STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — August 6th, football media day the Penn State, and another in a string of oppressively hot summer scorchers. For the first time this day, now that the formal interview session is complete, Joe Paterno is comfortable.

He is clad in a short-sleeved Penn State coach’s shirt, trousers that are about two inches too short, and black sneakers. …….

The vigors, if not the vagaries of life are starting to show. Sitting on the stage in the media center, the bright lights of television cameras baking him as if he were a human french fry, Paterno quickly removes his jacket. Several times he reaches for his hankerchief to wipe away the perspiration. Twice he has to ask reporters to speak up when asking their questions.

“You guys must not speak Brooklynese,” he quips.

His wife, Sue, is recovering from a broken hip. Jerry Sandusky, his defensive coordinator since 1977, has announced this will be his last season.

Paterno knows he is a Nittany Lion in winter. Now, as he walks across the field looking and feeling again like a coach he says if he doesn’t know when it’s time to quit, “I have enough good people around me that someone will tell me when I’m not doing the job.”

Paterno spots two players who are meandering across the field.

“C’mon you guys,” he yells. “We got work to do.”

Season 50 has begun.