Exclusive Interview with Joe Paterno’s Statue

(Conducted by The Pug Bus, America’s Premier Source for News That Shouldn’t Be True)

We are in a  decommissioned airplane hangar in the mountains outside Mansfield, Pennsylvania. The space is dimly lit by flickering halogen tubes, and haunted by the faint hum of a sousaphone left on “standby.” Joe Paterno’s statue stands in the corner, across from a retired Nittany Lion mascot suit and a crate labeled “Unresolved Legal Issues.”

The statue has “lived” here since Paterno was laid low by the child sexual abuse scandal involving Jerry Sandusky, his longtime defensive coordinator. Sandusky was indicted on November 5, 2011, on fifty-two counts of child molestation over a fifteen-year period, many of which allegedly took place on Penn State property. Although Paterno was not criminally charged, he was heavily criticized for failing to take stronger action after learning of a shower-room incident involving Sandusky and a naked ten-year-old boy in 2002. He was terminated by phone on November 9, 2011, ending his sixty-one years of service to the university.

Pug Bus: Coach Statue, thank you for meeting us in this … evocative location. You’ve been off the radar since your removal fourteen years ago. Why now?
Statue: I’ve been communing with some other exiled relics. The bust of Nixon taught me ventriloquism. The statue of Joe McCarthy taught me paranoia. The statue of General Sherman taught me resolve. There are a lot of Southern statues here. Those guys didn’t [mess] around. I’ve emerged with a new philosophy: All legacies are provisional until proven ornamental.

Pug Bus: Let’s talk about college football today. What’s your take on NIL–Name, Image, and Likeness?Statue: NIL? I thought that was a new strain of turf fungus. But if you mean paying players, I say: let them eat in the cafeteria. Back in my day, we gave them a firm handshake and a sociology degree. Now they get crypto wallets and shoe deals. Progress? Who knows? But I miss the purity of under-the-table envelopes.

Pug Bus: What are your thoughts about the transfer portal?
Statue: The portal is a wormhole. A shimmering gateway to chaos. One minute you’re coaching a tight end from Altoona, the next he’s in Oregon with a sleeve tattoo and a podcast. Loyalty used to mean something. Now it’s just a setting on LinkedIn.

Pug Bus: And transgender athletes competing in women’s sports?
Statue: Ah, the culture war’s halftime show. Look, I’m a statue–I don’t have skin in the game, or anywhere else. But I do believe in fairness and not using sports as a proxy battlefield for unresolved societal issues. That said, I once coached a wide out who identified as a fog bank. He was unstoppable in zone coverage.

Pug Bus: Do you still follow Penn State football?
Statue: Sadly, we don’t get good Wi-Fi up here. Or good ethnic food either. The only football news I get is from overhearing the cleaning crew here, but a lot of them speak Spanish. I miss the old rituals: the white-outs, the chants, the way fans believed a third-down conversion could absolve a decade of silence. Football is America’s last functioning religion. I was its patron saint–until sainthood got redefined.

Pug Bus: Some people say you represent football excellence. Others say institutional failure. Which do you think it is?
Statue: I’m a Rorschach test cast in bronze. Fans see legacy. Critics see complicity. Children mostly see a weird old man pointing at something invisible.

Pug Bus: Say, what are you pointing at, by the way?
Statue: Originally? The future. Now? Probably a metaphor. Or the nearest exit.

Pug Bus: Do you have any regrets about your time at Penn State?
Statue: I regret not being cast with movable arms. I regret trusting institutions to do the right thing without a subpoena. I regret not learning to tap dance–statues with rhythm get more leniency.

Pug Bus: If you could speak to your sculptor, what would you say?
Statue: “Next time, give me a mouth. And maybe a cape. Statues with capes get more leniency.”

Pug Bus: Final thoughts?
Statue: Melt me down. Recast me as a cautionary wind chime. Hang me outside the NCAA headquarters and let me clang every time someone says “student-athlete” with a straight face.

Editor’s Note: The Pug Bus attempted to verify the statue’s statements with university officials, but they responded with a GIF of a shrugging Nittany Lion and a link to a commemorative NFT.

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