Sunday Column: Speaking of GOATs…

Pro football’s GOAT QB, some pretty boy from Michigan, decided to retire this week (we think), a few days after one of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ all-time greats called it a wrap, which made me consider a few of Penn State’s all-time greats who were in the news this month, for one reason or another.

Russ Rose retired in December after 43 seasons of leading the Penn State women’s volleyball team and an NCAA-record 1,330 wins. Cael Sanderson continued what has been an unbelievable ride at the helm of the school’s wrestling program, as his No. 1 Nittany Lions took down hated rival and No. 2 Iowa on Friday night. And last week, fans mourned the 10th anniversary of the death of Joe Paterno, who won more games than any football coach in FBS/Division I-A history.

Three true greats there, to be sure. But which of them deserves the mantle of Greatest Penn State coach of all time (GPSCOAT)?

First, we should probably define the metrics of what makes a coach great. Is it the number of times they reached the summit of their sport? Paterno won two national titles in 46 seasons, compared to seven in 43 for Rose and eight – and counting – in 11 for Sanderson. However, the respective competition they faced must be considered.

Paterno was competing against more than 100 other programs each season and regularly playing some of the nation’s best programs as an independent, then competing in one of its toughest conferences during the latter part of his career.

Rose had more rivals from a technical standpoint – there are over 330 Division I women’s volleyball teams – but fewer who were consistently on Penn State’s level. At the same time, he made a school nestled in the central Pennsylvania mountains a major player in a sport dominated by California teams, and laid waste to a Big Ten that grew in quality as well.

Sanderson took a Penn State wrestling program that was good but not great and made it utterly dominant, though the number of NCAA Division I wrestling programs has dropped from nearly 150 in the 1980s to 78 today, and only a slim handful of teams have a realistic shot at the team title each year.

It’s doubtful anyone will catch Paterno’s win total, but percentage-wise, he’s behind several of his peers, including Bear Bryant, Tom Osborne, Nick Saban, and Urban Meyer. Rose is second behind only Hawaii’s Dave Shoji – by a mere .002 percentage points – in career winning percentage. Sanderson would have to win seven more national titles to catch Dan Gable and reach GOAT status in his own sport, but he’s still a few months shy of his 43rd birthday.

Greatness is about more than wins and losses, though. You get to a certain point, and it becomes about legacy. Rose’s legacy is of coaching disciplined teams, hardened by meticulous practice habits and composed of players who held themselves to demanding standards and the more demanding standards their coach placed upon them. Paterno’s legacy got complicated toward the end for various reasons, but even those players who couldn’t stand him when they played wound up admitting that his legacy was that of a coach who prepared his charges for excellence in football and beyond. Sanderson has known nothing but greatness – as an undefeated college wrestler, as an Olympic gold medalist, and now as the leader of the university’s top current program, and in doing so has become a beacon for the best high school wrestlers in the country and their role model as they evolve into college champions.

Paterno and Rose both left massive shoes to fill, but they both positioned their respective programs for continued and sustained success. Sanderson, whether he decides to retire tomorrow or in 2050, will have done the same. All three have had massive impact on college athletics beyond the confines of University Park, and all three deserve to be on the proverbial Mount Rushmore of all-time Penn State coaches. Which is the G(PSC)OAT? That answer will likely change from Penn State fan to Penn State fan, and is dependent upon which of the above metrics you most value.

But as you read all the breathless tributes to Touchdown Tawmmy coming from the north and south and to Big Ben from Pittsburgh this week, it’s worth remembering how rare sustained greatness is, and how fortunate Penn State has been to call these three goats its own.