Joe Paterno

Joe Paterno

Joseph Paterno, otherwise known as JoePa, is my hero. Joseph Paterno is a pretty cool guy for 82 years old and has over 400 wins as a football coach. JoePa is a football coach at the University of Penn State. JoePa was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 21, 1926. JoePa has been a coach at Penn state for 45 years straight and is still going strong.

Joe Paterno

Joe Paterno fulfills all the qualities that I look for in my hero. The qualities that I want are endurance, strength, kindness, and wisdom. Endurance is to strive through all kinds of stress and pain as a head coach. Strength is to have the capacity to keep on pushing through all sorts of pain. Kindness is to be able to share what you have just to help other people. Joe Paterno's best quality is wisdom. Wisdom is to be wise, smart, and to have a lot of experience to share.

The Penn State Symbol

Joe Paterno fulfills strength, endurance, wisdom, and kindness by still being a football coach at age 82 and having over 400 wins as head coach at Penn State. He shows all these qualities by giving more than he takes. In 1990, Lycoming, a very small college in the city of Williamsport, was about to make the national Collegiate Athletic Association championship. The team needed cleats to play on turf so JoePa donated the Penn State shoes to that team for a game so they could play. Since JoePa donated the cleats the team won and moved on to the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl. Joe Pa also was very driven with his players, focusing just as much time on schoolwork as football. JoePa does this because he believes if the players do not focus on schoolwork and just try to go pro, after they will not be able to be successful in life.

This is why I look up to JoePa as a hero: because through all the ups and downs at the end of the day he still shows strength, endurance, wisdom, and kindness. I hope I can be just like JoePa and be a roll model like he is to me.