Thousands converge on the University Park campus for Paterno's viewing. See PHOTOS. Watch video
Ed Monaghan watched with disgust the night the Penn State University Board of Trustees fired football coach Joe Paterno.
Nearly three months later, Monaghan said, it still stings.
"Joe's been the face of this university forever," Monaghan said Tuesday as thousands streamed to the University Park campus for a viewing for the winningest college football coach in history.
"My heart went out to Joe," said Monaghan, an offensive lineman for the Nittany Lions in the late 1980s who lives outside Philadelphia. "It seems like the board of trustees turned their backs on Joe, worried about the public outcry. Joe was never given due process. They thought that little of him? I think it's awful."
Paterno, 85, died Sunday of lung cancer, two months after being fired in a phone call amid the Jerry Sandusky child-sex abuse scandal.
Hundreds of his former players and thousands of people who never met Paterno began a three-day mourning period Tuesday. Services will continue today with Paterno's private burial and conclude Thursday afternoon with a public memorial service at the 16,000-seat Bryce Jordan Center.
Before Tuesday's public viewing, which was to last for 10 hours, players from six decades paid their respects to Paterno's wife, Sue, and his family at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on campus.
They recalled Paterno's teaching, discipline and trademark temper.
Among the mourners was Larry Palmer, the Easton police chief who worked as a student manager for the football team in the early 1980s. Palmer and his wife Donna made the 180-mile trip on Monday night to central Pennsylvania.
"I know what he gave to me -- life lessons that I will never forget," Palmer said. "You learned about the philosophy of hard work, honor, success and doing things the right way. He reinforced that hard work ethic and what it's like to be a family."Mourners included NFL Hall of Famer Franco Harris and NFL quarterback Kerry Collins. Former Penn State quarterback and assistant coach Mike McQueary, whose testimony is at the heart of the Sandusky charges, also attended.
Jim Pursley, who played linebacker at Penn State and graduated in 2001, said Paterno taught his players about much more than football.
"He taught you the value of things like punctuality, character and integrity. He taught you the value of a man's word and how you present yourself. At 18, that has an impact," said Pursley, who grew up in suburban Philadelphia and now lives in Chicago. "I saw firsthand the profoundly positive impact he had."
Kyle Brady, a first-round NFL draft pick who starred at tight end for the Nittany Lions in the early 1990s, said he had a chance a couple of years ago to thank Paterno one-on-one for the guidance he provided years earlier.
"I'll always be grateful to him," said Brady, who grew up in Camp Hill, Pa., was drafted by the New York Jets and played more than a dozen years in the NFL. "He demanded so much of all of us. At times, we didn't know why. But now we understand why. He was trying to mold us into men."
Throughout the day, Paterno's closed casket was flanked by one current and one former player who rotated in 45 minute shifts, officials said. Members of Paterno's last team arrived before 10 a.m. aboard the same blue buses that carried them to Beaver Stadium on fall Saturdays.
Former players hugged friends they hadn't seen in years and reminisced as they waited to enter the worship hall."Everything we did, everything had a purpose," said Dan Morgan, an offensive lineman in the mid-1980s who grew up in St. Clairsville, Ohio. "Joe taught us there were no shortcuts. On a scale of one to 10, your performance had to be a 10 all the time."Monaghan, now a councilman in Upper Darby Township, Pa., said his heart ached for the Paterno family and for the victims in the Sandusky sex-abuse case that has paralyzed Penn State.
Brian Masella, who played for Paterno in the mid-1970s, said many alums are angry at the trustees' handling of the scandal and Paterno's firing.
Penn State faculty members considered a vote of no-confidence for the board of trustees, which has come under fire in a series of public meetings held across the state with university President Rodney Erickson, but the measure failed Tuesday afternoon.
"Many of us are hoping that the wrong that has been created is righted," said Masella, who came to Penn State in 1971 from Bordentown, N.J. "We're very disappointed with the trustees and very disappointed with some of the former players on that board who didn't ask the questions that should have been asked."Masella and former teammates Buddy Tesner and Rich Caravella tearfully recalled their tutelage under Paterno. After leaving the viewing, Tesner said reconnecting with the family provided some closure in the whirlwind since November.
"The hardest part is walking out," Tesner said. "It's all over."Related coverage:
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