Final stand for Penn State's Paterno?

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Joe Paterno, as indicated by the famously outdated game-day wardrobes he and his Nittany Lions continue to wear, doesn't do change well.

The football coach, who at 83 will begin his 45th season Saturday as Penn State hosts Youngstown State, lives in the same four-bedroom rancher he purchased more than four decades ago, has driven a used BMW for years, and is so technologically unplugged he'd have difficulty distinguishing an iPhone from a sousaphone.

His vocabulary is stuck in the 1940s. ("They licked us pretty good.") His glasses are still horn-rimmed. His cultural references tend to be classical Greek and Roman. His practice routines are, in many instances, those his predecessor, Rip Engle, taught him in 1950.

But as much as he might want to fight it, delay it, ignore it, Paterno is rapidly approaching the biggest change of all, the end of his lengthy and legendary tenure in Happy Valley.

While no one, save perhaps Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley, and president Graham Spanier, knows exactly when that day will come, several factors have fueled speculation that this could be his farewell season.

There is his health. He suffered a broken leg in 2006, had a hip replaced two years later. Digestive problems this off-season forced him to cancel several appearances and curtail other off-field commitments.

A departure after 2010 would guarantee some impressively round numbers for the Hall of Fame plaque. Paterno would have been at Penn State for 60 years, been head man for 45 years, and, assuming these Nittany Lions can manage at least six wins, he would be the first coach to reach 400. (Paterno claims such statistics mean little. "When I'm down and looking up, are they going to put 399 on top of me, or are they going to put 401? Who the hell cares?")

Maybe more significant, 2011 already will be marked by other major changes for Penn State football, creating a scenario that could make the long-dreaded coaching switch less pronounced. The Nittany Lions and the rest of the Big Ten will realign to accommodate new member Nebraska. And university officials, seeking to milk the athletic department's cash cow once more for desperately needed revenue, will reshuffle Beaver Stadium's seating arrangements.

"I really think this could be his last season," said Mike Poorman, who since 2007 has taught a popular Penn State class on the coach, Joe Paterno: Communications and the Media. "This is the first time I've ever thought that."

But Lou Prato, a longtime friend, isn't convinced.

"He sees the end," said Prato. "But he's still not sure where it is."

By all accounts, including his own, Paterno remains actively involved in practices and at staff meetings, though some say he's not quite as obsessive about film study and has yielded more authority to assistants.

This week, despite calls that he coach from the press level, he vowed to be on the sideline Saturday and beyond.

"He still has the same energy level, the same passion," said guard Stefen Wisniewski.

Penn State men's basketball coach Ed DeChellis visited a few football practices and saw a vigorous Paterno.

"[Joe] looked great," DeChellis said. "He was coaching up his team, very vocal and active."

Paterno, according to Spanier, "is fully engaged with practice and game preparation."

Still, the coach's few public appearances have touched off instant appraisals of his health and mental state.

His voice is weaker.

He looks drawn.

He struggles with his answers.

These assessments have grown so common that the coach recently pleaded with the media, "Don't ask me if I'm going to die."

Friends said the armchair analysts were being unfair, comparing an 83-year-old man to his vibrant image.

"Because he's Joe, people want to forget he's 83," said Prato. "He's just showing his age at last."

But even in the rosiest of outlooks, it's hard to envision the healthiest octogenarian enduring coaching's rigors much longer.

Which leads to the next most common question in Happy Valley this summer:

Who will succeed Paterno?

Will he come from his core of longtime assistants? A Tom Bradley? A Larry Johnson? Will he be an outsider? Rutgers' Greg Schiano? Iowa's Kirk Ferentz? Will Paterno, as most assume, make the call?

While Curley did not reply to interview requests for this article, Spanier, who has been criticized for indicating PSU wouldn't pay a seven-figure salary for Paterno's successor, indicated some sort of succession plan was in place. (Records released last year put Paterno's salary and bonuses at $1.03 million, making him the university's highest-paid employee.)

"[The three of us] discuss the future from time to time," the president said. "And we have worked collaboratively to position the football program well for the years ahead."

Paterno, who has long dreaded retirement, continues to insist that no decision has been made. Clearly, he'd prefer to stay as long as possible.

When he was younger, and the idea seemed far-fetched, Paterno regularly forecast his imminent retirement. He did so at least seven times between 1973 and 1999. But as the possibility grew more real, he stopped.

"I don't want to die," he told the State College Quarterback Club several years ago. "Football keeps me alive."

If Paterno fears life without football, that fear figures to grow next week, when the Nittany Lions travel to face No. 1 Alabama.

Occasionally, when asked why he's been reluctant to leave, Paterno has pointed to a coaching idol, Bear Bryant. The Alabama legend died in 1983, just 37 days after his final game.

