Penn State announces new ‘Paterno Family Football Experience Room’

Pennsylvania State University this week announced the opening of the Paterno Family Football Experience Room, named for the school’s iconic — and deeply polarizing — longtime football coach.

The backlash quickly followed.

According to a university news release, the new exhibit — which will be part of the Penn State All-Sports Museum inside Beaver Stadium — will include a slate of features, including Paterno’s original office desk and personal artifacts from his six-decade tenure at the school.

“Penn State Football’s history belongs to generations of student-athletes, coaches, staff, and supporters who helped build this program,” Pat Kraft, Penn State’s vice president for intercollegiate athletics, said in a statement. “This room gives us an opportunity to preserve that history, present it thoughtfully, and create an experience that connects the proud tradition of Penn State Football with its future.”

The release did not directly address how the university settled on the name of the new exhibit, saying only that the school’s athletics department “received a lead gift from an anonymous donor supporting the creation and naming of the Paterno Family Football Experience Room.”

In an email Wednesday, Leah Beasley, a Penn State deputy athletics director, declined to comment further, directing a reporter to the original news release.

The Paterno Family Football Experience Room is set to open to the public Thursday.

The announcement of the new attraction comes 15 years after Paterno’s coaching career came to an abrupt end, when he was fired in 2011 by Penn State’s Board of Trustees over the program’s handling of child sexual abuse allegations involving longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Paterno died in 2012 at the age of 85.

And on Wednesday, it quickly rekindled the discourse surrounding Paterno’s complicated legacy.

Critics on social media expressed their disbelief at the university’s decision to name the museum after a man who played a role in one of the biggest scandals in college sports history.

“The WHAT Family football experience room!??!?!?!?!?” wrote one user on X.

“Incredibly tone-deaf,” wrote another.

“Yeah I think I’ll pass on the ‘Paterno family football experience room,’” said another.

In an interview Wednesday, Penn State booster Michael Kirschner — who along with wife Patty helped fund the Paterno desk exhibit and historical display in the new project — said he supported the use of the Paterno name.

“I am OK with it,” he said. “Those of us who sit on the Paterno side realize that the character of the man was not such that he would do something like that, and he’s done so much for Penn State that we have an allegiance to him that is lasting.”

Brandon Short, a former Penn State football captain and NFL linebacker who now serves on the school’s Board of Trustees, also praised the announcement.

“As a two-time football captain, PSU Trustee, and Letterman, I’m proud to see the Paterno Family Football Experience Room coming to Beaver Stadium,” Short wrote in a social media post. “Been working on this for a while — grateful it’s finally happening. We Are!”

On the field, Paterno’s success was indisputable. From 1966 to 2011, the coach amassed a 409-136-3 career record, becoming the winningest coach in major college football history. He led the Nittany Lions to two national titles, five unbeaten seasons, and 37 bowl appearances.

But to many, those achievements were far overshadowed by the coach’s role in the case of Sandusky, who was accused of using his association with Penn State football to groom boys for sexual abuse.

Sandusky was eventually convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse involving 10 boys over the span of 15 years. (Last week, a judge agreed to a hearing in the case after a man said he wanted to recant his allegations against Sandusky.)

In a 2012 report commissioned by the university, former FBI Director Louis Freeh found that Paterno, school president Graham B. Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley, and vice president Gary Schultz “failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.”

“The most powerful leaders at the university ... repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse,” the report said.

Shortly after the release of the Freeh report, then-Penn State president Rodney Erickson announced that the seven-foot statue of Paterno in front of Beaver Stadium was being removed, calling it “a source of division” and “an obstacle to healing.”

The coach’s name still adorns the university’s main campus library, The Pattee Library and Paterno Library — and many within the Penn State community have remained vocally supportive of the coach and his legacy.

What effect, if any, the exhibit’s name has on prospective interest remains to be seen — though Kirschner, for his part, doesn’t appear overly concerned.

“The lines to see the exhibit,” he predicted, “will be longer than the lines to the Creamery.”