Former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden yesterday became the biggest name in college football to call for the removal of Joe Paterno’s statue from the Penn State campus in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child-molestation scandal.
Critics of the late Paterno and of Penn State officials’ handling of reports of sex abuse by Sandusky (above left), an assistant football coach under Paterno (above right), are also calling for strong sanctions against the college’s football program.
Bowden said that for the university to clean up its image, the life-size bronze statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium has to go.
“You go to a Penn State football game, and there’s 100,000 people down there, and they got that statue, and you know doggone well they’ll start talking about Sandusky,” Bowden said. “If it was me, I wouldn’t want to have it brought up every time I walked out on the field.”
Bowden, 82, retired in 2009 with 377 coaching victories. Paterno, who died in January of lung cancer at age 85, had 409.
Penn State spokesman Dave La Torre said no decision had been made “with regard to anything related to Joe Paterno.”
Nike said Thursday that it was pulling Paterno’s name from a child-care center at its headquarters in Oregon.
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said yesterday that Penn State’s Paterno Library should keep its name.
“It symbolizes the good of Joe Paterno,” Rendell said.
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, hired by school trustees, delivered a report Thursday that said Paterno and college brass had hushed up allegations of Sandusky’s sexual attacks on boys.
The NCAA has refused to say if it will penalize Penn State. Among possible sanctions is a “death penalty,” a ban on the football program.
Although the statue’s future is unclear, there is one place that will see the wrecking ball — the shower and locker room where Sandusky held his sick sex romps.
La Torre said the school plans to renovate the Lasch Football Building after the legal proceedings in the case are over.