The prospect of having Joe Paterno fired isn't exactly new, since the Penn State Nittany Lions came close to doing it several years ago. Of course, on the morning of Nov. 5 Penn State fans like myself and the entire nation at large never imagined it would happen just five days later - and never imagined why.
But with Paterno officially fired on the night of Nov. 9, it serves as the surreal climax to his personal saga, if not the climax of the most surreal, nauseating scandal of all time. Yet thanks to Jerry Sandusky's alleged years of sexual molestation and the alleged willful ignorance of Paterno and the Penn State administration, the board of trustees conceded that Paterno couldn't even be allowed to get his own farewell.
The latest round of outrage started on the morning of Nov. 9 when Paterno announced he would retire at the end of the season. This time, the anti-Paterno outcry across the country was that he needed to be fired well before the end of the year and not coach one more game. However, there was a slim argument to be made for at least letting him coach on Nov. 12 against the Nebraska Cornhuskers at home.
If Paterno could be allowed to go out on his own terms, he certainly couldn't do it as thoroughly as he wanted. The one and only chance he had to have a slightly successful farewell on the field was to coach in Beaver Stadium one last time and then leave forever. Because if he was allowed to coach in Ohio State on Nov. 19, Wisconsin on Nov. 26 and possibly in the Big Ten title game and Rose Bowl, he would not get the same kind of support by a long shot.
Asking him to coach on the road and face the music there would have been unbelievably foolish - although this story has been defined by foolish decisions at best. It was clear by the outrage after Paterno's retirement announcement that even letting him coach at Happy Valley was seen as equally foolish at best, and criminal at worst. However, it would have been the closest thing to a compromise between a coach that wanted to finish out a whole year and a nation that wanted him out now.
There was perhaps no way in which Paterno would have a pleasant and controversy free send off before he got fired. Yet coaching in Happy Valley one last time - and only in Happy Valley - was the only shot he had at that. In any case, he would have hopefully stayed in the press box as he has all season to coach and not appear on the sidelines. And perhaps if Penn State got his goodbye out of the way in the only friendly space he had left and then let him go, it stood a better chance to focus on playing at Ohio State and Wisconsin in the next two weeks.
At the least, the shots of Paterno in his isolated box far above his worshippers, and cut off from the outrage of the rest of the world, would have been more fitting and revealing than ever before. But circumstances made it so that Paterno had to be fired before he got that little bit of a regular ending. That is the biggest statement as to how far this scandal has brought him and Penn State down.
The fact that riots and protests broke out on campus afterwards suggests that even now, he would have gotten a big sendoff and cheering farewells anyway if he coached on Nov. 12 - which may make a statement in of itself. But it certainly wasn't the one that the board of trustees wanted, as it got an intense backlash on campus that it did not deserve - especially since it was the first group of people in Penn State to take a stand like this in over a decade, if not longer.
I was one of the few people that seemed to think there was a case for letting Paterno coach against Nebraska - if only with the condition that he never coach again afterwards. Yet the latest day of madness, tragedy and borderline inexplicable protests on Paterno's behalf show just how upside down things have become.
Just a week ago, having Paterno fired before he got a soaring farewell seemed impossible and criminal - but it took only five days for it to be the other way around.
Robert Dougherty is a life-long Philadelphia resident and Penn State fan.
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