Adversity Doesn’t Define You: Jay Paterno on Faith, Family & Leadership​

David Pasqualone: Hello, friend. Welcome to this week's episode of the Remarkable People Podcast. Today's episode is like many others. We start off slow, and it builds momentum, not just in the enthusiasm of myself and the guest, but also in the content being delivered. So hang with us through the episode, and I promise you are going to get great motivational, not just information, but facts that you can apply to your life and have even better existence.

So today's guest was a professional college coach, a professional author and a professional consultant, and so much more. His name is Jay Paterno. You've probably heard of him as a successful coach from years back, but also his father, Joe Paterno, is one of the most winningest coaches in college football history, if not of all [00:01:00] coaches of all time.

So he's going to talk about not just growing up in a home of such a high-profile father, but having that steadfast mother, and how when crazy, just ridiculousness happened in their lives that took both Joe and Jay and so many other people out of their career path for something they didn't even do, but how they took that.

Like it talks about in the Book of Job how everything was taken away, but yet they didn't lose their faith in God, and they continued to move forward doing the right thing, and they were blessed for it. So you're going to hear not just about Jay's life, but how it affects you, me, and the entire world as well. All this and more, right now!

Thank you for joining the Remarkable People Podcast!: The Remarkable People Podcast. Check it out.[00:02:00]

Remarkable People Podcast. Listen. Do. Repeat. For Life!

David Pasqualone: Hey, Jay, how are you today?

Jay Paterno: Doing great. How about you?

David Pasqualone: Man, I'm remarkable. So- ... I was just telling our listeners a little bit about you and what we're going to discuss today, but right out of the, out of your mouth, right straight from the source, if someone commits to spend these next few moments together with us, if they're going to invest their short life with us today, what do you guarantee by the end of the episode they're going to get-

to make their life a better existence?

Jay Paterno: Let me say I hope. I don't want to guarantee anything 'cause you never know, but I hope they'll learn something. I've been fortunate to, in the course of my life, been around some really remarkable people. No pun intended. Actually, pun intended. But been around a lot of really remarkable people, and I've spent my life learning from them, taking different threads from them, taking things [00:03:00] and kinda weaving into a tapestry of things that, that have kept me in good stead, and hopefully they get to share some of those things and take away a couple things that can they can learn from what I've learned.

David Pasqualone: Absolutely. And is there a central theme or topic you expect? Anything can happen, but what do you expect to learn today?

Jay Paterno: Oh, geez. That's a good question. I think we'll find out as we go.

David Pasqualone: All right, buddy, then let's do it. Ladies and gentlemen, Jay has a very interesting story. We've already talked a little bit before the show, obviously, or he wouldn't be here today, so check out this short affiliate commercial that's going to benefit you and your family, and we will be right back with Jay Paterno.

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David Pasqualone: All right, Jay, let's do this. Start off, we'll go through your life chronologically from your birth to today, good, bad, ugly, pretty, pretty ugly. Everything that's happened made you the man you are, so we'll go through it. We'll step u- go through, reverse engineer the steps of what you've achieved or overcome or learned on the way, and hopefully together as a community all over the world we'll grow together.

Sound good?

Jay Paterno: Sounds good. Sounds

David Pasqualone: good. All right, buddy, so what's your story?

Jay Paterno: You mentioned the good, bad, and the ugly. I was an ugly baby. There's no question about it. And I'm not ashamed to say that. But, I was fortunate. I grew up in a house with two parents who had a, a set of core values.

[00:06:00] Now, my dad was a football coach who's very well known. Ended up as the winningest coach in the history of college football at his level. Certainly got to k- interact with a lot of really interesting people. But at our core- we were taught some basic things that we lived and hopefully try and live up to our entire life.

And, they're, things that I got from them, we stand tallest when we reach to help other people up. We treat each other people as we'd like them to treat us. We welcome all. We make everybody... and we don't judge. And those are all things that I grew up in my home about learning about, and tried to make that kind of a core foundational value, and to leave the world a little bit better place than you found it.

