STATE COLLEGE, Pa. • Happy Valley was perfect for Joe Paterno, a place where "JoePa" knew best, where he not only won more football games than any other major college coach, but won them the right way: with integrity and sportsmanship. A place where character came first, championships second.
That reputation was badly shaken in the final months of his life.
Paterno, a sainted figure at Penn State for almost half a century but scarred by child sex abuse allegations against a former assistant coach, which led to Paterno's stunning dismissal, died Sunday at age 85.
He died 65 days after his son Scott said his father had been diagnosed with a treatable form of lung cancer. The cancer was found during a follow-up visit for a bronchial illness. A few weeks later, Paterno broke his pelvis after a fall but did not need surgery.
Mount Nittany Medical Center said in a statement that Paterno died at 8:25 a.m. (St. Louis time) of "metastatic small cell carcinoma of the lung." Metastatic indicates an illness that has spread from one part of the body to an unrelated area.
The hospital says Paterno was surrounded by family members, who have requested privacy.
Paterno had been in the hospital since Jan. 13 for observation after what his family called minor complications from his cancer treatments. Not long before that, he conducted his only interview since losing his job, with The Washington Post. Paterno was described as frail then, speaking mostly in a whisper and wearing a wig. The second half of the two-day interview was conducted at his bedside.
His family released a statement Sunday morning to announce his death: "His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled."
"He died as he lived," the statement said. "He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been. His ambitions were far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave this Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players and his community."
Paterno's death just under three months following his last victory called to mind another coaching great, Alabama's Paul "Bear" Bryant, who died less than a month after retiring.
"Quit coaching?" Bryant said late in his career. "I'd croak in a week."
Paterno alluded to the remark made by his friend and rival, saying in 2003: "There isn't anything in my life anymore except my family and my football. I think about it all the time."
Two police officers were stationed to block traffic on the street where Paterno's modest ranch home stands. The officers said the family had asked there be no public gathering outside the house. Paterno's sons, Scott and Jay, arrived separately at the house late Sunday morning.
Paterno built a program based on the credo of "Success with Honor," and he found both. The man known as "JoePa" won 409 games and took the Nittany Lions to 37 bowl games and two national championships. More than 250 of the players he coached went on to the NFL.
"He will go down as the greatest football coach in the history of the game," Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said after his former team, the Florida Gators, beat Penn State 37-24 in the 2011 Outback Bowl.
Paterno roamed the sidelines for 46 seasons, his thick-rimmed glasses, windbreaker and jet-black sneakers as familiar as the Nittany Lions' blue and white uniforms. But in the middle of his 46th season, the legend was shattered. Paterno was engulfed in a child sex abuse scandal when a former trusted assistant, Jerry Sandusky, was accused of molesting 10 boys over a 15-year span, sometimes in the football building.
Outrage built quickly when the state's top cop said the coach hadn't fulfilled a moral obligation to go to the authorities when a graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, told Paterno he saw Sandusky with a young boy in the showers of the football complex in 2002.
Paterno waited a day before alerting school officials and never went to the police.
"I didn't know which way to go ... and rather than get in there and make a mistake," Paterno said in the Post interview.
"You know, (McQueary) didn't want to get specific," Paterno said. "And to be frank with you I don't know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to people that I thought would be, if there was a problem, that would be following up on it."
When the scandal erupted in November, Paterno said he would retire following the 2011 season. He also said he was "absolutely devastated" by the abuse case. But the university trustees fired Paterno, effective immediately. Graham Spanier, one of the longest-serving university presidents in the nation, also was fired.
