Just a few short months ago, Penn State was atop the Leaders Division of the Big Ten, most of the country didn’t even know who Jerry Sandusky was, the Nittany Lions’ football program was as clean as a whistle and Joe Paterno was a truly iconic sports figure.

It’s just mind-boggling to stop and think of where we were about a dozen weeks ago and where we are now.

Mid-autumn 2011 has turned to winter 2012 and Happy Valley is still shrouded in dank, gray conditions. There is tarnish on the land of Nittany. And Joe Pa is no longer with us.

Paterno died Sunday morning – a half a day after a couple news agencies jumped the gun and reported that he had already passed – and no sooner did the legendary 85-year-old leave this world were we all reminded by his friends, family, PSU fans and columnists to honor his achievements.

Of course we will.

A funeral and memorial services are planned for this week and Paterno’s astonishing accomplishments as Penn State’s coach of 46 years will be enumerated – 409 wins, most ever for a Division I coach; 37 bowl game appearances; a pair of national championships; and many examples of benevolence and gift-giving to the university.

Even the recent tragedies and scads of allegations of child molestation by Sandusky, Paterno’s former defensive coordinator, can’t completely take away from what the guy in the thick-rimmed glasses did on the sideline and in inspiring others.

I won’t attempt to strip that from him.

At the same time, it’s difficult to characterize any disgust over the whole sordid Sandusky mess and cover-up as overreaction. Children were put in horrible situations, sexually assaulted, psychologically damaged probably worse than most of us can imagine, and basically forced to keep the whole thing quiet for years.

If the board of trustees at Penn State hadn’t removed university president Graham Spanier and Paterno from their posts, history would have been kinder to the coach and the eulogies would have been more glowing. That, of course, is what a lot of people want, certainly the students who protested the night Paterno lost his job.

But that would have been abundantly wrong because it would have caused many to believe that winning football games even trumps the well-being of young people.

This may come off as insensitive since Paterno just died before loved ones from complications of lung cancer early this week, but I still can’t get rid of that image of PSU students flipping over news vans smashing windows, and my mouth-agape reaction. How shortsighted.

The head coach did virtually nothing when informed of a child rape on campus by a former coach he had granted carte blanche access to via use of school facilities and the outrage was that a then-84-year-old couldn’t preside over games in the press box anymore? He hadn’t been coaching in a real sense for years. He had just broken the all-time NCAA wins record. And, we found out very soon after his ouster, he was dealing with a very serious health issue. He also fell at home and broke his hip in December.

This is someone who should still be “coaching” just for the sake of consistency?

Paterno was a beacon of constancy in an ever-changing world and especially in the latter stages of his career as so many factions of society seemingly became disposable. Seeing him on TV running out in front of the plain-clad Nittany Lions always seemed like a trip down memory lane to the college football heyday of the 1970s and early ’80s.

He was the guy who knew your dad or your grandfather or told stories like your great uncle. He told stories like a regular waiting his turn at the small-town barbershop.

Everything about Paterno seemed in line with 20th century Americana. He was a son of working-class parents, had ambitions to become a lawyer then played college football and landed a job under Rip Engle, a no-nonsense coach, at Penn State. The rest is a story of hard work, core values and the development of young people.

Why was Paterno so successful? Lots of reasons. But what really separated him was his stubbornness.

He aspired to keep the Lions’ approach and appearance the same over the course of decades. He refused for years to not list freshmen in the media guide even when every other school was doing so and first-year players were impacting the game. He preferred to keep disciplinary measures in house and butted heads with university overseers who demanded transparency.

He was living proof, not unlike Bob Knight, that the old-school, damn-the-media coaching style still works. Because of it, the Penn State family remained proud and tight-knit and good ol’ Joe Pa could do no wrong in their eyes. It all worked in State College, Pa., an isolated, mountain-hugged town dominated by its glowing university.

Ironically that same bullish mentality cost him dearly at the end and took a massive chunk out of his previously untouchable legacy. Keeping all matters out of the public eye and protecting coaches and players at all costs led him to mutter something about Sandusky “horsing around in the shower” with a youngster to athletic director Tim Curley.

A former PSU walk-on who played for Paterno, Curley had a sterling national reputation mostly because the football program never encountered an inkling of trouble from the NCAA, but he also was known to have little backbone around Paterno. He and another administrator, Gary Schultz, have been indicted for perjuring themselves while offering testimony to a state grand jury regarding the Sandusky case.

Lovable Joe Pa, it turned out, was a stubborn old coot and had no interest being involved in legal matters, even ones that reflected right back on his program. He was paid to spearhead a football program, fraternize with adoring fans, and help direct the student body when no one else could get through with the message.

