College football

Age-defying JoePa shutting up critics ... again

No. 12 Nittany Lions take top 5 offense into meeting with Illinois

Ronald Martinez / Getty Images

Joe Paterno has coached Penn State to a 4-0 record and will look to make it five straight Saturday night when the Nittany Lions host Illinois.

How does he do it? How does a man who began coaching when so many of us were in diapers (or yet to be born?) continue to do his job so well without the aid of adult diapers? Paterno has had the same job, the same wife, the same wardrobe and what appears to be the same glasses since, well ... in his first season students were waging a battle on their turntables (ask your dad) between the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde.

Who knew back then that Paterno was at the dawn of compiling a record every bit as classic as those two?

What is his secret? If you were to visit his home, would you find Wilford Brimley and Brian Dennehy hanging out in his swimming pool? Is there an elixir in that Peachy Paterno ice cream that the Penn State creamery (a program whose alums include Ben and Jerry) produces? Is Happy Valley just another term for Shangri-La?

It must be routine that keeps him feeling like a teen.

He has stood on the sideline opposite Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, Jimmy Johnson, Lou Holtz, Vince Dooley, Darrell Royal, Dan Devine. He has lost sleep trying to figure out how to stop everyone from Tony Dorsett to Dan Marino to Herschel Walker to Rocket Ismail. This Saturday night, Illinois visits in a nationally televised prime-time matchup. You think he's really all that concerned about Ron Zook and Juice Williams?

There is the occasional concession to being an octogenarian. Last week, Paterno spent the second half of Penn State’s 45-3 win over Temple in the press box. He was complaining of pain in his right leg. Arthritis? Rheumatism? Osteoporosis? Rigor mortis? None of the above. Paterno hurt his leg performing an onside kick at practice a few weeks earlier (at his age, why tickle fate's fancy by attempting a coffin-corner kick)?

"He's not made of the same stuff the rest of us are made of, I can tell you that right now," said Jay Paterno, JoePa's son and the team's quarterbacks coach. "Whether it's alien or some titanium, I don't know what it is."

He is coaching without a contract extension beyond this season. Come Dec. 21, Paterno could potentially celebrate his 82nd birthday only weeks away from being out of a job. You think he is worried?

Does anyone really believe that he will retire before he lands his 400th win? The coaches who used to recruit against him by asking five-star recruits, "Do you really think Coach Paterno will still be at Penn State four years from now?" have long since retired. While everyone focuses on USC and the Big 12 and the SEC, Penn State has quietly put together as bodacious a first one-third of the season as anyone.

So what happens if the Nittany Lions and their age-immune coach just happen to go undefeated in 2008? Is anyone going to have the cojones to tell an 82-year-old man that he can't park his football team wherever he wants to? Good luck with that.

At Penn State they have already named a library after him. Erected a statue of him outside Beaver Stadium. Someday they’ll name a town after him and call it Joe, Pa. Joe Paterno is Joe Cool. And I'd advise you to treasure nights such as this coming Saturday when you have a chance to see him patrol Penn State's sideline ... I’d advise that, but let's face it, he will still be there after you and I are gone.