Final Score By Chuck Licata

Texas football fans and natives of Texas have Darrell Royal.

Us Pennsylvania natives and fans lost “our” Darrell Royal, Joe Paterno, early Sunday morning.

The timing of the death of “JoePa” – as he’s known famously throughout the world and endearingly across the state of Pennsylvania – is just horrible for a man who was not only the “face” of Pennsylvania’s best-known college but also the “Face of the State” for most of us.

I was watching ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” Sunday when the news came down that Joe Pa was now joining Paul “Bear” Bryant and the other departed greats on that “Big Coaching Staff in the sky.” Matt Millen was one of the first former Penn State players interviewed about Joe’s death and he said something that will ring through the next few weeks about Paterno.

“The one thing I regret,” Millen said, “is that Joe Paterno probably died of a broken heart.”

College football coaching legend-turned-broadcaster Lou Holtz revealed shortly after Paterno was released from his coaching duties – which he held since 1965, and in that time piled up 407 victories, 37 bowl games and two national championships – that he told a colleague, “Joe Paterno won’t be alive for more than six months” the day JoePa was relieved of his coaching duties Nov. 9, 2011 by the Penn State trustees.

Certainly Paterno – already embroiled in scandal after his ties with former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who brought down the hallowed Penn State foundation by being arrested for sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years – deserved to retire on his own terms rather than be let go in the midst of the scandal.o

This – from ESPN on Sunday: “It was because Paterno was a such a sainted figure -- more memorable than any of his players and one of the best-known coaches in all of sports -- that his downfall was so startling. During one breathtaking week in early November, Paterno was engulfed by a scandal and forced from his job, because he failed to go to the police in 2002 when told a young boy was molested inside the football complex.

‘I didn't know which way to go ... and rather than get in there and make a mistake, Paterno said in an interview with the Washington Post.”

I was already a huge Penn State diehard when the Nittany Lions finally broke through with a national championship in 1982 – followed soon after by a title when the Lions intercepted Vinny Testaverde five times in the 1986 Fiesta Bowl.

Those two titles cemented Paterno’s legacy – not that he needed a ring to give him the credibility he’d already earned by turning out great players (and men) such as Millen, Matt Bahr, Todd Blackledge, John Cappelletti, Jack Ham, Lydell Mitchell and O.J. McDuffie, among many others.

I honestly believe that, over time, Paterno’s name will eventually be “seperated” from Sandusky and the scandal. Was JoePa innocent of any wrongdoing? Probably not – the biggest claim is Paterno could have (and should have) called the Pennsylvania State Police when he was notified in 2002 of an apparent Sandusky sexual assault. Paterno told his superior about the supposed assault one a day after graduate assistant Mike McQueary told him but didn’t go to local or state police.

Fault and blame? Yes. Enough to tear down 61 years of college football legacy including 45 as a head coach? No.

I’m not sure if it’s the East-Coast upbringing or the old-school Italian passion – which I share with many, many folks. But everyone has people and things they hold sacred as they grow older; it runs through our blood and veins. For many of us, Joe Paterno was truly one of those people.

Whether one is a Penn State graduate or not, there’s only appropriate way to end anything about the death of Joe Paterno: “We are – Penn State!”