He has earned right to leave sidelines on his own terms

Deserving: Paterno has earned right to stay course

   The phone call came late one January morning a few years ago, which to somebody who works nights is the equivalent of early morning.

I picked it up anyway.

""Gordie? Joe Paterno.''

The thought occurred that it might be some other reporter from the Penn State football beat doing an impression of the head coach, since just about every one of them does. (What can I say? We're easily entertained.) The thought occurred that it might be best to dismiss this obvious impostor with a curt remark.

Thankfully I did not.

Turns out he was calling to turn down an invitation to the Lancaster Sportswriters and Sportscasters Banquet. A gracious gesture, especially since he has any number of underlings to handle such trivial tasks and, as he has admitted on any number of occasions, he is ""not a big phone guy.'' But here he was doing it himself, as he would when forced to send his regrets a few years later.

The question now is whether Joe Paterno can do an impression of himself. His team has been embarrassed twice in as many games this fall. It has lost 12 of its last 18, seven of those defeats by 12 points or more. That's not a slump; that's a trend.

A Pittsburgh columnist has already called for him to retire, and for Penn State to launch a national search for a new coach at season's end.

Respectful disagreement on both counts here. Paterno has earned the right to retire when he sees fit, and he would not want to step down now anyway, with things in such obvious disarray.

(And as far as a successor, look no further than his top assistant, Fran Ganter. He is media savvy, tough enough to handle legend-following and more imaginative than it appears. The long-time offensive coordinator has been stifled by Paterno in the play-calling department through the years, and if he seethes, he does it quietly. ""It's still his football team,'' Ganter said in an interview with the Intell two years ago. ""It's not my football team.'')

The rebuilding job facing Paterno is daunting, maybe impossible. There is ample evidence that recruiting has fallen off dramatically, the head coach's arguments to the contrary Tuesday notwithstanding. Sports Illustrated noted in this week's issue that SuperPrep Magazine ranked PSU's last two classes 30th and 21st in the nation; they had been in the top 10 more often than not prior to that.

Chris Simms, Jeff Smoker and Kevin Jones head the list of noteworthy recruits who have chosen to go elsewhere in recent years. This Great Migration has left the Nits with ordinary quarterbacking, woeful line play and a linebacker corps that starts a one-time walk-on at one outside spot (Dave Benfatti) and a one-time Lafayette running back at the other (Tom Williams).

There is also some evidence that the Lions' player development is not what it once was. Consider the offensive line. Consider that it has not been a strength since Jeff Hartings and Co. left following the '95 season. That had been preceded by a year by the departure of line coach Craig Cirbus, who became the (since-fired) head coach at the University of Buffalo; his position at PSU has never been adequately filled.

Then there's the play-calling, always a bone of contention with fans. Rightfully so, too, considering the Lions seem clunky and disconnected on offense. Especially now. You can usually count on your elbow the number of times they attempt a pass over the middle, and there are certain stratagems that leave you scratching your head.

Like this: Senneca, a decent athlete with fullback speed, has run the option this year. Rashard Casey, a breathtaking athlete with breakaway ability, seldom did when he started in 2000.

Paterno's explanation?

""Casey was not really a good runner,'' he said Tuesday. ""Casey was an elusive runner. He was not a strong runner. Senneca is a 225-pounder and more of a straightaway runner, and probably would be capable of making better decisions on an option play than maybe I felt Casey was.''

Yes, the head coach is stubborn. Yes, he has some infuriating quirks. But here's the thing: The same offense that looks so terrible now worked pretty well in 1994. It worked well enough when the Lions won their first nine games in '99.

And while the '90s will be remembered for what Penn State did not do - i.e., that '94 team did not win a national championship, the Lions did not set the Big Ten on its ear and that '99 team did not run the table - Paterno has never had a more successful decade. His teams won 97 games in that 10-year span, and they weren't all against Northern Illinois.

Did he get that much dumber in two years?

The recruiting slide can be reversed. The coaching staff is already undergoing a makeover, one that would seemingly address any shortcomings there might be in player development. And the boss is a chronic tinkerer, one who welcomes the challenge his program's current malaise has brought.

Retire? No. He deserves every opportunity to make this work, and to walk away when he's good and ready.