You'll have to forgive me for belonging to a generation that grew up believing that Joe Paterno was a football god. This devotion is why we build statues of the great coaches, and cast their legacies in bronze.

We fail to remember that they are just men, only human, imperfect despite all of their achievements and best intentions. Their statues are sturdy and permanent and designed to last forever, but the bronze can't conceal the flaws.

And so it was with Joe Paterno. When the iconic Penn State football coach died Sunday at age 85, I had a deeply personal reaction.

Maybe it was because I grew up not far from Penn State, in awe of the coach with the Coke-bottle glasses and rolled-up khaki pants who built a powerful football fortress in the middle-of-nowhere domain known as Happy Valley. When I was a kid, Saturdays meant college football and Paterno.

Maybe it was because meeting him back in 1983 still ranks as one of the greatest thrills of my career. I was a young sportswriter in Baltimore, covering Maryland football. The night before Maryland played at Penn State, Paterno hosted a small reception for the visiting media.

I sat on a couch, not sure how to act or what to do. I was 23 years old and woefully inexperienced. Paterno walked over, extended a greeting and sat in a leather chair next to me. We didn't talk about football. We discussed books that we'd recently read. He noted my Polish heritage and told me stories of growing up in Brooklyn, recalling a specific day when the Polish kids beat the Italian kids in a soccer game played on the streets. Paterno was amazingly kind to a nervous, no-name, obscure sportswriter. I'll never forget his graciousness.

I'm saddened by JoePa's death, saddened by his decline at Penn State, saddened that he failed to do the right thing in his handling of the pedophilia scandal that severely damaged his reputation as a man of principle and integrity.

I was sad that Paterno didn't retire years ago instead of staying too long. Sad that he'd become ensconced in job security and covered by hero worship that can lead to a detachment from reality, then corruption. I am sad that Paterno's decades of remarkable good deeds and coaching accomplishments will be lost in the rubble of his demise.

I don't think that's fair, or right. Not after his program turned out 47 academic All-Americans and produced a graduation rate of 75 percent in addition to his record 409 victories. Not after he personally donated $5 million to Penn State for academic scholarships and endowments. Not after he spent a lifetime of developing the hundreds of young men that played for him, including the minorities and the poor kids who had the odds stacked against them.

I still believe that Paterno deserves accolades, and that it would be a mistake to push aside all of the positive things he'd done during an extraordinary life that included 61 years at Penn State, the last 46 as the head coach.

A few years ago I talked about Paterno with Lenny Moore, the Penn State running back, a Pro Football Hall of Famer. Paterno was an assistant coach during Moore's career at Penn State, and the young assistant made a major impact on Moore's life. I kept the notes from our conversation.

"I grew up poor, in Reading (Pa.)," Moore told me. "I grew up on the so-called wrong side of town. I spent my youth being told that I wasn't good enough. I wasn't allowed to eat at certain places. I couldn't go to different parts of town.

"I was told to stay in my place, and the message was 'You aren't worthy. You aren't equal.' I always doubted whether I was good enough to realize my dreams. When I got to Penn State, my world changed. I never knew what I was capable of until that new world opened up to me. Coach Paterno made me believe I was good enough to achieve anything I wanted. I was worthy. That confidence turned me into a different person."

There are many more testimonials, just like that one. And I just don't think we should forget about the valuable role Paterno played in providing meaningful, life-altering guidance to so all of those Lenny Moores.

I realize that puts me in the minority, given the way Paterno is viewed now: as the impervious football coach who didn't do all that he could to stop a monster from (allegedly) preying on young children.

I don't blame anyone for insisting that Paterno should be held accountable, in part, for the alleged crimes of former PSU assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Sure, Paterno brought this on himself by not going to the police after a graduate assistant told him of seeing Sandusky with a child in the showers at the Penn State locker room.

Paterno did nothing legally wrong; he followed university procedure by reporting the inappropriate Sandusky sighting to his supervisors. But yes, he should have done more, and that inaction haunted Paterno into to his final hours.

I make no excuses for Paterno, but I do believe part of his ignorance was generational. He came of age in a time when men, when leaders, always kept problems in house. You handled things quietly, and internally. You kept the scandals within the family. You tried to limit the damage to avoid bringing shame to the family, to the institution. It's the same type of attitude that made the Catholic church so maddeningly inadequate in response to the hideous misconduct of pedophile priests.

It's not that simple, of course. Paterno wasn't immune to being corrupted by the power that's amassed by success. His renowned football program was bringing $70 million in annual revenue. Paterno's program helped transform Penn State. The system worked for the coach, and the school. His triumphs generated glowing publicity, increased enrollment and financial support, and enhanced Penn State's growth and prestige. That made him more powerful, and untouchable.

Happy Valley became Joe Pa's kingdom. So when Penn State players got into trouble off the field, he could smooth it over with the campus police. When Sandusky went wild, too many people looked the other way, including Paterno.

The money was rolling in. The coach was revered and held up as an example of everything good and noble about Penn State. When bad things happened, accommodations were made. Dirt was covered up. By the time the walls to the kingdom began crumbling, it was too late to save Paterno's job. Or save his life.

The legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant died a month after coaching his final game at Alabama. Football gave him a purpose and sustained him. And so it was with Paterno, who died a couple of months after winning his 409th and final game.

The medical report will state that Paterno died of complications stemming from lung cancer. But we all know better than that.