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Joe Paterno, Up Close and Personal

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following excerpts are from a sports almanac published in 2057 that chronicles topics from the past 60 years. Look for it in five decades from the shelves of Wal-TargetMart for $199.99.

2008: The Penn State College of Communications announces it will offer a course "Joe Paterno, Communications and The Media." Here was how the course was described in a story by the Associated Press:

Students ... will try to decipher Paterno's sometimes cryptic answers at press conferences with the help of a rhetorician. They'll analyze how the famed football coach tries to use the media and other avenues to promote the program. ... (The class) kicks off next fall -- in time for the start of JoePa's record 43rd season as head coach. The 81-year-old Paterno is the second-winningest coach in major college football."

The course was created to fill the void that stemmed from the course the college had asked Paterno himself to teach, but had declined to: "Come Listen to My Retirement Announcement 101."

2010: The "Joe Paterno Media" course proves so popular that Paterno accepts an invitation to co-teach the course during the spring semester. Student response is generally positive, except from the kids who failed the midterm -- Paterno forces them to miss spring break and clean the football stadium the entire week.

2013: The Indiana University School of Journalism offers a class that studies media coverage of Penn State players who have been arrested in the early 21st century. Especially popular are the marathon viewing sessions of Cops and Nancy Grace.

2015: At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Paterno's career is but one of many cited by guest lecturer Brett Favre in a seminar where he reviews sports figures who do or do not choose to retire before they wear out their welcome with the public.

2026: At the University of California-Berkeley, students study media coverage of Paterno's strange "pre-retirement" season of 2010, when he took a leave of absence from coaching, enrolled at Penn State as a student, joined the diving team and won the Big Ten championship by performing the Triple Lindy -- a dive first made famous in 1986 by Thornton Mellon of Grand Lakes University.

2028: The first thing all new students at The New England College of Optometry learn is the pioneering Lasik procedure that gave Paterno 20/20 vision. The first things all new students at The New England College of Law learn is how the optometry school defended itself from a slander lawsuit brought on by the Coca-Cola company stemming from the optometry school's triumphant advertising campaign: "JoePa Sez: Only Losers Wear Coke Bottle Glasses!"

2031: The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television offers a course that studies celebrity voice-overs in animated children's films, and specifically cites Paterno's voice talents in A Fifth of Shrek (2013). The study emphasizes the childhood trauma that ensued the world over from the scene where Paterno's character, Nittany the Lion, mercilessly claws Puss in Boots to death.

2044: Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism offers a course "Great College Football Pep Talks of the 20th and 21st Centuries." For the final exam, students are asked to craft a hypothesized Paterno rebuttal to the nonsensical Lou Holtz "Pep Talks" that were broadcast on an early 21st-century college football highlights show.