As the rumors of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno’s death began to circulate Saturday night, and of course became fact Sunday morning, I started thinking about how I might add to the broad conversation of the legendary coach, whose career came to a sudden and controversial end last November.

I won’t sit in judgment of Paterno, a man I never met, for the way he handled a situation that I hope to never face. I will say I would like to think I would have handled things differently, but unless you are from Paterno’s generation and have sat in his seat as a head football coach at an elite university, you can’t rightly judge a man’s inaction or lack of more action. I’m not condoning Paterno by saying he was a product of a generation when acts against children were unheard of and never talked about, but I am trying to understand why he didn’t do more.

That final sad chapter aside, Paterno should be remembered for one of the great coaching careers in football history. I am neither a Joe Paterno or Penn State fan, but I can’t help but appreciate 409 wins in a career as a head coach that spanned 46 years.

I was in the  third grade when Paterno took over as the head coach at Penn State. My dad, who will be 80 later this year, was a high school senior in Memphis, Tenn., when Paterno coached is first game as a Penn State assistant in the fall of 1950.

In fact, Paterno was at Penn State more than one-quarter of our nation’s history, which really is mind boggling.

From every indication, Paterno was an honorable man and coach that did things the right way. He graduated football players, he gave money back to the university and he played by the rules.

And, at the age of 85, with football having been taken from him, Paterno’s body and spirit gave out.

Paterno’s death Sunday came almost 29 years to the day of Jan. 26, 1983 that Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant died. Like Paterno, Bryant died just weeks after coaching his last game.

There is no doubt in my mind that we have elevated big time college coaches to a place beyond what they probably deserve. In many states the head football coach is the highest paid public employee and the assistant coaches often make more than the governor.

We cheer the success of the coaches and their teams and jeer them when things go wrong.

In many ways Joe Paterno embodied everything that we would like for college football to stand for as well as the things we fear it has become.

Joe Paterno’s legacy will be debated for years to come, but now is the time to let his family, players, friends and fans of Penn State and college football to remember Joe Pa.

Rest In Peach, Coach.

I arrived back at work a little while ago after a week off for Christmas.

My first vacation stop on Dec. 17 was in Tallahassee to see my niece graduate from Florida State. The best part of the graduation was seeing Stephanie walk a across that platform and receive a well-deserved congratulations along with a hearty round of applause from the family.

The sports writer and baseball fan in me was happy to get the added bonus of recently retired St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa was the speaker that delivered the graduation address. For those of you who don’t know it, LaRussa is a graduate of the FSU law school. That said, I think most baseball fans would agree that LaRussa chose the right career path in baseball.

My stop in Tallahassee was only a few hours and shortly after the graduation it was on to DeLand where I enjoyed the Christmas holiday with my family.

I love the time away and being with the ones I love, but I was ready to get home and I’m glad to be back at work. There is a certain satisfaction in doing my job that I can’t find anywhere else.

Some people are made to teach students, others are made to design bridges and highways and still others are born to practice some form or type of medicine and the list could go on to every occupation from store keeper to book keeper and even zoo keeper. But as for me, I was designed to hang out with athletes and coaches and write about their games and I guess that’s why after a few days off I’m always ready to get back into the swing of things.

I’ll admit I didn’t shed any tears last year when Urban Meyer stepped down as the University of Florida head football coach. First of all he made a habit of beating Tennessee. And other than that I find him to be smug and arrogant.

That said, I understand why the Gator Nation loved him, and the Buckeye faithful of Ohio State were excited about Meyer being named their new coach. No matter what you might think or how you might feel about Meyer there is no denying the guy can coach football.

At least now he’ll be coaching in Ohio and the Big 10. He might occasionally have the opportunity to coach against a Southeastern Conference team, but it will no longer be an every week thing and that’s something every fan not associated with Florida can be happy about.

Meyer’s deal at Ohio State is expected to make him the highest paid coach in college football…not that he was hurting with the more than $3 million a year he was making at Florida.

If you ask me Meyer, and every coach in college football is overpaid, but I understand the free market system of supply and demand. Meyer was in demand and Ohio State is supplying the money.

And thus I have another reason not to shed any tears for Urban.

I finally got a Twitter account today. I guess I’m now officially a part of the 21st century. I hope you follow me on Twitter at BigRandle.