So those are the things that we learned as kids, and we talked about all the time. And the examples of their lives were such that we had no choice but to follow that example

David Pasqualone: And what were some of the things that your parents were modeling?

Jay Paterno: Philanthropy was a big thing for my [00:07:00] parents. It was never about...

my, my dad in his 46 years as head coach at Penn State, having won more games than anybody in major college football history, was making... His salary was 10th out of 11 in the Big Ten. He wasn't, it wasn't all about money. It wasn't about me over, over over others. And really one of the foundational things, every night as a family, we would, when we were little we would pray.

And then, when I became a member of the team at Penn State and then coached with them, before and after every game, we would say one prayer and it was the Our Father, the Lord's Prayer. And at one point, I finally said to my dad, in the era that we are in where, and this is in the 2000s, where, relig- y- as a state university, you really can't impose religion on others and things like that.

But I said, why that prayer?" And he said, and this really gets to the core of what my parents were about. He said, Jay, if you... That prayer is really [00:08:00] non-denominational. It is a prayer that everybody can say because it's not specific to any one religion, even though we call it the Lord's Prayer.

But more importantly, every pronoun in that prayer is plural. It is we, us, our. There is not an I, me, or mine anywhere in that prayer. It's not a prayer for domination. It's not a prayer for power. It's a prayer for our daily bread. It's a prayer for forgiveness for our sins as we forgive others." And it wasn't like that's all we talked about, but that lesson to me got to the essence of what my parents raised me to be, we and us people, and the common good was so important and doing for others.

And my mom for 40 years has been on the board of the State Special Olympics in Pennsylvania, raises hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for Special Olympics, as well as a number of other causes. So they not only were philanthropic and wanted to do what was the common good, [00:09:00] they put their hands in the dirt, so to speak, and actually worked to get it done.

And that's, those are things that I will carry with me the rest of my life

David Pasqualone: And then having a father who's a public figure, but also moving forward constantly, 'cause I'm sure he was working long hours, especially- Yeah ... during the season, right? Pre-season- Yeah ... p- postseason. It's a year-round activity.

What kind of life balance did you live or, there is no such thing as a perfect situation and a perfect balance. No. But what kind of balance did you see between your mom and dad that you I'm sure, absorbed?

Jay Paterno: My mom really, football pun intended, she carried the ball. Years ago, coaches didn't travel on private planes, so there was a lot of driving, a lot of time away. And the time that he spent away, my mom had everything organized to the minute, and so she carried that. And my dad, when I got into coaching and spent the 20 years I was coaching and before I was a parent, after, even after I became a parent, he said to [00:10:00] me, Jay, there were times when I was sitting down with you guys in the room, but I was thinking about what we were going to do on third down on Saturday."

And he said and so I ha- you know he wasn't afraid to admit that, some faults, which I think is, again, a sign of maturity in leadership that you can admit faults. But he would say to me, "Jay, when you get home, be home not just physically, but mentally, and have that balance.

Because if you don't, you'll get out of whack." And that's how people get into trouble in whether it's coaching or whether it's business or whatever, when winning becomes this all-consuming thing at, without a attention to, oh, I have kids, I have a wife, and this relationship. It can become a very dangerous thing, and I think that's how people get lost sometimes.

When you see them do things in their professional lives that then become a problem, a lot of it's because they're so consumed by that success and how other people view them, rather than just in this internal excellence that you have inside yourself and [00:11:00] this life balance that keeps you from doing things that maybe you shouldn't.

David Pasqualone: Yeah, absolutely. And again, football is a career and your dad's job and now your job, but it's still just an aspect of life. It's not God. It's not your family. It's not your friends. So you need to have that balance. So what are the safeguards that you've put on to keep yourself within the rails now?

Jay Paterno: When I played at Penn State, and then coached there we had... Joe had a blue line on the practice field. So every time we crossed that blue line, he would say, "When you go out to practice and clo- cross that blue line, I, y- your mind. You have to be focused on whe- if you're a player, the only thing you can control in that moment is how w- how good a football player you're going to become, getting better every day.

