UNIVERSITY PARK — Charlie Pittman wasn’t boasting when he said he was one of the first two black players to play for Joe Paterno, nor when he said that he and his son, Tony, became the first father-son combination to play for a man who would go on to coach dozens of such combos.
He wasn’t boasting when he said he and Tony had never lost a game as starters and were both academic All-Americans.
Pittman, an All-American running back at Penn State, said all of this as a tribute, as a way of saying thanks, to Paterno, who was publicly eulogized by several of his former players Thursday during a moving memorial service in the Bryce Jordan Center.
“I think the life I have lived is one of Joe’s thousand gifts to the world,” Pittman said.
A player representing each of the six different decades Paterno led the Nittany Lions — from the late 1960s to this past season — took to the podium during a ceremony, cut with video monthly montages, that lasted more than two hours. To a man, they spoke about what Pittman called “an historic legacy” left by the coach.
Jay Paterno, who delivered the final eulogy, looked to his father’s love of the classics for inspiration, quoting Sophocles: “One must wait until the evening to truly see how magnificent the day has been.”
“The evening has arrived,” Jay Paterno said, speaking to his father, “and whether you like it or not, there are many here that have and will continue to reflect on the magnificent daylight of your life.”
Those in attendance Thursday included Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer, Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz, former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. The players — as well as two Penn State students and a dean and Nike chairman Phil Knight — told stories both familiar and rarely heard about Paterno. None of those stories had anything to do with football plays.
“Joe wasn’t trying to build perfection,” Pittman said. “That doesn’t exist and he knew it. He was, bit by bit, building a habit of excellence, building a proud program for the school, the state and the hundreds of young men he watched over for a half century.”
Jimmy Cefalo, who played wide receiver for Paterno in the 1970s before becoming a broadcaster, recalled how Paterno had won over his mother during his recruitment, which clinched his decision to attend Penn State. He choked up as he talked about Paterno getting “the sons of coal-miners and steel-mill workers and farmers” to come together to do things “the right way, the Paterno way.”
“You find people who have gone back to communities across the country and contributed as philanthropists, as fathers, as husbands,” Cefalo said. “And we did it in large measure because of Joe’s example.”
Todd Blackledge, who quarterbacked Penn State’s first national championship team, said Paterno taught him how to work things out with people he didn’t always see eye-to-eye with for the good of the team.
Former teammate Dick McGinnis drove Blackledge crazy when the two roomed together his freshman year, but Paterno made sure they could co-exist as teammates.
"No one individual has ever done more for a university in the country than what Joe Paterno did for this school," Blackledge said.
Paterno's success stories were those of both players who starred, such as Blackledge and Pittman, and those many Penn State fans might have never heard of. Christian Marrone's playing career fizzled after the lineman suffered serious knee injuries, but Paterno helped him excel in his professional career.
"You have a greater purpose than football, Christian," Marrone recalled Paterno telling him, "and I'm going to help you achieve it."
Paterno recommended Marrone for law school and was among the first to call him when he passed the bar exam and when he earned his Master's degree.
"His life can never, ever be measured in wins or in championships, because to do so would be a great injustice," said Marrone, who went on to land a senior position in the office of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. "The greatness and legacy of Joe Paterno lies in each of us."
Former quarterback Michael Robinson remembered bugging Paterno to make him a full-time quarterback and Paterno telling him he would probably become a Pro Bowl running back or fullback. Robinson, now of the Seattle Seahawks, made the 11-hour flight from Hawaii, where he had been practicing for his first Pro Bowl (as a running back), to Pennsylvania to pay homage to his former coach.
"My message today is don't let what he stood for, don't let the values he instilled in all of us, just because he's not with us, don't let the dream, the experiment, the values go away," Robinson said.
Members of the current Penn State team, the last of 46 squads to play for Paterno, sat together a couple of rows behind the Paterno family Thursday. Linebacker Michael Mauti, the son and brother of former Nittany Lions, said his teammates will look to carry on the legacies of the coach and the men who played for him.
"These lettermen have set the bar for what it means to have success with honor," Mauti said. "It is our job to uphold that tradition."
The players recited several of Paterno's famous quotes, including "You either get better or you get worse; you never stay the same." Cefalo said he asks himself every morning which it's going to be for him that day. He said Thursday morning was "a little bit worse" because of the sadness of Paterno not being there.
"But the world is a whole lot better for me having known him," Cefalo said.
Jeff Rice can be reached at 231-4609.
