I have a very strong opinion about Joe Paterno and his role in the Penn State scandal, but I’m not going to share that.  What I will talk about is the recently released book, “Paterno,” written by Joe Posnanski.

After reading this book, it was very clear to me that Posnanski is trying to preserve the name of Joe Paterno.

Posnanski, a former senior columnist for Sports Illustrated, currently writes on his personal blog, Joe Blog.

In the book he talks about how Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky didn’t get along and how the two Penn State coaches “despised each other”, according to the new biography of Paterno.

I find it very hard to believe Posnanski when he says that “the book is not a defense of Joe Paterno.”

It is a defense of Paterno.  Paterno had his entire life to write a book about his life, the type of things he experienced, and what it took to get where he was, with his football career.  He knew what most people would think about him in his final days.

So Paterno asked Posnanski to write this pointless book about him so that we believe that Paterno was this guy who would never let such a horrible thing happen to destroy everything he worked so many decades for.  He obviously knew Paterno well enough to trust him with this information.

If you read this book you would find it hard to believe that Paterno would let such things happen.

You’ll also find in this book that Paterno would get enraged about the smallest things.  In the book it mentions that Paterno and his family were out eating dinner one night.

Joe’s sister took food from someone else’s plate and Paterno lost his temper. He got so upset that he left the restaurant.

Posnanski added these small details in the book for a reason.  He is basically trying to say that, if Paterno would get upset about something as small as his sister taking a little piece of food off another’s plate; there is no way he would he sit back and let Jerry Sandusky do what he did to those boys. Nice try, Posnanski.

Now I understand that what I’m saying is not very popular to a lot of people.

I have nothing against Posnanski.  But it’s very clear to me what he tried to do while writing this book.

Paterno was one of the most respected men at Penn State.  His list of accomplishments just blows me away.

He started at Penn State as an assistant from 1950-1965.  He then became the head coach in 1966 and, of course, that ended in 2011.

He had a coaching record of 298 wins and 136 lost, 111 of those wins were vacated due to his role in the scandal.  He won 18 bowl games and six of those were vacated as well.

He also won two national championships and a Big Ten Conference championship, and his list of personal awards goes on and on.

And last but not least, he was inducted into the college football Hall of Fame in 2007.  After winning and being respected for doing everything he did, he didn’t want the first thing people would remember about him, was that he savored his own legacy and only cared about football.

If you’re interested in knowing why Joe Paterno did nothing to stop Jerry Sandusky, don’t read this book, you won’t find it.  But if you want to know about Paterno’s life and what it took for him to make it as a football coach, this is your book.