You can't worry about the math class that maybe you're struggling in, or, a- and it may sound callous, but if you've got a family member that's sick, you're not going to cure them on the practice field. And if you've had something wrong in a, and you dropped a pass last [00:12:00] Saturday you, this is your chance to get better.

But you can only do things on that field that impact the kind of football player you are." Now, he said, "Once you get off that, cross that blue line again, when you go into your class, you can't do anything about the game you lost last Saturday. You can only, if it's a math class, you, all you can worry about is becoming a better math student, getting the best grade you can get."

And he said, "And in your personal life, when you go home, you have to have that same blue line and understand that I'm in this role now." And I think those are the guardrails that I've always had in terms of that. And then he had, th- there was this thing that we always talked about, success and excellence.

Success is how other people see you. So people, you say, oh, you drive this kind of car. You live in this kind of house, whatever. You're a success. Whereas th- he had this concept called excellence, which really was personal. It meant I have a set of core values, and if I uphold those core values, at night when I go to bed, I can look myself in the mirror and be [00:13:00] confident and be secure in what I've done and my conscience is clear.

And I think that's really, those are the things that you gotta hold onto to keep yourself from drifting.

David Pasqualone: No, absolutely, 100%. We all need... That's the great thing about the Bible. It's the set of standards and rules and laws, and it's not to rush train us, it's to constrain us. It's to motivate us.

To give us clear guardrails, to know, man, I can do this without shame or guilt and be free and feel that joy, and a lot of people don't get that. They see rules as bad. But that balance, I love that blue line that your dad established, and then you kept that going when you were coaching?

Jay Paterno: Yeah, absolutely.

And look, y- when you think about when people talk about the Bible there's the Old Testament fire and brimstone, like thou shalt not. But when you really look at the Bible, the beauty of the Bible is this idea of how you can live your life in a positive way.

That's really one of the greatest passages and I grew up Catholic and it was a Catholic priest named Father May, and one of the things he said to me, [00:14:00] he said, "One of the best passages is when Christ says to says to..." He tells a parable about the people on the right of God and the left of God, and he says, "Whatsoever you did do to the least of my brothers, that you did unto me."

And that's one of those things and you go, oh, I get it. This is about, this isn't about just having these rules. It's about, what you do for others. And there's a... Joan Osborne had this great song ca- What If God Was One Of Us? And it's that lesson to where you go, yeah the guy that's sitting on a bus next to me is, God is in him, and this person, God is in him, and this person I interact with, God's in him.

And like you said, it's not a bunch of rules, it's just a way to live, and I think that's such a positive way to look at it.

David Pasqualone: 100%. So now- '

Jay Paterno: Cause I hate rules. You give me a set of rules, I'm like, "Ugh." Yeah, and in coaching, and the thing about coaching is this. All coaches do, [00:15:00] whether it's you put up a defense against me, I'm looking for the loophole.

If you have a set of NCAA recruiting rules, I'm going to try to be trying innovative that's still within the rules, but gets around some of the rules. Not leg- not illegally, but that's the mindset that you're set up as a coach. So when you say, "I've got these rules," it's like the inclination is the w- how do I work my way around them?

David Pasqualone: Yeah. And again, i- in our flesh, our spirit naturally- Yeah ... goes to rebellion, which is- Yeah ... a sign of witchcraft, right? Yeah. But when it comes to the rules, I'm talking about the biblical rules. Yeah. Those are rules that actually bring us joy and peace. Government rules, red tape, bureaucratic things, yeah, we bo- we all know those are crap.

Yeah. But you got to work around them. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with working around them. So as long as you're not breaking it, you're good to go.

Jay Paterno: Absolutely.

David Pasqualone: And then actually, I'm going to say flat out, people have heard it on the show. I believe, and you c- somebody can talk to me face-to-face or threaten my life, I don't care.

Not all laws are moral, [00:16:00] and not all things that are illegal are immoral. So I go by morality. I don't necessarily go by the law, because there's things that are clearly wrong. Like Massachusetts just passed abortion up to the moment of birth. You can kill a baby for any reason. I don't care who you are, it's wrong.

