The Lion In Autumn : A Season with Joe Paterno and Penn State Football
“A legendary coach, a struggling team, and a storm of controversy: An award- winning sportswriter takes you inside a tumultuous season of Penn State football, in the bestselling tradition of A Season on the Brink. In his fifty years of coaching football at Penn State, Joe Paterno has become one of the most popular figures in American sports. Only one other coach has won more football games than Paterno; his team has won more bowl games than any other; and he does it all the way it was meant to be done, with his players succeeding in the classroom as well as on the field and in the pro ranks. Along the way, Paterno has transformed a once obscure agricultural college into a huge research university in the Big Ten, whose endowment now exceeds $1 billion, tens of millions of which “”JoePa”" has personally helped to raise. But lately the tide seems to have turned in Happy Valley. Since 2000, Paterno’s Nittany Lions have lost more games than they’ve won, and accusations of off-the-field crimes have tarnished his program’s reputation. Award-winning sports reporter Frank Fitzgerald followed Joe Paterno and his Nittany Lions through the 2004 season, from fundraisers in State College to the sidelines at Beaver Stadium. The Lion in Autumn delivers the complete story of this frustrating, tormenting, and ultimately exhilarating turning-point season and the history that led up to it. This is the chronicle of fifty phenomenal years-including the dynasties of undefeated and national championship teams that came before-and a riveting fight to reclaim a legacy.”
Customer Review: Good Synopsis of Joe Paterno and College Football
I hesitated picking up this book because even though it was published only one year ago, it is arguably outdated since Penn State football finally bounced back and had a very good year. That said, I am glad I read it because the book goes beyond the marketed “A Season with Penn State” storyline and provides a very good historical synopsis of Joe Paterno and his role in the history of college football.
Since Paterno has been around so long, people tend to forget his importance in the development of college football. Once he retires, he will undoubtedly be remembered in the same breath as Bear Bryant, Knute Rockne, Daryl Royal, Bud Wilkinson and the other Legends (with a capital “L”) of college football.
This book provides interesting insights into his personal history and the development of Penn State University, which Paterno literally transformed from a backwater agricultural school into a well-known and successful state school. I doubt any coach in college sports history has been more important to his school’s development than Paterno has been to Penn State.
The parts about the actual season are fairly boring, since PSU was horrible the year Fitzpatrick followed them but it is worth picking up if you are a fan of college football history. More Info
Written by Stanley on August 28th, 2006 with comments disabled.
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