Joe Paterno’s Legacy [NoeBrainer]

How would you summarize Joe Paterno's legacy in just one sentence? It's not the easiest thing to do.

Joe Paterno accomplished a lot in his career as the head football coach at Penn State. He is the winningest coach in college football history. 409 wins is nothing to sneeze at. However, the final chapter in his legacy was terrible. The illustrious head coach was fired because he failed to take a proactive approach regarding the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal.

With both of these things in mind, how would you accurately and fairly summarize Joe Paterno's legacy in just one sentence? This is my assessment; Joe Paterno was a great coach who accomplished a ton, but he'll be remembered partly (maybe mainly) for what he didn't do.

One on hand, you have all of the great accomplishments by JoePa as a coach. On the other, you have an extremely messy sex-abuse scandal that Joe Paterno did not handle appropriately. I don't see how you can only mention one without the other. Both of those things have to be mentioned in his overall legacy.

Brian Noe is the Program Director at 104.5 The Team, ESPN Radio in Albany, NY. Brian also hosts “The Noe Show” each weekday from 1-3pm ET on WTMM.