Joseph Paterno needs to hang ’em up.

I hate to say it not only because of the kind of person Paterno is and not just because he is 78 years old, but because Penn State and its many fans and alumni deserve better.

Paterno is unequivocolly one of the greatest men ever to march up and down college sidelines in the autumn. Is he one of the greatest coaches ever to do so? It’s not clear, but if we as sports fans and sportswriters are going to say that coaching isn’t just about wins and losses, then it really doesn’t matter if Paterno was the greatest coach or not.

What does matter is that Paterno, along with all of the Nittany Nation, deserves for him to go out in a style befitting his record as a man and not his recent record as a coach.

By now, Paterno’s personal qualities are well-known. He and wife single-handedly built a new library on the PSU campus. He is revered by players and fellow coaches as almost a deity.

I find it impossible to believe that he can still have the same feverish passion, at his age, that is required to recruit for success in the Big Ten. There is nothing wrong with fans or himself acknowledging this, either. Whether Paterno can acknowledge it is another question.

That Paterno doesn’t have this passion as much shouldn’t be seen as a fault. For one, Paterno’s job keeping PSU a winner has gotten considerably harder in recent years. He no longer can just cull the best talent from the East Coast without much competition. Other schools out east like Boston College, Maryland, Virginia and Virginia Tech have upgraded their programs considerably. Also, Marshall has emerged as potential powerhouse in the Appalachians, and now even West Virginia is showing signs of hope once again, even if it’s in a weak Big East Conference. In the Midwest, Paterno now has to deal with an Ohio State program out of its Cooper-inspired funk and not letting Paterno simply raid Ohio for some of its best prep talent any longer. On top of all that, Pittsburgh has emerged as a possible destination for in-state talent not wanting to spend four years on the pretty-but-isolated Penn State campus.

Now this is no slight against older people, but I think it is completely unreasonable to believe that a 78-year-old man can be a Big Ten college football coach. Think about it: Recruiting alone requires dragging back and forth across the country, trying to convince dozens of other schools that your program is the one for your son. Paterno is doing that cleanly, as well. Now lump all the effort and stress of recruiting on to the usual rigors of being a coach, and then add all the hours and stress that come with being the most famous guy in a small town obsessed with you, and you can see how this job could easily overwhelm Paterno, or any 78-year-old.

Hell, the job eventually got to Steve Spurrier at Florida – and Lord knows, no one has ever accused him of working too hard.

It’s probably too much to ask at this point that Paterno decide to retire on his own. If he had the capacity to do that, I bet he would have by now. He believes in an old-fashioned work ethic that at least I still value and respect – which is why PSU can’t just shove him out the door.

That’s why if I were an administrator at PSU, I would invite Paterno and his wife, Sue, over and tell him that at the end of this season that he will be promoted to the job of assistant athletic director, announce that the last Penn State game of the season will be “Joe Paterno Day” and that Beaver Stadium will be renamed Paterno Field at Beaver Stadium. (Who doesn’t laugh just a little when Brent Musburger says, “You are looking live at Beaver Stadium”?) Then I’d tell him to take all the vacation time he wants.

PSU has erred toward the side of classiness in not forcing Paterno out though it is going through another losing season. Many schools would have shown him the door as soon as things began to slide. PSU did not, and that’s to the school’s infinite credit.

But not PSU is in a miserable position of letting the team continue to slide with Paterno at the helm and possibly running the risk of a Woody-esque incident that would reflect badly on Paterno and the university.

I respect Paterno, but at Saturday’s postgame press conference, he cut a more sad figure than a gritty and determined one, mumbling softly and at times not remembering which players were in the game in certain instances.

And all I could think was, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”

Aaron Stollar is a senior in journalism from Annandale, Va. He can be reached at [email protected].