Paterno was the last of the long-term coaches

By RALPH D. RUSSO

Associated Press

There will never be another coaching career like Joe Paterno’s.

His time at Penn State started long before coaches were pulling down multimillion dollar salaries, before fire so-and-so.com web sites and win-now-or-else attitudes at programs that have rarely contended for championships.

No Division I coach won more games (409) or had a longer run at one school than Paterno.

It’s hard to fathom a coach staying at a power program such as Penn State for even 20 years these days, let alone the 46 seasons Paterno led the Nittany Lions.

Coaches who come to define not just a team but a school, Hall of Famers such as Bear Bryant, Tom Osborne, Bo Schembechler, Bobby Bowden and Paterno, seem to be going the way of the wishbone and tear-away jerseys in college football.

“Look what’s happening,” Bowden told The Associated Press on Sunday, hours after Paterno died at the age of 85. “Coaches getting fired in two years. Coaches making a million dollars here and they get $2 million and they leave. They break a five-year contract. You’ve got unloyalty at both ends.”

The 82-year-old Bowden was nudged into retirement two years ago after 34 seasons at Florida State. Paterno was fired during a chaotic week in November after his former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, was charged with sexually abusing children.

Bowden and Paterno became friends over the years partly because, as they grew older, they could relate to each like few other coaches could.

“We’d sit and talk and discuss a lot of NCAA questions,” Bowden said. “Those were great memories. My wife Ann and Sue [Paterno’s wife] got along real good together too.”

Bowden said he’d written a letter to Paterno “not too long ago,” but hadn’t spoken with him for some time.

After Paterno was fired, Virginia Tech’s Frank Beamer became the longest-tenured coach working in the highest level of Division I football.

“College football will miss Joe Paterno,” said Beamer, who is 65 and has been leading the Hokies since 1987.

The next-longest continuous tenure among current coaches belongs to 60-year-old Mack Brown, who has been at Texas since 1998.

“I think that the changes in communications and media [changes that of course accelerated Joe’s termination once the grand jury indictments were issued] create a level of scrutiny and pressure that will make 10 years at the same FBS school rare,” Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said in an email.

Some of Notre Dame’s greatest coaches (Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz) only lasted around a decade, but Brian Kelly is Notre Dame’s fourth head coach since 1997.