THE LION IN AUTUMN

THE LION IN AUTUMN:  A Season with Joe Paterno and Penn State Football by Frank Fitzpatrick was read for the Reading Through the Seasons 2010 Challenge.

From the back of the book:

THE LION IN AUTUMN takes readers inside Penn State's storied football program as legendary coach Joe Paterno fights to turn his struggling team into a winner once again.  In more than a half-century at Penn State, Paterno had won more bowl games than any other coach and more games than all but one, en route to two national championships and five perfect seasons.  But in the new millennium hard times arrived in Happy Valley.  His Nittany Lions had losing seasons in four of five years.  There were boos at Beaver Stadium and increasing calls for the aging Paterno to step down.


Award-winning sportswriter Frank Fitzpatrick follows JoePa through a full season as the beloved coach struggles to save his program and his legacy.  Fitzpatrick trails Paterno from the fund-raisers to the spring practices to the sidelines, and details how the coach builds a team that would later contend for the national championship.  Along the way, he interweaves the story of Paterno's success at the school, describing how a Brooklyn-born Ivy Leaguer came to Pennsylvania and became a national icon.  Powerful, revelatory, and heartrending, this is a stirring portrait of a legend in the twilight of his career fighting for one final chance at greatness.

We're a Penn State family.  My daughter graduated there in 1996 and my brother played football under JoePa during the early 1970's.  We watch all Penn State football games religiously.  This was the perfect book for me to read.

That said, it was hard to read about the 2004 season detailed in this book.  It was a bad season, following 4 other bad seasons.  Mr. Fitzpatrick pulled no punches; he wrote about the good and the bad.  Doing so, he made Joe Paterno human.

There was an afterword to this book, telling about the 2005 season - a season where everything clicked.  The team that was being built in 2004 came together and finished the season 11-1 (including the Orange Bowl), having lost their only game to Michigan in the final second.

This was the final book for the Reading Through the Seasons 2010 Challenge.  I enjoyed this challenge and will look forward to it again next year.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get out my Penn State shirt for tonight's game against Alabama.  It's going to be a good game.    

WE ARE ... PENN STATE!