Navigation: Jump to content areas:


Pro Quality. Fan Perspective.
Login-facebook
Around SBN: Trent Richardson Interviews Fellow Brown Brandon Weeden

Links to the site which we do not speak of, here's the text:

Maybe you will never be convinced Joe Paterno was a good man who made one catastrophic mistake, but do you have time for just one story?

In 2000, Penn State freshman defensive back Adam Taliaferro had his spine crushed when tackling an Ohio State player. He lay on that September field paralyzed and panicked.

The first person he saw when he opened his eyes was Paterno, who died Sunday at 85.

"He could see I was losing it, but his eyes stayed totally calm," Taliaferro remembers. "And I remember that familiar, high-pitched voice, going, 'You're gonna get through this, Kid. You're gonna be OK.' And I just trusted him. I believed it."

Taliaferro wound up in a hospital bed in Philadelphia, everything frozen solid below the neck. Doctors said he had about a 3 percent chance of walking again. And every other week Paterno would fly to Philly to see him.

"He'd bring our trainer and a couple of my teammates," Taliaferro says. "Nobody in the hospital knew he was there." Paterno would tell him all the dumb things his teammates and coaches had done lately. Pretty soon, Taliaferro would be laughing his IVs out.

"I can't tell you what that meant to me," says Taliaferro, now 30. "I'm stuck in that hospital, and here's Coach Paterno bringing a piece of the team to me, in the middle of the season. How many coaches would do that?"

One midnight, Taliaferro moved a toe and the first person his dad called was Paterno. His dad held the phone to Adam's ear and Paterno said, "You're gonna prove 'em all wrong, Kid!"

From then on, every visit, Paterno wanted to see Taliaferro move something new. "I got to where I wanted to be ready. A finger, a hand, whatever. I wanted to perform for Coach Paterno."

One day, five months into it, Paterno walked in and said, "What's new, Kid?" Taliaferro swung his legs over the bed, stood and extended his hand to shake.

"I'll never forget his eyes," he says. "They were already huge behind those Coke-bottle glasses, but they got even bigger." Paterno gave him a 10-second hug and then said, "Kid, ya make me proud."

A man is more than his failings.

I learned a lot about Paterno when I wrote a story about him in 1986 for Sports Illustrated. I've learned a lot about him since. He was a humble, funny and giving man who was unlike any other coach I ever met in college football. He rolled up his pants to save on dry cleaning bills. He lived in the same simple ranch house for the last 45 years. Same glasses, same wife, same job, for most of his adult life.

He was a man who had two national championships, five undefeated seasons, and yet for years he drove a white Ford Tempo. In 46 years as a head coach, he never had a single major NCAA violation.

He was the only coach I've ever known who went to the board of trustees to demand they increase entrance requirements, who went to faculty club meetings to hear the lectures, who listened to opera while drawing up game plans.

He was a Depression kid who wouldn't allow stars on helmets or names on jerseys. And he hated expensive tennis shoes.

He'd see a player wearing Air Jordans and say, "It's not the sneakers, Kid, it's the person in them."

One day Taliaferro wore an entirely different pair into his office, a pair of "Air Paternos" he'd made himself. "He freaked out," Taliaferro remembers. "He was about to call Nike. He thought they were real!"

If a player was struggling with a subject, Paterno would make him come to his house for wife Sue's homemade pasta and her tutoring. One time, he told a high-school blue chipper named Bob White he wouldn't recruit him unless he agreed to read 12 novels and turn in two-page book reports to Sue. They were the first books he ever finished. White wound up with two degrees and a job at the university.

Paterno was other things, too, like controlling and immovable. He lingered as head coach when he promised time and again he wouldn't. And when he needed to follow up on what he'd been told about Jerry Sandusky and a child in the shower in 2002, he failed miserably.

But he followed up for thousands of others.

Even though Taliaferro would never play football again, Paterno stayed on him to keep moving. "I came to Penn State to become a lawyer," he told him. "But I never made it. You could, Kid. You're smart."

He got the fully recovered Taliaferro a summer internship with the NFLPA in New York and, before you knew it, Taliaferro was a corporate lawyer in Cherry Hill, N.J. He successfully ran for local office there and is now running for the Penn State board of trustees, where he wants to help his school heal from a scandal Paterno made worse with his neglect.

"The last three months, I've just wanted to go up on a rooftop and shout, 'I wish you knew him like I do!'" Taliaferro says. "I know, in my heart, if he'd understood how serious this situation was, he'd have done more."

I believe that, too. But if you don't, I respect that. I only ask this:

If we're so able to vividly remember the worst a man did, can't we also remember the best?

