Free Paterno by Joe Posnanski Page A

State they called the position a “hero back.”
    Or this: One day they were trying to come up with a name for the linebacker who sets up on what’s called the weak side, the side where the offense has fewer blockers. Engle did not want to call the position a “weakside linebacker,” as most coaches do, because that had connotations of weakness and frailty. The coaches sat around for far too long trying to come up with a good name for this position, when finally Engle said, “Okay, enough of this. The next idea someone comes up with, we’re going with that.” To which Paterno said something like “Well, while we are waiting for that brilliant idea, can we go ahead and order some pizza from Fritz?” The man who ran Home Delivery Pizza in town was Fritz DeFluri. And so, from that day forward, theweakside linebacker at Penn State (and numerous other copycat programs) was called the Fritz linebacker.
    Engle’s compassion and kindness permeated everything he did. He constantly reminded his coaches, “It’s the players’ team, not ours,” a mantra Paterno repeated to himself when he was at his lowest points. Engle almost never swore, almost never tore down a player, almost never fought with one of his coaches. He deflected credit and entertained the media with stories in which he inevitably ended up playing the sucker.
    Paterno watched Engle’s style closely. He was not like Engle. He was, in his own words, “a loudmouth.” When he first came to State College as an Ivy League–educated Brooklyn street fighter, he felt entirely out of place. “It was too quiet to sleep,” he said, repeating some vaudeville line from his memory. He got into ferocious arguments with fellow coaches, including Engle. Some of those arguments were so vicious and heated that an outsider might wonder how Paterno kept his job. “I was a pain in the neck,” he confessed. “I just knew I was right all the time.”
    Of course, as Paterno readily admitted, he never lost that part of his personality. But over sixteen years as Engle’s assistant coach, he did temper it. Some of Engle’s nature penetrated him. While he trusted his own strategic football judgment over anyone else’s (that too never really changed), he saw how Engle could get his point across without screaming. He noticed the respect Engle quietly built. He learned about the power of consensus, even if he never fully embraced it. Engle had some Angelo in him. And though Paterno coached with more passion and wrath and authority and certainty than Engle, he did soften over the years. He stopped swearing. He learned how to empower others. He never took the credit. In time, he also began to see some of the beauty of State College. Well, that did take some time.
    After the 1956 season, when Penn State won six of nine games, the University of Southern California’s legendary Jess Hill called Engle. Hill had played Major League Baseball, had been a star running back on USC’s 1928 national championship team, and had won two nationalchampionships as coach of USC’s track team. He had also been the football coach at USC, but he decided to give it up. He called Engle and asked him to be the new coach. Engle was flattered, but he was not sure the school was a good fit for him. Paterno was absolutely sure. He told Engle that this was their chance to go big time. Engle decided to put it up for a vote. “And then,” Paterno said, “I started to talk to the other coaches. You know how people call me a great politician? Well, I used my political skills.” He hammered away at Engle, telling him again and again how much easier it would be to recruit great players at USC and how much better their chances would be to play in a great game like the Rose Bowl. He lobbied his fellow coaches. He begged and pleaded, threatened and cajoled, charmed and bullied. He did everything in his power to get Engle to take the whole lot of them west, where they could coach football in the sun.
    When the