Still, the calls for Paterno to step down were widespread and fierce. It was true that Paterno seemed out of sorts. He coached from the press box because of an injury, and he hated it; he did not even have time to go down and speak to his team at halftime. He was less available and less forthcoming than ever. Reporters who had long felt slighted pushed back. "It probably shouldn’t be this way," one told me. "But I think everybody just wants something to change. It’s been the same here for so long that Joe’s sick of us, we’re sick of him. It would be nice to just move on to something new."

When Penn State beat Illinois on October 29, it was Paterno’s 409th victory as a coach. He already had the record for Division I-A so this wasn’t exactly a record. But he had passed Grambling’s Eddie Robinson for the top spot on the Division I list for victories. It wasn’t an official record, but it gave Penn State the opportunity to celebrate Paterno one more time.1 President Graham Spanier and athletic director Tim Curley showed up to give him a plaque. Paterno sounded tired. The reporters’ questions sounded tired too. It wasn’t much of a celebration.

Nobody knew it then, but that was the last game Joe Paterno would coach.

1. _In late July 2012, the NCAA announced that its punishment of Penn State for the Sandusky scandal would include the vacating of all wins by the football program dating back to 1998. As a result, Paterno no longer holds either of these lifetime coaching records; officially, he now ranks twelfth in Division I. _

Scott Paterno was the first in the family to understand that the Pennsylvania grand jury presentment that indicted Jerry Sandusky could end his father’s career. This wasn’t surprising; Scott tended to be the most realistic—or cynical, depending on who you asked—in the family. He had run for Congress and lost and along the way tasted the allure and nastiness of public life. He had worked as a lawyer and as a lobbyist. He would sometimes tell people, "Hey, don’t kid yourself, I’m the asshole of the family." When Scott read the presentment, he called his father and said, "Dad, you have to face the possibility that you will never coach another game."

Joe thought his son was making too much of it. But he had not yet read the presentment. Scott had been getting word for weeks through his sources that the indictment was coming down, and that it was unimaginable. But even going over in his mind what might be the worst-case scenario didn’t prepare him for the twenty-three-page firebomb. It told a hideous story of a famous former coach, philanthropist, and community leader who used his access to troubled children and Penn State football resources to commit unthinkable crimes against children. As Scott struggled through the details, he grew angrier and angrier. He had known Sandusky for much of his life. He had showered in those athletic showers as a boy, with Sandusky undoubtedly in the same room. How was this possible? And the angrier he became, the more he understood that his own anger would be multiplied by the explosive reaction of millions of Americans who had never heard of Jerry Sandusky.

Those millions, most of them, had heard of Joe Paterno.

"Dad," he asked his father again, "did you know anything about Sandusky?"

"Other than the thing Mike told me, no," Joe answered.2