Editor’s Note: This is the fifth 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 to see the question of the day. Monday, we asked: How has a 334-pound man disappeared? Today we ask: ‘Why are Joe’s new glasses fine?’
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Mark Brennan of FightOnState.com and Pat Boland of ESPN Radio in State College were the first reporters to get the scoop back in February:
Joe Paterno has new glasses. Actually, Joe doesn’t even need glasses.
The pair of reporters — two of the best on the beat in finding and reporting news — were at a press event for the Centre Volunteers in Medicine charity, where they saw Paterno and his wife Sue. The Paternos were honorary coaches for the 2010 CVIM Boston Marathon Challenge.
As you can see in this video, Paterno takes off his new glasses and busts a bit on Brennan: ‘I can even see you without them…unfortunately.’
The glasses thing has become a running shtick for Paterno. At a press conference with several dozen members of the media last week, the 83-year-old Penn State coach took off his glasses, grabbed a pile of papers and pointed to an imaginary line on one of the white sheets:
‘I can read, the whole bit. I can read my notes without any glasses. And it says here, ‘Keep your patience with these guys.’ ‘
Paterno’s Coke bottle-bottom glasses have been part of his iconic look for decades – along with his rolled-up khakis, his tie and white Oxford shirt, and his never- then slowly-greying swirling black hair.
Paterno’s vision took a look for the better (except when seeing reporters, he now jokes) after offseason surgery at the Scheie Eye Institute in Philadelphia. Dr. Stuart Fine, whom Paterno said he has known for 40 years, did the surgery in January.
Paterno had been having trouble reading in the six months leading up to the surgery, which was why he originally went to Philadelphia to see Fine — who then made things dandy.
‘I don’t need the glasses,’ Paterno said. ‘It’s amazing.’
The Institute is the Department of Ophthalmology for the University of Pennsylvania Health System and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The department is a world leader in research and was No. 2 in 2008 in the nation in funding by the National Eye Institute. It provides clinical care, training and community outreach.
There’s no better spokesman for their work than Paterno himself. ‘The people down there at the Eye Institute at Penn did a fantastic job,’ he said.
Paterno’s vision has improved so much that he doesn’t need to wear the glasses along the sidelines. ‘But,’ the coach said, ‘they want me to wear them any time I’m outside…to protect them.’
Before Paterno had even decided to have the surgery, Penn State Public Broadcasting had secured a pair of his old eyeglasses from Sue as an auction item for its 18th annual Connoisseur’s Dinner, a fundraiser for WPSU.
By the time the dinner took place on Feb. 20, the news of Joe’s surgery — and the availability of an autographed pair of his glasses — had pushed the bidding nearly five figures.
Kevin and Michelle Coppola of Maryland, both Penn State grads, made the winning bid of $9,000 for Joe’s glasses.
I’m not sure if Joe wore the winning spectacles in 2008, but if he did you can rest assured that the Coppolas are now looking through Rose Bowl-colored glasses.
