Joe Paterno comments on the significance of win No. 400
Penn State’s Joe Paterno has the opportunity to reach yet another key milestone on Saturday, 6 November, though he’d never let it show. Should his Nittany Lions win this week against Northwestern, it would be the coach’s 400th victory.
But that doesn’t seem to matter to the 83-year-old Paterno, who’s been the head coach in University Park, Pennsylvania, since 1966. He just wants to win football games.
“I’m trying not to get involved in that. I don’t go home and think about what we’ve done, I go home and worry about what we have to get done,” Paterno said Tuesday at Beaver Stadium, home of the Nittany Lions.
Despite how much he tries to downplay it, win No. 400 would be a monumental achievement for Paterno, placing him in some pretty high company. With a victory, Paterno would become the third coach in the sport’s history to reach the plateau, but just the first
head man in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) to do so. Eddie Robinson won 408 games at I-AA Grambling State, while John Gagliardi, who is also still active, has notched 476 career victories for Division III’s St. John’s, Minnesota.
Even with all that Paterno has accomplished, he chooses to look at what the future may hold, instead of reflecting on the past. When asked about what significance the win could carry, both on an individual level and for Penn State as a program, the coach simply
shook his head and reiterated the long-standing mantra that he coaches for his players, not numbers.
“I’m only concerned about these kids getting some wins while they’re in college. They’re only here for four years. I’ve been [here] four, plus a couple more,” said Paterno, who will turn 84 next month.
Nonetheless, the man who has been a fixture on the Nittany Lions’ sideline for the better part of four decades knows that, no matter how many wins he accumulates, a time will come when he’ll have to hang it up.
“Every once in a while you wonder if someone can do a better job for the people I’m responsible for. But, I’ve never gotten to the point that I need to get out of this thing. It’s going to come,” he said. “That’s why I don’t get excited about that 400 thing.”
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