I was actually ready for college football to end this past season. There was just too much controversy in 2011.

The Ohio State University tattoo-gate scandal pulled down one of college football’s elite programs and one of the game’s high profile coaches, Jim Tressel. Then there was all the hoopla with  the BCS Championship rematch between Alabama and LSU. Too much politics involved and way, way too many opinions on the subject. But nothing in my sports loving life was as shocking as the Penn State sex abuse scandal; a scandal that put an end to the coaching career of storied Joe Paterno.

Down through the years, this is how I looked at Joe.

Back in the 1960s, when he was having undefeated teams and winning no national championships, I concurred in that. No way was a team out of the East good enough to be national champs, not with the likes of Texas, Notre Dame, Southern Cal and Alabama. Then, somewhere along in the 1970s I came to realize that, yes, Penn State and its plucky coach can beat you. You don’t want to play them in a bowl game.

From the 1980s on I came to admire feisty Joe Paterno. He seemed to play the game the right way and handled his players the right way. No NCAA hand-slapping for the Nittany Lions. Then, this past year, the thunder rolled and the shocker about Penn State and Jerry Sandusky came to light. With it came the realization that Joe apparently stopped short of doing what he should have done to stop an unspeakable series of events at the school he loved and in connection with the football team he guided for what seemed like forever.

Up to that point my only criticism of Joe was his vanity. He should have stepped down six or eight years ago, before the game passed him by and his vitality was gone. And yet, even with that criticism, I knew why the guy held on. I remember him saying more than once that Bear Bryant – a guy he locked horns with on the football field a couple of times – said of himself that he’d croak within a month if he ever quit coaching. Of course, the Bear retired and lived two months, about the same length of time Joe did after being forced out at Penn State.

Don’t fault a guy for not being perfect and not wanting to die. Those are two pretty basic underpinnings where human life is concerned.

“The consequences of our actions seize us by the forelock,” somebody said. Sometimes it snatches so hard you can’t help but die.

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and GCN columnist.