I don’t see Twitter as a way to give people a blow-by-blow description of my life. To be honest, it’s really sort of dull. I doubt if anyone cares when I’m eating supper or what I’m watching on TV, so don’t expect to see the life or Randy on my Twitter messages. However, I believes readers want breaking updates on live games and athletic events. Twitter will allow me to keep fans informed about what’s happening as it happens at games I’m covering so that’s a plus.

I know the best way I can serve those that follow local teams is to break sports news as I receive it and Twitter is just another tool to help me stay on top of things.

In the next few days I’ll be covering the Baker-Vernon football game, and the volleyball regional final between Baker and Freeport. I’ll be twitting from those events as I have the opportunity.

It might take me a while to get up to speed on this latest technology, but I’ll get there. It seems like only yesterday I was sitting in a freshman introduction to mass communications class at the University of Tennessee and the instructor told us the wonders of what we now know as the Internet. He said one day we wouldn’t need to have our paper delivered to our doorstep, but we could read it on our personal computer. In the spring of 1977 the concept of the Internet seemed as foreign as modern air travel would have seemed to those watching the first flight of the Wright Brothers.

Here I am a little less than 35 years later using the technology that seemed so visionary back then. Twitter is the latest method of keeping folks informed and I ready or not, here I come.

I just ran across a story that said the Big East Conference is considering adding Boise State to the league. A point of emphasis here is that’s Boise State as in Idaho.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the rights of a conference to invite any school it wants and for any school to accept the invitation, but enough is enough.

The leaders of the Big East have seemingly been operating in panic mode since Pittsburgh and Syracuse accepted invitations to join the Atlantic Coast Conference a few weeks ago. That panic was elevated when Texas Christian, which had agreed to join the conference, decided to accept an invitation this week to join the Big 12.

I know it gets confusing and it reminds me of the high school district realignments that take place in Florida every two years. As confusing as it can be having to learn new districts every other year at least the Florida High School Association keeps teams as closely aligned as possible based on student population and geography.

Boise State in the Big East is about like moving Crestview to a district in Miami.

Sadly, I don’t think the expansion of college conferences will stop any time soon. I believe within the next year the Southeastern Conference will add a 14th team to bring the conference back to an even number of teams following the recent addition of Texas A&M. I have no way of knowing this, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the SEC expanded to 16 teams.

With the cries for a DI college football playoff system, like it or not, it makes sense to eventually expand to four or five super conferences. Each conference would have 16 teams divided into four divisions. There could be semifinal and championship games in each conference.

Depending on the final model anywhere from four to eight teams could be invited to the DI playoffs that would have either two or three rounds. I might not like it, but it seems to be what is coming in the next five or 10 years.

In the mean time I hope conference leaders will have enough sense to check their geography books before offering Boise State membership in any conference east of the Rocky Mountains.

Now is the time to stop the madness.

I couldn’t tell you how many high school football games I’ve covered much less the number of high school games I’ve seen in person and on TV.

My best guess would be I’ve covered about 250 games. I wouldn’t try to guess the total number of games I’ve seen since the fall of 1970 when I attended my first Gulf Breeze game in the school’s first season.

I have seen some of the great ones play the game. I saw a young Emmitt Smith run for Escambia, Walton’s Mitzi Jackson in the early 1970s. I also saw a kid at Lenoir City High School in Tennessee,Travis Adams set the single-season rushing record in that state running for 3,000 yards plus.

I’ve witnessed Glen Coffee work his magic at Fort Walton Beach. And I was on hand to watch Adam Phillips carry Crestview to the Class 3A state championship game in 2002.

If the average high school football game has 80 plays that is some 20,000 football plays I’ve recorded either in written word or through photography in my time as a sports writer. You can probably double that number when you throw in the other high school games I’ve seen.

Through the years I’ve witnessed many great and not-so-great players make many great plays. Friday night I witnessed the best greatest play I’ve in Crestview’s win over Escambia when Tyler Henderson intercepted a Gator pass and returned it 65 yards for a touchdown.

What started out as just another interception return by Henderson quickly became the stuff from which legends are born. Henderson intercepted the pass at the Crestview 35-yard line and started to work his magic that was one part poetry in motion, a second part bull in a China shop, a third part spinning top and fourth part the speed of a shooting star as it flashes across the night sky.

Henderson zigged and zagged past people, ran over others and outran them all. I don’t know for sure, but I believe every Escambia player had at least one chance to tackle Henderson. I’m certain several Gators had multiple shots at him on his way to the score.

How good was Henderson’s interception return? Bulldog coach Kevin Pettis grabbed the microphone from the radio sideline reporter and told the listening audience it was the best he had ever seen as well.

