STATE COLLEGE, Pa. –  Happy Valley was perfect for Joe Paterno, a place where "JoePa"
knew best, where he not only won more football games than any other
major college coach, but won them the right way: with integrity and
sportsmanship. A place where character came first, championships second.

Behind it all, however, was an ugly secret that ran counter to everything the revered coach stood for.

Paterno, a sainted figure at Penn State for
almost half a century but scarred forever by the child sex abuse scandal
that brought his career to a stunning end, died Sunday at age 85.

His death came just over two months after
his son Scott announced on Nov. 18 that his father had been diagnosed
with a treatable form of lung cancer. The cancer was found during a
follow-up visit for a bronchial illness. A few weeks later, Paterno
broke his pelvis after a fall but did not need surgery.

Paterno had been in the hospital since Jan.
13 for observation after what his family called minor complications from
his cancer treatments. Not long before that, he conducted his only
interview since losing his job, with The Washington Post. Paterno was
described as frail then, speaking mostly in a whisper and wearing a wig.
The second half of the two-day interview was conducted at his bedside.

His family released a statement Sunday
morning to announce his death: "His loss leaves a void in our lives that
will never be filled."

"He died as he lived," the statement said.
"He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others
and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been. His
ambitions were far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave this
Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his
university, his players and his community."

Two police officers were stationed to block
traffic on the street where Paterno's modest ranch home stands next to a
local park. The officers said the family had asked there be no public
gathering outside the house, still decorated with a Christmas wreath, so
Paterno's relatives could grieve privately. And, indeed, the street was
quiet on a cold winter day.

Paterno's sons, Scott and Jay, arrived
separately at the house late Sunday morning. Jay Paterno, who served as
his father's quarterbacks coach, was crying.

Paterno built a program based on the credo
of "Success with Honor," and he found both. The man known as "JoePa" won
409 games and took the Nittany Lions to 37 bowl games and two national
championships. More than 250 of the players he coached went on to the
NFL.

"He will go down as the greatest football
coach in the history of the game," Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said
after his former team, the Florida Gators, beat Penn State 37-24 in the
2011 Outback Bowl.

Paterno roamed the sidelines for 46 seasons,
his thick-rimmed glasses, windbreaker and jet-black sneakers as
familiar as the Nittany Lions' blue and white uniforms. He won 409 games
and two national championships.

The reputation he built looked even more
impressive because he insisted on keeping graduation rates high while
maintaining on-field success.

But in the middle of his 46th season, the
legend was shattered. Paterno was engulfed in a child sex abuse scandal
when a former trusted assistant, Jerry Sandusky, was accused of
molesting 10 boys over a 15-year span, sometimes in the football
building.

Paterno at first said he was fooled. But
outrage built quickly when the state's top cop said the coach hadn't
fulfilled a moral obligation to go to the authorities when a graduate
assistant, Mike McQueary, told Paterno he saw Sandusky with a young boy
in the showers of the football complex in 2002.

At a preliminary hearing for the school
officials, McQueary testified that he had seen Sandusky attacking the
child with his hands around the boy's waist but said he wasn't 100
percent sure it was intercourse. McQueary described Paterno as shocked
and saddened and said the coach told him he'd "done the right thing" by
reporting the encounter.

Paterno waited a day before alerting school officials but never went to the police.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/01/22/joe-paterno-former-penn-state-football-coach-dies-at-85/#ixzz1kDTsOnLL