TodayPaterno no stranger to political world
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Article RatingJoe Paterno has been fortunate enough to meet some notable people in his tenure as Penn State head football coach.
Among them, former presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and both George H.W. Bush and current president George W. Bush.
Paterno’s son, and Nittany Lions quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno, actively campaigned for democratic nominee Barack Obama, while another son, Scott, ran for a Congressional District seat a few years ago, but after winning the Republican primary, lost to Democratic incumbent Tim Holden.
So you could say the election was a topic around the Paterno dinner table Tuesday night.
“Well, No. 1, I’m delighted that there would be that many people interested in voting,” Paterno said during Tuesday’s teleconference. “It would bother me that we didn’t have that kind of enthusiasm for selecting a new president.”
Paterno added that he had some mixed emotions about who to vote for, saying “I think both men are good men and I’m not going to get up here and say ‘I’m going to vote for this guy or that guy or what have you.’
“I’ve got five kids,” Paterno said, “and I’ve brought them up at the dinner table to argue about everything. And I suppose out of the five, we’ll probably have three votes for the Democrats, two votes for the Republicans.
“I don’t know. I just think it’s great that we have that kind of enthusiasm right now, because it is a very important part of our history. Where we are going to go from here on in, to what kind of government we are going to have, how we are going to respond to the tremendous challenges we have, you know, it’s not like before. 9/11 kind of changed so many things for us.
“So, I think it’s great to see that there will be, you say 200 million people are going to vote? Well, that’s fine. I think that’s great. Because it’s our country. It not just your country, it’s not 100 million people’s country; it’s not the rich cats who spend a lot of money to have some impact on the economy. It’s our country.”
Paterno has a close friendship with former President Bush and was also good friends with late former President Gerald Ford. As recently as 2004, Paterno introduced current President Bush at a speech in State College.
“We are very dynamic and we are a very, very exciting place to be, and it’s a very challenging thing for leadership, because you’ve got such diverse groups,” Paterno said.
