STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) ? Football fans, former players and mourners who thought of Penn State coach Joe Paterno as family lined up on Tuesday to pay their respects to the late, legendary Hall of Famer, whose casket was set out for public viewing.
At the head of the line of hundreds of people braving the chilly wintry weather were former players at Penn State under Paterno, who died on Sunday of lung cancer.
With his unrivaled record of major college football victories, Paterno was the face of Penn State for half a century until he was fired last fall for doing too little about a child sexual abuse scandal.
One former player Brian Dozier, an offensive tackle for Penn State from 1989 to 1991, credited Paterno with teaching him to prepare for adversity.
"One of the things I learned was that life will not always be fair," said Dozier, an investment advisor in Chester, Pennsylvania, as he stood on line outside the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus.
Paterno's family revealed in November that he was suffering from lung cancer, just days after he was fired by the Penn State Board of Trustees for failing to intervene more forcefully when former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was accused of molesting young boys.
Paterno told university officials but not police about an allegation that Sandusky sexually abused a young boy in the Penn State football showers in 2002, opening himself to criticism that he protected Sandusky for nine years.
Sandusky, 67, faces 52 criminal counts accusing him of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years. He has maintained his innocence and is under house arrest.
Alumnus Gary Smith, a football season ticketholder since he graduated in 1980, voiced the sentiment of those alumni who feel Paterno was treated callously by the board, which fired him in a telephone call, after his stellar career at the helm of Penn State's multi-million-dollar football program.
"They could have called him and said, 'Come in and talk to us,'" said Smith.
Smith's sister Jodi Haaf, 47, said she and her brother drove more than three hours from Matamoras, Pennsylvania, to attend the viewing.
"Joe's family," she said.
Paterno's family paid a private visit to the religious center on Tuesday morning, followed by players on the 2011 football squad.
The closed-casket viewing for the public was slated to end at 11 p.m.
A private funeral was planned for Wednesday and a public memorial service was scheduled for Thursday in Penn State's basketball arena, the Bryce Jordan Center.
(Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Editing by Paul Thomasch)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/us_nm/us_usa_paterno
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