Paterno reportedly stepping down at end of season

Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has decided to retire at the end of the season, according to a person familiar with the decision, and will announce his retirement later today. The person spoke to The Associated Press this morning on the condition of anonymity because the coach’s decision has yet to be announced. Paterno has been besieged by criticism since former defensive coordinator and one-time heir apparent Jerry Sandusky was charged over the weekend with molesting eight young boys between 1994 and 2009. Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz have been charged with failing to notify authorities after an eyewitness reported a 2002 assault. Paterno has not been accused of legal wrongdoing. But he has been assailed, in what the Pennsylvania state police commissioner called a lapse of “moral responsibility,” for not doing more to stop Sandusky, whose attorney maintains his client’s innocence. At age 84, Paterno is in the middle of his 46th season with the Nittany Lions. He won 409 games, a record for major college football; but now the grandfatherly coach known as “Joe Pa,” who had painstakingly burnished a reputation for winning “the right way,” appears to be leaving the only school he’s ever coached in disgrace.