Gambling on the fact that God will follow suit, Penn State has extended coach Joe Paterno for three more years. With head coaching vacancies suddenly opening at both Ball and Iowa State, the move to lock up JoePa had to be made. Despite his long tenure at the school, the negotiations weren’t as straight forward as you would have thought. Both sides were far apart on a few topics. Each made their case, argued a few finer points and ultimately were able to come to an amicable agreement. And just like each time prior, JoePa negotiated his own deal. Here are some of the highlights:
JoePa asked: To be able to spend more time at home with his family, especially his grandkids.
Penn State: Granted. Absolutely. In fact, after seeing how successful the season went with Paterno coaching from the booth, they figured they do even better if he was even farther away, so he could concentrate better. The university will arrange for JoePa to coach all games from the comfort of his home. And if someone happened to slip the game tapes from the 1986 season in the DVD player on game days during the season, well that’s up to them.
JoePa asked: To call his own plays.
Penn State: Denied. But once a week, he’ll be able to order his own coffee at the window.
JoePa asked: To travel first class on game days.
Penn State: Ooooh yeah. Um…times are tough. Economies bad. You’re lucky if you find a place that’ll give you three bees for a quarter. On the bright side, with what money the athletic department was able to scrape together, the school was able to restore and even add a few features to the van JoePa used to travel in. If that van was good enough to land Franco Harris, then it’s certainly good enough for today’s punks.
JoePa asked: To have a portrait of himself, Coldplay’s Chris Martin and a baby sketched for his office.
Penn State: Um…well, but how do you even know….forget it, we don’t even want to know, fine, whatever.
JoePa asked: To sit down with the new President and discuss the possibility of a postseason playoff system.
Penn State: You sure drive a hard bargain, but you’ve earned it. In fact, we’ll go a step farther. The school will arrange for JoePa to meet with all the Presidents, and he will have absolute free reign to discuss whatever he’d like, and in as frank of a manner as he’d like.
Via Hugging Harold Reynolds (now with 100% less Harold Reynolds!)