4 months ago Tiny NittanyNutz2 9 comments 3 recs  | 

Story-email Email Printer Print

More from Black Shoe Diaries

Nitt Picks Likes Cupcakes

May 2008 by BSD - 2 comments

Nitt Picks Is a Webcam Predator

May 2008 by BSD - 3 comments

Comments

Display:

I don't specifically recall Riley trashing JoePa

Not saying he didn’t, but just hat I don’t remember it (there were so many, it is hard to keep track)

by The JuggerNitt on Jan 23, 2012 11:05 PM EST up reply actions   1 recs

But he did follow up.

WIth the witness. Multiple times. HOW IS THAT NOT ENOUGH!?!?! HOW IS THAT FAILING MISERABLY!?!?!?

by PSUEnrg02 on Jan 23, 2012 3:30 PM EST reply actions   2 recs

Because they don't believe that

The subtext for all of this is that they assume PSU knew and covered it up when Sandusky left coaching, and that’s why he didn’t get a coaching job somewhere else, etc. etc. And that Joe was such a huge figure he effectively had control over any university matters he cared to, so he told the administration that it had been settled and not to pursue it and they answered to him.

All of which is a lot easier thing to be cynical enough to believe if you don’t know the difference between Joe and an average college coach, and if you have no idea how universities work. Even a little bit of knowledge about either and you don’t assume anything like that, which is why there’s been such an incredible divergence between mainstream and BSD opinion.

by Notclevr on Jan 30, 2012 11:15 AM EST up reply actions  

Now ESPN is being fair. It's their secret plan

to win back those of us who have sworn them off. IT’S TOO LATE!!!! Nothing will make me watch or click, including the over-hyped March Madness and its screaming hypocrite face, “Dick” Vitale. I’m finding that my family, books, movies, exercise, and etc. are a much better use of time. (Excemption granted to Penn State games.) Same goes for BTN, which I already cancelled at Comcast.

by oldgrad'73 on Jan 23, 2012 4:24 PM EST reply actions  

I fleshed out this approach taken by media

in a post about Gregg Doyel a few weeks ago. Immediately write inflammatory, sensational and righteous pieces, then later write an article with informed perspective showing the good side. I ended the post with something like “Gregg Doyel can get fucked with a barbed and aesthetically horrible dildo” or something like that, if you were wondering what I thought about this approach.

"We gon' get down. We gon' do the do. I'm going to hit these mother****ers" - Dock Ellis, May 1, 1974.

by OctaShields on Jan 24, 2012 11:51 AM EST up reply actions  

They must of had this perspective...

hidden with the Fine tapes. They just now go around to this?

I just don't want to die without a few scars. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 6

by LB31Monster on Jan 23, 2012 6:13 PM EST reply actions  

Comments For This Post Are Closed


User Tools

Welcome to Black Shoe Diaries. If you haven't already done so, create an account and get involved in the conversation.

FanPosts

Community blog posts and discussion.

Recommended FanPosts

Avatar2_small
Sad News: 717's Own, Reading Rambler Passes On
154690_10100374022013820_13900087_66639438_4085030_n_small
Breaking Down Penn State's Inaugural D1 Hockey Schedule
At_the_foot_of_a_legend_small
My Obligatory Off-Season Book Post

Recent FanPosts

Hugh_griffith_small
Food for Thursday....The PA Pineapple Company
Psukoolaid_small
Suggestions for fun in Minneapolis?
1-joe-paterno_small
Please clarify your posting policy.
A_cullen_the_bug_small
JoePa & Esquire - and other stories
Jet_ski_jump__reef_central_avatar__small
Sandusky Jury Selection Begins June 5th
Small
Kameron Miles
Small
ESPN - reporting PSU considering schedule changes
Joepa1_small
Jimmy Johnson's worst loss

+ New FanPost All FanPosts >

SHOP THE BLACK SHOE DIARIES STORE

Gameday Depot University Apparel


Managing Editors

Zn_avatar_small Mike Pettigano

Img110_small Jeff Junstrom

Asst. Editors

6a00d8341c630a53ef0105369fb7ee970b-800wi_small Jared Slanina

Olmec_small Devon Edwards

Baller_small Eric Gibson

Mauti_small Cari Greene

Staff Writers

Iron_armor_small Galen

New4_good_small Nick Blonde

Turd_ferguson_psu_small Tim Aydin

On_the_way_to_grad_small Kyle_Martin

N53100510_31463067_5584_small Adam Collyer

Bus-fire-bikes_small Dan Vecellio

What-a-country-yakov_small bscaff

Small Keith Platt

Small TimHyland