the chain, at least — a Penn Stater based in Philadelphia who graduated in the mid-2000s.
While these folks didn’t create the piece, they have had a heavy hand in the distribution of wrong information across the Nittany Nation.
As has Matt Baxendell. Who?
Matt Baxendell. He is a college football reporter for SportsRadio 790 The Zone sports station in Atlanta. Baxendell, who is in his mid-20s, went to Ohio State and also works in roadway design. He is a design engineer for the Georgia Department of Transportation.
Over the past month, he’s tweeted and gone on-air constantly to say that Paterno will retire. And, as he points out, he reported it long before the e-mail string had surfaced.
In a video report, Baxendell outlines why Paterno is retiring.
It is almost laughable. There’s no news there, only speculation, based on shreds of old news and tenuous math. Those who follow Penn State football, and Penn State sports in general, will identify some discrepancies with the truth, especially as they relate to the overall Nittany Lion athletic program.
Otherwise, there’s nothing new here. At all. Move along.
I’m wondering: Why would this twentysomething working for the Georgia highway department have the most inside of information that even those who have known Joe Paterno for 30, 40 years do not?
Do Graham Spanier and Tim Curley know this guy? Joe does not.
The thing is, many reputable outlets are passing along these rumors as “news.” Not that Paterno is actually going to retire, just that these “reports” are out there, saying he will.
So, yes, the ill-informed and somewhat-malicious gossip is out there. And, yes, many outlets are reporting that the gossip is out there. It does not make it true. Any of it.
My report:
Don’t believe them.
I take Joe on his word. When he said in Florida this week that he is looking forward to getting his young team ready for the 2011 season, I believe him.
When at his Nov. 23 press conference Joe said he was coming back in 2011, I think that is his intention.
At this point, he has yet to talk with Spanier about it. And I do believe Joe was firing the opening salvo, using the media as a bully pulpit to force Penn State’s hand and honor their three-year agreement, which has next season as the final year.
Here’s what Paterno said two days before Thanksgiving, the week of the Michigan State game:
“I am looking forward to it (coming back),” Paterno said. “I think we’ve struggled a little bit this year, with the youth and with the injuries and the whole bit.
“I think we’re not where I would like us to be yet. But I think with a good spring and a preseason practice, we could be a pretty good football team next year, and I’d like to be part of it.
“…So it’s been a good situation. And I don’t see any reason to leave it right now.”
Now whether Penn State wants Paterno to be back, I am not sure. But the fact that Paterno is in his final year of a contract does give him leverage – for 2011. After that, all bets are off.
BRADLEY
As for the information about Bradley and Vanderlinden, news of their failure to get the job at Temple was first leaked by someone in the football program not named Bradley, Paterno or Johnson.
Most certainly, Bradley has talked off-the-record with reporters – he has a good rapport with many on the beat – but he was not the insider who provided the info that resulted in the first Pennsylvania media post that Florida’s Steve Addazio got the Temple job.
If Paterno would retire right after the Outback Bowl – again, I do not believe this to be true — that would give his successor less than five weeks to accomplish what should takes months, years even — especially when succeeding Joe Paterno.
The turnaround would have to be incredibly fast. A coach would have to be hired, a staff set and recruiting addressed 24/7 — it makes no sense.
Why the rush after 61 years?
If that were to happen, the only scenario I could envision — IF Joe retires after the Outback — is that Bradley would get the job. And if the fix is in, that Joe is retiring, then why would Bradley look to the east and to the west of the commonwealth in hopes of finding gainful employment elsewhere after being a Penn State fixture for 36 years?
Makes no sense.
And neither do the e-mail chain or Baxendell’s pronouncements.
Earlier coverage
