In so many ways.
State College, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Joe Paterno, whose tenure as the most successful coach in major college football history ended abruptly in November amid allegations that he failed to respond forcefully enough to a sex abuse scandal involving a former assistant, died Sunday, a family spokesman said. He was 85.
The longtime Penn State head coach was diagnosed with what his family had called a treatable form of lung cancer shortly after the university's Board of Trustees voted to fire him.
He had been hospitalized in December after breaking his pelvis in a fall at his home and again in January for what his son called minor complications from his cancer treatments.
"It is with great sadness that we announce that Joe Paterno passed away earlier today," the family statement said. "His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled."
The gracious thing to do, with this passing, is send thoughts, prayers and well wishes to the family and let it go at that.
Joe Paterno's life, from conception to completion, makes that an inevitable, and regrettable, impracticality.
That said, speculation of any kind is both inappropriate and insensitive.
Judgement, of any kind, even more so.
What is also inevitable, and regrettable, though is a simple, fair and reasonable truth.
If Joe Paterno sincerely knew nothing about the horrific behavior of Jerry Sandusky, then any tainting of the coach's character, reputation or legacy is both egregiously undeserved and unfair.
If Joe Paterno knew about the horrific behavior and chose to act in any other way but that which would prevent any child from harm, then he, as any of us would rightly be, is accountable for that failure to act.
In either case, it's not for us to say.
And neither vitriolic recrimination nor shows of blind faith support are appropriate.
Judgement, as the old sayeth goes...
The gracious thing to do, with this passing, is send thoughts, prayers and well wishes to the family and let it go at that.
Sad day.
In so many ways.
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