Though Paterno has pleaded with the media to stop asking about his health and status, those questions figure to dog him throughout the 2010 schedule.

"That's how it's going to be," Prato said. "There's more concern about Joe than the team."

This latest round of speculation began last spring, when Paterno reacted badly to antibiotics he'd been given following a dental procedure.

The ensuing digestive trouble forced him to cancel annual engagements in Hershey, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia.

Concern abated in July, when the coach was seen relaxing at the beach and eating ice cream with grandchildren in Avalon, N.J., where he has a summer home.

On the night of Aug. 1, he attended a 50th-anniversary party for Jim Meister, an old friend and a former Quarterback Club president.

"He stayed late and he seemed fine," recalled Meister. "Everybody was talking about how good he looked."

"He was sharp and witty," said Prato, the former head of the Penn State All-Sports Museum, who also attended.

The next morning, Paterno flew to Chicago for Big Ten media day, a mandatory event that, according to ex-Penn State quarterback Todd Blackledge, he loathes.

Reporters there were stunned by his appearance. He looked worn out and frail. His voice was barely audible at times. He slurred some words.

"Everyone said he looked tired," Meister said. "And he probably was. He'd been up late and flown all that way. He is 83."

Not surprisingly, the media-day questions and subsequent stories focused on Paterno's health and future. "I have no plans whatsoever as far as whether I'm going to go another year, two years, five years or what have you," the coach said.

Back in State College, the dark rumors heated up. When workers were spotted at a campus bell tower, it was suggested they were tuning it up for the coach's funeral. Opinions about his health were as varied as the views on the coach's oft-debated offensive philosophy.

Those who saw him only at news conferences continued to be surprised. At last Tuesday's Beaver Stadium session, for example, it seemed that after years of operating at 78 r.p.m., he'd slowed to 45.

The voice was softer, the answers punctuated with pauses. At times he had difficulty comprehending questions, asking one reporter four times to repeat a query on Evan Royster.

"I'm not sure where you're coming from," an exasperated Paterno said. "I don't know what you want."

Yet those who've seen him at practice noticed little difference. And earlier Tuesday, Paterno had looked vibrant, sitting in the hot sun for a ceremony in which the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown dedicated a new Catholic Center that will be named after his wife, Sue.

When reporters approached, he was sharp and witty.

"I've done nothing," he said. "The only reason I'm here right now is because I've got to go to a press conference, and I've got to tell a lot of lies. So I need some prayers."

Wednesday marked the season's first Quarterback Club luncheon. Paterno, who has rarely missed these weekly gatherings with boosters, was there. He seemed mentally alert and looked healthy, though again his voice was soft and he struggled climbing the podium steps.

Thursday night, his weekly radio show, Nittany Lion Hotline, syndicated throughout Pennsylvania, was another indication of his diminished role. Instead of answering live phone calls, he prerecorded some answers to e-mailed queries.

"[That] is a tough show for me because of the fact that you've got to come right off the field and go into that," Paterno said recently. "That's always been a problem . . . If we have a lousy practice, somebody wants to ask me about it. I feel like telling them, 'Go jump in a lake.'

"It's a pain in the rear end. I want to get home. I want to start doodling [plays on paper]. I want to figure out what we didn't get done, maybe figure out a couple things for the game on Saturday."

Travel has lessened too. Associates said he hadn't been to a recruit's home since visiting current Ohio State star Terrelle Pryor in 2008, which could explain in part why Penn State has just four oral commitments for next year.

"I don't know whether it's hurt our recruiting," Paterno said. "Our problem is with numbers. [Because Penn State lost so few players this year,] we don't have that many scholarships available."

At home, Paterno's life, by all accounts, has changed little. He enjoys his wife's pasta and visits from his five children and 17 grandchildren. And he still spends considerable time in the easy chair in his den, revising the playbook or watching video of opponents.

"He's not going to talk about [leaving] a lot," said Wisniewski. "It will just come one day. Maybe that's next year, maybe it's two years, maybe it's three years. No one knows. I don't even think Joe knows."

Whenever it occurs, the transition to a post-Paterno era will be a difficult and perilous one for Penn State. Revenue generated by football pays for almost all of the athletic department's $96 million budget. Any large drop-off in on-field success could have a negative impact on the off-field donations that football inspires.

Recognizing that, university officials have begun phasing him out of marketing and promotional efforts.

Paterno, according to some estimates, has helped raise hundreds of millions for the university overall. And he and his wife have contributed millions of their own. His familiar, bespectacled countenance, unmarred by serious scandal, has been the face of Penn State for decades.

"The university has been actively shifting the brand from Paterno to Penn State," Poorman said. "Some of that is due to his age, but some of it is an astute shift in focus. Actually, by him staying so long, it's helped the school make the transition. They've been able to do it gradually."