Elder statesman

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Joe Paterno walked into his office yesterday morning, much the way he has done ever since he took over as Penn State football coach in 1966 when he was young, sassy, and full of vigor.

Now, at 77, the hair is not quite as black, perhaps some of the grays a result of last year's 3-9 record that left Paterno with 339 wins, second to Florida State's Bobby Bowden in career wins among Division 1-A coaches.

The Nittany Lion in winter is ready for another run, with a four-year contract extension that even Paterno acknowledges was granted to combat a constant flow of negative recruitment concerning his age and future in Happy Valley.

"How are the Red Sox doing?" Paterno asks during a rare interview. The college football icon says he is just fine, thanks, before sounding off about himself, the state of college athletics, the Colorado recruiting scandal, the latest BCS developments, the plight of Eastern football, and myriad other topics.

"I feel great," said Paterno. "I'm too dumb to feel otherwise. I am anxious to see if we can turn this thing around."

He makes it clear that he will feel even better if and when Penn State has a reversal of football fortune.

"We lost more games last year than when I started coaching I'd ever thought I'd lose in my entire career," said Paterno.

With a pair of national championship banners hanging in the athletic facilities -- Paterno believes there should be at least four were it not for the vagaries of human polls -- Nittany Lion football has always been a growth stock.

Paterno wants to see that again.

"I'd like to have one more great football team and I think we have the basis," said Paterno, who has been in Happy Valley for 55 years and once led the Lions to 31 straight wins from 1967 through 1970. "We have a really solid young squad."

But Paterno is about more than one season, although he acknowledges he's heard the rumblings and questions about his health and longevity when those issues started affecting recruiting about 10 years ago.

"We've got a lot of work ahead of us," said Paterno. "But it's not like the roof is ready to cave in. I may be more fired up than I was 10 years ago. I know I wake up in the morning getting ready to go to work. We've got a lot of work ahead of us, but I'm not like the secretary of defense [Donald Rumsfeld] these days, where I don't know what's going to happen."

Paterno shakes his head when the subject of the University of Colorado comes up.

"I don't know what happened at Colorado," said Paterno, who has had to douse some brushfires over the years at Penn State. "I know [coach] Gary Barnett and like Gary Barnett.

"Now everyone is talking about the solution. It's so unrealistic as to what the solution may be. The problem is how do we address the fact that kids don't know how to drink. We're talking about some kind of curfew, but how do we do that? [A curfew] sounds good. It sounds like we're being responsible. And somebody tells me to bring them in at [midnight] or 1 o'clock and then are you supposed to sit with them?"

Paterno remembers the days when he would get a call in the middle of the night from local police telling him that one of his players was in trouble.

"I would go down and take him home," said Paterno. "Then I would kick him in the rear and run him until his tongue dragged."

Now it's different. Every incident makes the papers. Paterno says the kids are the same, but the environment is different.

At Penn State, the atmosphere has more of a family feel than many other places. It is the reason Paterno didn't feel the need to sign a contract when he succeeded Rip Engle for $20,000 a year. A handshake was good enough because Paterno felt he was among friends and people he knew and trusted.

But with three losing seasons in the last four years, Paterno knows the wolves are out there.

"I'm not naive," he said, acknowledging he has heard comments about him being "over the hill" for years. But Paterno says Penn State's reputation is different from most schools.

Paterno says it's never been a place where you "have to win." He never felt like he was "going to get fired" if he didn't win.

Another difference Paterno sees is the increased demand for his time. Still, he loves the job.

"I don't know what else I'd rather do," he said.

"I've got a whole mess of grandkids," said Paterno. "And they're great for a while. I don't play golf. I like to fish, I like to walk on the beach and read, and I like football. It's a challenge."

There are challenges everywhere. Paterno said in his perfect world he would like to see a 32-team playoff format, with a reduction of the regular season to nine games. But he acknowledges that's a dream that "won't happen in my lifetime."

Despite being a member of the Big Ten and playing most of his games against schools based in the Midwest, Paterno still considers himself an Eastern guy at heart and in a perfect world Penn State would have been part of the Big East. Paterno says he did his part to create a powerhouse Eastern conference, lobbying many schools -- including Maryland -- with plans to create an "eight-team all-sports league" that would have controlled the East.

It didn't happen and Penn State landed in the Big Ten.

When a few of his Big East coaching friends talked last year about recruiting Penn State as the cornerstone of an overhauled Big East, Paterno told them it was too late.

"I said, `Don't panic. Get yourself a core of schools and live with it. Things will be fine.' "

Mention Boston College's move to the Atlantic Coast Conference and Paterno shakes his head in amazement.

"I think they would have been way ahead of the game [had they stayed in the Big East]," he said.

Paterno acknowledges he doesn't understand some of the new rules and regulations, as he picks up a letter from the school's compliance office clearing one of his players who had been charged with "download music infringement."

"What the hell is download music?" asks Paterno, who says he doesn't own a computer. "Am I supposed to get mad at him?"

Paterno repeats that he wants to remain in Happy Valley for a while, but he concedes things could change quickly if his health deteriorates. He tells recruits, "I plan on being here five years, but I'm not going to lie to you. Something could happen."

After 55 years and 11 presidents, plenty of stuff has happened -- and Joe Pa is still here.