Legendary former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno is gravely ill and his family is rushing to State College to be by his side, his family has confirmed.



According to Onward State, Paterno was taken off of a respirator earlier today. However, the Paterno family has not confirmed that report.





Facebook and Twitter are flooded with students and fans saying that they are praying for Joe and for the Paterno family.

“Over the last few days Joe Paterno has experienced further health complications,” spokesman Dan McGinn said in a brief statement Saturday to The Associated Press. “His doctors have now characterized his status as serious."

“His family will have no comment on the situation and asks that their privacy be respected during this difficult time,” he said.

State College police have put up barricades at the entrance to McKee Street, where Joe and Sue Paterno's modest ranch house is located.

on Nov. 18. The diagnosis came just days after

in the wake of the

.

Paterno was later hospitalized when

. Paterno initially hurt his pelvis after

in August.

Paterno last week made his first public comments since the Sandusky scandal in a widely publicized

.

In that interview, Jenkins described a frail Paterno whose "voice sounded like wind blowing across a field of winter stalks, rattling the husks."

Jenkins later described Paterno as "wracked by radiation and chemotherapy, in a wheelchair with a broken pelvis, and 'shocked and saddened' as he struggles to explain a breakdown of devastating proportions."

Paterno came under fire for failing to report a 2002 incident to the authorities outside the university.

Then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary has testified he witnessed Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in a Penn State locker room and reported the incident to Paterno. Paterno told then-Athletic Director Tim Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz, both of whom face perjury charges for not contacting the proper authorities.