Public Memory and Penn State: On the "Legacy" of Joe Paterno

In the wake of the child abuse scandal at Penn State, much attention was given to the role of Joe Paterno, who had spent 46 years as the university's head football coach. Paterno's subsequent death, just months after he had been fired by the Board of Trustees, provoked numerous efforts in sports media to determine his "legacy." Such attempts to make sense of Paterno's legacy, and to do so immediately, spotlight our collective anxieties and prompt the symbolic contests that are symptomatic of public memory. This essay reflects on the choices we make and the opportunities we miss when memorializing a figure of Paterno's stature.