Is the truth so elusive, so elusive you see

Said goodbye recently to a couple of Joes, both of whom were Pennsylvania legends.

I loved Cassius Clay as a kid, but Muhammad Ali was sort of a different story. At first, I was none too happy when he lost to Joe Frazier in their first of three bouts. But as I grew older and gained some perspective, my thoughts changed. Ali used Joe and treated him poorly, and now Ali has become this demi-god and a sympathetic and revered figure; all the while Joe kept his dignity even as Ali continued to goad him with taunts of "gorilla" and worse.

Joe Frazier was a central figure when heavyweight boxing was must-see television (or closed-circuit viewing. Who remembers those?). Those Ali-Frazier fights were EVENTS and continued with George Foreman and even Larry Holmes, in ways very few things (outside of the Super Bowl) are today. Everyone knew the names Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Holmes and Tyson. I don't know anyone who even knows who the heavyweight champion is today.

Joe Frazier came from nothing, and was forever a champion.

So long Joe, you fought the good fight.

I once shared an elevator with Joe Paterno for about 30 seconds, just the two of us. During a rushed conversation, I told him I was from PA and asked how his team looked that year. He said he thought they had a chance to be good. I said "good luck, and as I walked off the elevator, he said, "thanks fella."

The Central PA area I grew up in was a hotbed of Penn State football. The program and Joe Paterno were revered, and rightly so. Paterno was seen as all that was right in college sports: no probation, no major issues, he graduated players and he donated millions to the school. And he won. To think that this storied franchise was just down the road was an extreme sense of pride for many, many people.

And I respected that, even if I was more of a Pitt fan at the time.

And now, everything that Paterno and the program stood for seems to be in ruins. But what about the alleged victims? Well, obviously, it goes without saying that this is the most tragic thing here.

But I hate that it comes down this. Does one egregious and horrific example of poor judgment erase nearly 50 years of good works?

Maybe so.

And now Joe Paterno is gone. A hero to some, and a devil to many others.

America loves nothing more than to cheer when there is blood in the water, when its heroes are reduced to rubble, whether it's OJ, Tiger Woods or Paterno. The media has made Paterno public enemy 1A, or only slightly behind Sandusky's 1. And such national public and media scorn makes it seem that if someone says something good about Joe Paterno, his life and his accomplishments, than that person is somehow a proponent of child abuse.

A slippery slope, to be sure.

It's troubling that there seem to be no heroes left, and I never thought his era would ever end like this. I know he made a difference for thousands of football players, students and others in State College with his works and deeds.

But it's what he didn't do that has tarnished his legacy.

And that inaction, and its consequences, are profoundly sad. On several different levels.