A Joe Pa costs 1/8 of a Nick Saban, and will get you more wins

Joe Paterno may be a bit old for a coach, and he may not know what a Playstation 3 is, but considering what Penn State is paying him, that's ok. He'll do for now.

It was revealed today that Joe Pa makes only a little over $500,000 a year. While that's still a lot of money, it pales in comparison to what other big name coaches make. Alabama's Nick Saban is the highest paid coach in the land at $4 million per year - which makes me laugh every time I hear it - while Oklahoma's Bob Stoops makes over $3 million. Ohio State's Jim Tressel, Florida's Urban Meyer and South Carolina's Steve Spurrier make upward of $2 million annually. I especially like how Meyer is paid $2 million a year to literally run 6 offensive plays. A drunk monkey could run that offense.

What's a bit odd about this whole story is that we never knew what Joe Pa's salary was until now. Penn State is a public institution, which means that all employee salaries should be available to the public.

Penn State, however, refused to make the information public for a long time. It took five years of legal turmoil between The Patriot News in Harrisburg and Penn State before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Joe Pa's salary and those of other top Penn State officials are public information.

I'm actually glad we finally found out what Joe Pa makes, and it's not outrageous by any means. As Joe Pa said "I'm paid well. I'm not overpaid." Plus he has a substantial retirement fund he can dip into.

In an age where college football has become big business not only for schools, but for coaches, it's good to see a coach of Joe Pa's stature not robbing a school blind. Hopefully, it also leaves some extra money in the coffers to spend on stuff like, say, education.

-WCK

It really sucks being a Penn St. football player

You may remember back before the college football season began that a couple of Penn St. players got involved in some off-campus fisticuffs - and Joe Pa wasn't pleased. Starting safety Anthony Scirrotto and backup defensive tackle Chris Baker still face charges in the case. Joe Pa vowed that the team would help clean up Beaver Stadium after every home game this year.

There was some question about whether he would actually go through with it, but that was answered on Sunday.

The players, some of them looking very groggy, arrived at the stadium in four blue university buses at 7:52 a.m.

I assume groggy is newspaper talk for "extremely hung over."

The players picked up trash in eight sections in the south end of the stadium and around the perimeter of the field. There are 92 sections in the stadium. The football team was also joined by Penn St.'s club teams, which normally clean the stadium.

Probably the worst thing was after cleaning up for more than 90 minutes and getting back on the buses, Joe Pa forced the team back out to the stands again because they'd done such a crappy job. It took them another 15 minutes before Joe Pa let them go.

I can't imagine this will actually go on all season. Maybe another home game or two max, but that's it. Otherwise, Joe Pa is a psycho.

But either way, you've got to admire him for coming through on this, but good lord this has to suck for the players. I played football in college and you could have lit me on fire at 7am on Sunday mornings and I wouldn't have gotten up.

-WCK