STATE COLLEGE, Penna, – When students learned that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno had been diagnosed with lung cancer, they took to the streets by the thousands last night, clashing with police and overturning at least one medical vehicle.
“Why don’t they leave Coach Paterno alone?” demanded Barry Martin, a political science major from Altoona. “It’s bad enough he was fired by our gutless board of trustees just for doing his job. Do they have to kick him when he’s down?”
A large group of protestors gathered in front of the Paterno Medical Centre on this bucolic campus. One student carried a makeshift sign that read, “Doctors Are Bad for Your Health.” Others chanted “One, two, three, four, throw the doctors out the door.”
Coach Paterno, 84, was fired on November 9 by the Penn State board of trustees, who believed he should have done more when he was told nine years ago that a young boy had been raped in the showers of a Penn State football facility by former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.
Coach Paterno did report the incident to his immediate superior, but the board thought he should have gone to the police or questioned Coach Sandusky or at least followed up on the incident—all of which Coach Paterno failed to do.
As campus police sought to control students at the Paterno Library last night, a weeping student said, “Joe Paterno put this school on the map, and this is the thanks he gets? Why don’t they leave him alone?”
Students also gravitated to a large statue of Coach Paterno in front of Beaver Stadium, where they placed teddy bears and get well cards. Many students had been camped out for twenty-four hours in Paternoville, a tent city in the stadium parking lot, in order to get good seats when stadium gates open for the remote broadcast of the Penn State-Ohio State game this afternoon.
Students said they would not let news of Coach Paterno’s cancer, which is not considered life threatening at this point, keep them from the game.
“JoePa would want us to watch the game,” said Melissa Gonzalez, a communications major. “Besides, what else is there to do around here?”
In related news: although support for Coach Paterno ran high, a few students were unmoved by the news of his diagnosis.
“Do you know why Joe Paterno got cancer?” asked one student. “Because even god hates him.”
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