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.

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