He was a walking, breathing icon. There’s a statue of him right outside Beaver Stadium and his name was already adorned to the Big Ten Coach of the Year Award – at least until the conference decided to strip his off of it and keep only Amos Alonzo Stagg’s moniker on the trophy.

Penn State joined the Big Ten in time for the 1993 football season and even Paterno admitted the school had expectations of taking over the throne of the conference. His 1994 squad was one of the best I’ve seen. His teams since then generated little awe and just of a pair of shared titles.

The 1990s led to the 2000s and Penn State still had name recognition but not nearly as much clout. In fact, the Lions slumped to 3-9 in 2003, 4-7 the following year, and won just three of 16 league games in those two seasons. Graham and Curley tried to convince Paterno to retire, and he refused. When reporters or alumni tried to ask him to hint at his retirement plans, he shot down the notion.

Paterno returned Penn State to the elite of college football in 2005 as the Lions went 11-1, won the Orange Bowl and finished third in both major polls. But the truth is his control of the program was beginning to ebb and his affect on recruits, who often wondered if he’d be around for four or five more years, also waned. He rarely met with alumni associations anymore and was used mostly as a “closer” when it came to appealing to prospects.

In 2006, Paterno was wiped out by a Penn State receiver and Wisconsin tackler on a quick toss to the sideline and suffered a broken leg. He appeared to make no attempt to get out of the way of the play as if he didn’t even see it in time.

Not long after that, Paterno took up residence in the press box during games.

He became frailer in appearance and his quippy sense of humor was harder to detect. Several well-rated players spoke of the honor of playing for a coaching legend but others wondered privately if the old man was all there.

When Penn State lost out on in-state star Terrelle Pryor, some fans finally came out of the woodwork and postulated the program would have been better off if Paterno just rode off into the sunset.

But he wasn’t going to do that. Maybe he was never going to do that.

As reported previously on this very website, the BOT already had decided to remove Paterno as head coach and asked for his resignation nine games into the season when the Sandusky scandal heightened on Nov. 7. He, of course, refused. He even put out a statement saying he would retire at the end of the season, which was a desperate and rouge attempt to once again call his own shots even when he was finally in no position to do so.

Paterno was fired officially two days later.

It was already well-known that the higher-ups were going to more or less demand that he retire after the 2011 season even before the school was disgraced with the Sandusky disaster, which is why outposts such as SportsRappUp.com were reporting that Penn State was in position to court a handful of high-profile coaches including Urban Meyer.

Those talks did occur. Meyer was very much on the PSU radar and very interested in the job. That didn’t fall apart until the NCAA decided to fully investigate and Ohio State came after Meyer aggressively.

Paterno’s pigheadedness served him well in building and maintaining one of the top programs in all of college football. But it also proved to be a disservice at the end of his career, a career than, quite frankly, went on too long.

And, of course, his approach rubbed off on his family and supporters, who also subscribed to bullish denials of his health condition and ability to perform as a major college head coach.

Paterno coached in a bubble and he kept those close to him in the same protective coating whenever possible. His first statement about the Sandusky revelations suggested that he didn’t realize the gravity of the situation. By the time he asked people to go home and reflect and pray for the victims, it was too late. Way too late.

We were told that Paterno fought right to the end, which to me isn’t an image I like to formulate – a beaten man gasping for breath just like he clung to his job and glorified standing at the school.

It’s a sad thought, a sad ending for such an accomplished person. Former Nittany Lion Matt Millen, who remained close to Paterno, believes his old coach “died of a broken heart.”

Joe’s son, Scott Paterno, said that wasn’t the case at all, that his father harbored no resentment toward the university and remained positive to the end. We’d all like to believe that, but it’s possible that the statement was yet another stubborn denial of the truth.

So we will spend this week seeing footage of daylong memorials for Joe Paterno, we’ll see tears and feel the heartbreak again and wonder what might have been if he could have handled the 2002 Sandusky allegations differently, if he could have been more in tune with societal needs.

I remember speaking with a colleague of mine at the beginning of the 2011 college football season about the possibility of Paterno finally deciding to hang it up and end his magnificent career before someone – or something – ended it for him.

“You’ve got to remember, Rapper,” said my buddy, who is well-acquainted with the situation, “that Joe Pa is afraid of stepping away and having nothing to live for anymore. He’s deathly afraid of ending up like Bear Bryant.”

Paterno admired Bryant and shuddered, as did the rest of the country, when the legendary coach retired after the 1982 season and died soon after on Jan. 26, 1983. After his long and illustrious career ended with a 21-15 loss to Illinois in the Liberty Bowl, Bryant was asked what he planned to do in his retirement.

“Probably croak in a week,” he replied, garnering laughter.

Four weeks and a day later, he suffered a massive heart attack and was gone.

In an eerily similar manner, the stunning erosion of the Penn State football program and Paterno’s demise occurred in one horrible flash of time.