Sports Illustrated senior writer Joe Posnanski announced via his blog on Tuesday that he plans to move to State College to write a book about Joe Paterno.
Here’s the story behind the story about the upcoming story:
Posnanski became enamored with Paterno when the former met the latter on a visit to State College in the summer of 2009. Posnanski, a wonderful wordsmith and superlative storyteller for Sports Illustrated, was in town to do a profile of the legendary football coach.
The two hit it off. They spent several hours in conversation, covering a wide range of subjects. Joe liked Joe. And vice versa.
Posnanski made his name as one of the country’s best sports columnists while at The Kansas City Star for 13 years. His pieces are literate, humane, flowing.
The ensuing story that Posnanski wrote about Paterno for Sports Illustrated was all three. The 4,347-word feature story was slated to run in SI at the start of the 2009 college football season. It didn’t make that issue, but after a few more fits and starts, his eight-page article ran in the Oct. 26, 2009 issue of Sports Illustrated, under the title, “Top of the World, PA.”
What made the story unique was its voice; it was written as a personal, emotion-filled letter to Paterno’s late father, Angelo. It begins this way:
“Angelo, look at the way your son’s eyes darken now. Look how he balls up his fists and uncrosses his legs, as if he’s uncomfortable, as if he suddenly remembered someplace he needs to be.”
BLOGGING TIME IN HAPPY VALLEY
The article was well-received inside Lasch Building and in College Heights. Posnanski returned to campus in the fall of 2010. He sat in on a Paterno press conference, lunched with some long-time followers of Penn State football, took a meeting or two.
When he returned to the office inside his Kansas City home, he wrote a follow-up blog posting about his friend Joe for SI.com.
“No, it isn’t like every word he says is a nugget of gold,” Posnanski wrote. “But there are lessons to be learned, lessons that he is constantly teaching, lessons about how you last, lessons about how you overcome, lessons about not making stuff too complicated. And there are stories…”
A few months later, following the Outback Bowl, Posnanski wrote in Sports Illustrated about the 84-year-old Paterno and Florida coach Urban Meyer, who was retiring although he was just 46.
“The young coach and the old coach shook hands at midfield,” the SI column began. “It was, if you think about it, one of the strangest handshakes in college football history. The young coach was a man in the prime of his coaching life. His teams have won two of the last four national championships. The old coach was a legend who has been at the same university for 61 years, so long that one of the school’s libraries is named for his family.”
Clearly, Joe liked Paterno, and felt his story – beyond the games, the victories – was worth telling in some ways for perhaps the first time, with a new light and a new voice. Posnanski already had the roadmap: He had written a book called “The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America.”
Paterno represented the same challenge, as Posnanski kept returning to the legendary coach, yearning for more. JoePa as Yoda.
‘THE LIFE AND IMPACT‘
So it came as no big surprise on Tuesday when Pos wrote in his blog that he was going to write a book on “the life and impact” of Paterno. Simon & Schuster will publish it, and Posnanski figures the project will take about 18 months to complete.
Posnanski has insight and skill. But for the book to be truly valid, to be meaningful – there are almost as many books (more than 10) about Paterno as he has grandchildren (17) – he will need unparalleled access to Paterno. I’m guessing he’ll get it. He’s moving to State College to undertake the project, and I doubt he’s doing that just to get a front-row seat at Paterno’s weekly press conference. (Wondering: Will the new Joe have his phone number listed like the Old Joe?)
I know that another writer from a big-city newspaper is preparing a book about Paterno, and I’ve heard that another author, with a few well-received sports titles to his credit, is also doing a Paterno tome.
Who can blame them?
The 2011 season has the makings of some history, even if Paterno is not in his final year on the sidelines. It will be his 46th as head coach and 62nd overall at Penn State. He needs just seven wins to pass Eddie Robinson and move into second place for all-time coaching victories in college football. The Nittany Lions will face both Alabama (Sept. 10) and Nebraska (Nov. 12) in Beaver Stadium, which has never happened in the same season.
Oh, yeah. This will be Penn State’s 125th year of football. Do the math – by season’s end Paterno will have been here for 49.6 percent of them.
For Posnanski, this project will be his third book, as he notes in his blog: “This time around, I really wanted to go for everything, I wanted to take on the project of my life, something that would get at how I feel about sports and life and competition and fairness and unfairness and the world around us.
“I cannot begin to describe how excited I am about this project. I am, as you could probably tell from my previous stories on the man, a huge fan and admirer of Joe’s. But even more than that I am endlessly fascinated by him and his lifelong quest to do something large, to impact America, through football.
“So writing about Joe, his triumphs, his struggles, his journey, well, it really is everything I’ve ever wanted to do as a writer…”
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