That unmistakable, wrinkled face appeared on the TV screen just after 7 a.m., the most famous man in Pennsylvania, the idol to many.
But this is a story about disgrace.
You don't become the lead story on Good Morning America because you're getting ready to play Nebraska, and Joe Paterno knows that. He has to. In his defense, he couldn't have wanted that kind of attention. This is a story about an assistant coach allegedly gone horribly awry. Penn State, Pennsylvania and the nation were only hours away from getting what all hoped were answers from the man who has become the face of not only a football program, but a university.
"Look, Daddy," my 6-year-old smiled. "It's Joe Paterno!"
How do you say what needs to be said? How do you explain that everything you thought, everything you knew, isn't exactly true anymore?
You start by finding out what Joe Paterno has to say.
But what can he say to make any of this go away? He never got the chance.
By the time I pulled into the parking lot just across the street from Beaver Stadium, a swarm of reporters - not just the guys I recognize from the Penn State beat, but faces you'd recognize from ESPN or bylines you'd know from many of the biggest newspapers in America - had already gathered near the entrance. This is a story about hard questions.
But about 40 minutes before zero hour for Paterno, the media and the awaiting public, Penn State sports information director Jeff Nelson emerged from Beaver Stadium with a stack of papers, distributing them to reporters as he walked past. Then, he called the swarm around him. And he read the one unthinkable sentence that sunk scandal-riddled Penn State into an even deeper abyss.
"Due to the ongoing legal circumstances centered around the recent allegations and charges, we have determined that today's press conference cannot be held and will not be rescheduled," he said.
He walked briskly away, cameramen and reporters following him like he was a Kardashian.
Several blocks away, at his modest home just off of Park Avenue, JoePa was preparing to head to the press conference, going over questions he might face and answers he would offer with his son and attorney, Scott Paterno.
That, Scott Paterno said, is when the family received a call from someone in university president Graham Spanier's office, notifying
them the press conference would be cancelled. And it wasn't long after that a New York Times article reporting that Paterno's support from the Penn State Board of Trustees had eroded. An exit plan for the 84-year-old coach who had been head coach since the 1960s and on the staff since 1950 was being plotted.
"I have every confidence in the ability of Joe to handle anything," former longtime radio voice of the Nittany Lions Fran Fisher said. "But this is the most difficult challenge he has had, I would suspect.
"He'll handle it. He'll handle it."
In the darkest days the university has ever seen, it is in desperate need of a leader. But there were none to be found Tuesday. Spanier, who vowed unconditional support for disgraced athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, the two administrators accused of perjury and failing to report complaints against Sandusky, was nowhere to be found.
Board of Trustees members were meeting via teleconference deep into the night.
Paterno was muzzled.
Heading to his car through a crowd of reporters gathered in front of his house, he said he wanted to speak at the press conference and that, soon, he would hold a rogue press conference of his own. This is a story about setting the record straight, and he vowed to do it.
But it should be said that there's more to all of this than what an 84-year-old football coach has to say. After his ludicrous statement that he supported Curley and Schultz, Spanier has been silent, and it would hardly seem fair for Paterno's job to be on the line if his isn't. After all, the buck should have stopped on his desk.
As difficult as it was to believe Paterno knew little about the complaints against Sandusky, isn't it just as ridiculous to believe Spanier didn't know? Isn't it sick to think that Spanier didn't ask why Curley and Schultz decided to bar Sandusky from bringing young children on campus? Isn't that type of irresponsibility from the president from a school recognized as a Public Ivy? This is a story about accountability. So where was Graham Spanier?
The night ended the only place it could have. On Joe Paterno's lawn. With hundreds of students gathered there. Chanting his name.
"We want you, Joe," they yelled.
"And I want you," he returned as he strolled out the front door.
The man had something to say Tuesday. Love him or hate him. Find him right or find him wrong. He had a right to say it. The university wouldn't allow him. Maybe, it's because his days in charge of the football program are numbered. Maybe, it's because someone knew what he planned to say.
"It's hard for me to tell you how much this means to me," he said to the gathered crowd. "I've lived for this place. I've lived for people like you guys and girls, and I'm just so happy you could feel so strongly about us and your school. The kids who were victims ⦠I think we all ought to say a prayer for them. It's a tough life, when people do certain things to you."
Prayers aren't going to change the fact that someone could have stopped Jerry Sandusky. But at least someone at Penn State was offering them.
DONNIE COLLINS covers Penn State football for The Times-Tribune. Contact him at dcollins@timesshamrock.com, read his blog at http://blogs.thetimes-tribune.com/pennstate/
or follow him on Twitter @psubst