STATE COLLEGE, Pa.Penn States interim head coach, Tom Bradley, decided it only made sense for his players to take the field without a coach leading the way. After all, it was one of the trademarked rites of a Penn State game to watch fired coach Joe Paterno lead the team out of the tunnel.
I told them I would not come out with the team, Bradley said. I said, Its your team and its your responsibility to take care of that.
Bradley said he decided to leave the first seat on the team bus vacant because, Thats where Coach sits.
In a sense, Paterno was with the team during the 17-14 loss to No. 18 Nebraska at Beaver Stadium, Saturday (see story). His son Jay Paterno, the teams quarterbacks coach, certainly struggled with his first game without his father on the sidelines.
Jay Paterno mimicked his dads fist pump and cry of, Lets go! as he exited the team bus at Beaver Stadium and took the field. However, Jay Paterno could not hold back the tears as he exited the field after the defeat.
Dad, I wish you were here, the younger Paterno said.
In the media room after the game, Jay Paterno said hell probably hear about his departure from the field.
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If he saw me break down like that I probably would hear about it from him for the rest of my life, he said.
Joe Paterno has been in relative seclusion since his firing on Wednesday night after 61 years of coaching the Penn State football team. Meanwhile, Jerry Sandusky, Paternos former right-hand man and the alleged criminal in the child sex scandal, was shopping at Dicks Sporting Goods on N. Atherton Road on Wednesday, CSNPhilly.com confirmed, just hours before Paterno was fired.
Jay says he went to his parents house before the game to drop off a letter before heading off to join the team.
I stopped over the house this morning and dropped off a letter and that was the extent of it, Jay Paterno said. I didn't want to spend a lot of time over there because it was going to be tough for him and tough for me. So I dropped the letter off and I said Don't read it yet. Let me get out of here before you read that.
The letter, Jay revealed, contained a loving message from son to father.
I said, You and I, in my life, haven't always seen eye to eye. But generally speaking, it's (because) I had to grow up, to catch up to make eye contact with you, Jay Paterno recalled. There were a lot of lessons that I learned from him.
Jay Paterno said his dad planned on watching the game on Saturday.
He wanted to watch it on TV because he wanted to make sure the guys he coached and the guys he felt very close to would understand that he was still a part of this, Jay said. He was pulling for them and cheering for them, so yeah, he was.
However, Jay Paterno refused to discuss his own coaching future at Penn State or his fathers firing as head coach.
We've had better weeks in our lives, obviously, he said. I think about a week ago where we were sitting and the world's kind of turned upside down. But I think our kids, they were resilient.
Jay Paterno was on his fathers staff for 17 years, including the last 12 as quarterbacks coach.
E-mail John R. Finger at jfinger@comcastsportsnet.com