The play was so good that more than 60 hours later I still can’t get it out of my mind or for that matter find words to do it justice.

It is the best play I’ve ever seen, and I don’t expect to see one any better in the next 20,000 plays I’ll witness.

Football season 2011 is finally here.

Tomorrow night will be Kickoff Classic night. And next week the rubber meets the road, or should I say, the foot meets ball to actually kick off the regular season.

If all goes well Baker and Crestview will make it to their respective championship games and I won’t have another Friday night free until just before Christmas and that’s OK with me.

I’m anxious to see the new-look Gators of Matt Brunson and Bulldogs of Kevin Pettis. Both teams should be competitive in their respective classifications.

So hang on to your hats. It’s football time!

High school football practice in Florida officially starts Monday and middle school practice is already underway. But anyone that has driven by a local schoo in the early morning or late afternoon knows teams have been working out all summer in the heat of June and July.

Let’s face it, there is no escaping the heat in Florida or anywhere else in the South. This time of year heat is a problem just about everywhere in the United States. Sadly, about this time each year a story pops up about a high school or college player that couldn’t handle the heat and suffered a heat-related death.

The most recent of these stories popped up on ESPN.com today and tells of the death of 14-year old Tyquan Xavier Bradley, a freshman at Lamar High School in Darlington, S.C.

Bradley was leaving the practice field after a one-hour session in helmets and no pads when he collapsed. The team had been given five-minute water breaks every 20 minutes during the practice. The story doesn’t say how big Bradley was or what position he played and what those factors might have had to do with his death. There are even still questions as to if the heat contributed to Bradley’s death.

Each time a young man dies during or after a football practice there seem to be more questions than answers. The sad fact is that even the best conditioned athletes sometime die for no obvious reason.

At the end of the day coaches and players must take all the necessary precautions to deal with the hot and humid conditions of August in the South because there really is no escaping the heat.

As most people know I’m anything but a Florida Gator fan. I guess that has something to do with the fact that I graduated from the University of Tennessee. Even if I wasn’t all Vol, I probably would have attended Florida State.

But even the most die hard of opponents will pull for SEC or in-state teams in big series or games of national importance.

In college baseball there is nothing bigger than the College World Series and if you were watching Monday night you saw a kid from the panhandle strut his stuff for the Gators.

About 15 months ago Florida pitcher Karsten Whitson was on the mound in Crestview as his Chipley team took on the Bulldogs. Crestview won that game 5-1 as Gabe Gunter and Kameron Miller matched Whitson pitch for pitch.

A couple of months later, Whitson was the ninth overall pick by the San Diego Padres in the Major League Baseball draft. Whitson is reported to have turned down more than $2 million in signing bonuses to pitch for he Gators. Whitson will be eligible for the draft again in 2013, and if all goes well he’ll still have a chance at the big bucks.

For now it’s fun watching Whitson in the College World Series just as two years ago I watched Crestview’s Blake Dean help lead LSU to the national championship.

It seems there are a lot of stars on local high school diamonds.

I wish there was some way I could turn back the clock, and the scales, a little this week. I guess you could say I’m turning back the clock as I gather on Pensacola Beach on Friday night and in Pensacola on Saturday as the Gulf Breeze High School Class of 1976 gathers for our 35-year reunion.

Deep down inside I really don’t feel as if I’ve been out of high school for 35 years. In reality, I’ve lived almost twice as long since graduation as I had up to graduation day. In other words, the years have a way of catching up with all of us whether we like it or not.

I’ll admit I wasn’t much of an athlete in high school but my memories of games played still flash fresh in my mind.

I recall running in the same track meets as Baker legend Houston McTear. And there was a Friday night my junior year, in the fall of 1974 sitting in the locker room at Jack Foster Stadium just before Gulf Breeze went out and won our sixth football game of the year to assure the Dolphins of our first winning season in school history in the school’s fifth year.

I also remember the pain of my senior year when the Bulldogs returned the favor and beat us the last game of my senior year. It took a while, but I have forgiven the 1975 Crestview football team. Deep inside the pain still remains from that night almost 36 years ago.

I don’t know if my classmates and I will talk about those games or really reflect on the young people we were way back then. I know we will have yearbooks and press clippings with us to remind us of those wonderful days of youth.

In reality all of our lives are in some ways good and bad shaped by those shared our youth with. I look forward to being with my old classmates and friends as we celebrate not only who we were, but the people we’ve become thanks to those special days at Gulf Breeze High.