shooting sports Joe Paterno media

The recent death of Penn State legend Joe Paterno got me thinking.

Front page coverage in all the papers including USA today gave perspective on his status. But I had a good deal of personal experience with Joe Pa (as he was fondly called). We covered Penn State for one of the big satellite sports networks. I was with Joe at press conferences, at the NFL Hall of Fame, behind the scenes at the stadium, and even on the field.

One thing I remember most was from the first Penn State game I covered. I already knew to get shots of Joe.  He ran onto the field with the team, and somehow ended up standing in the middle of the playing field taking in the pre-game spectacle. Since the game hadn’t started yet, I saw the chance for a great shot.

I went up to Joe Pa, held the camera down at my knee level looking up at him, I then did complete 360 degree walk around of Joe looking at at the packed stands. I knew I had a great shot.

But what I thought was this:  he had to be aware of what I was doing. I was 4 feet from him bending over with a camera going in a circle around him.  There’s no way he didn’t see me. Yet, he knew I was getting a great shot, and that people would see it.  So he let me get the shot, and it did get seen on national television. More than once.

The thought that gives me pause is this: how much of his legend was due to a savvy  understanding and use of the media, and how much was him, his teams, and the record?

In this hyper media-saturated era, that is a question we may never know the answer to.

Jeff