That's murder. And just because the law right now says it's right doesn't make it murder's murder, whoever you are. So when it comes back to your life, what you're saying, dude, I love the spirit, I love the heart, I love the fight. Okay, we have these stupid conditions put on us. Let's find a way around it.

Over, under, through, or, straight through the wall.

Jay Paterno: Yeah. So- Put up a defense. I'm going to find a way through it.

David Pasqualone: That's it, man. Or around it. Yeah. So let's get back to your story. So now you grow up in a home. Obviously your father's one of the greatest coaches in college football history. Your mom's holding down the fort so he can do that.

Talk about y- your growth and your just s- life between then and today.

Jay Paterno: I will tell you this very honestly. [00:17:00] I think my growth was stunted in some ways in this regard. I was immature and I was young. When I went to college, I didn't turn 18 till October of my freshman year of college, so I was younger than most people.

But one of the things that happens is, and I saw an interview with Michael Douglas, whose father was Kirk Douglas, the actor, and Michael Douglas said, when you grow up as the son or daughter of very successful people," whether they be actors or business or whatever it may be, public eye, there is this element of people treat you differently.

And that kind of stunts your growth because sometimes if you don't quite do what you're supposed to or if you get the 89 in a class, they might give you the 90 'cause of who you are or... So when I grew up, that kind of ... People, there were thing, times when people would let things slide or whatever, and that really set me back to where, until I got, started playing at Penn State and then got out in life, you realize, you know what?

There are real consequences if you don't live up to [00:18:00] things. So I think there was an element of me having... A- and parents don't know that goes on. When you are succes- someone who's successful, you don't necessarily know that people are treating your kids differently or you don't know enough to know even if they, you saw it and just couldn't a- you couldn't acknowledge it.

So I think that was a hard thing in terms of, and I don't mean hard in terms of a, a hardship. It was just something from when you're 16 and everything seems to fall your way, it's hard to retrain yourself when you're 20 that everything doesn't always fall your way. You're going to, you're going to have some adversity and you're going to have some things go wrong, so you have to learn how to deal with that adversity and that, that took me some time.

By the ti- when I was in college I was far from perfect. I was a jackass at times which a lot of people are, but I may have been exceptionally jackassic, so to speak. You grow out of those things and you have to, and that comes with experience. I think that's one of the things I think that if there's a criticism I have of the generation of parenting that's going on, [00:19:00] and I'm part of that generation, it's we want to protect our kids from adversity or difficulty so much.

It's... A guy I coached with named Bill Kenney used to have a thing on his desk and he said, it said, "Prepare your child for the path. Don't prepare the path for the child." And gr- growing up the way I did, sometimes there were people that kind of wanted to... Not my parents, certainly. There were people that wanted the path, helped you, helped prepare the path for me that kinda set me back.

And I don't res- I don't really, I'm not I don't blame them. I was, a pretty good BS-er and, friendly and outgoing and a good kid at heart who just sometimes made some mistakes. Nothing major. But I think that was one of those things that growing up that I had to kinda deal with and at, when I got older, to kinda get my head around and go, "Oh, now I know why this, that, and that happened."

And you, and that's growing and maturity

David Pasqualone: Yes. Now, to have a father who's, one of the [00:20:00] winningest coaches in history, if not the winningest coach, to taking up in that path, that's gotta be a form of pressure, a form of excitement. So talk about your growth in becoming who you are today because on that journey, I'm sure some people, honestly, they're like, "Oh, this guy's A material automatically."

And other people are like, "This guy's just on his daddy's coattails." Talk about the pros and cons of growing up under that.

Jay Paterno: Oh, no question. It's, for every person that, wants to help you, there's some people that want to tear you down, and that's just reality. It's it doesn't matter where you come from, but, now we talk about nepo babies and all those kind of things.

The best thing my dad did for me was I left for five years and coached elsewhere. So I had to go out and sink or swim on my own, prove myself on my own. And then after five years, there was an opening on his staff, and the coaches on his staff said, "W- why are you not hiring Jay? He should get this job.

He understands us. We know what kind of coach he is. We [00:21:00] know what kind of person he is. We need, y- you need to hire him." So he grudgingly brought me back, but I also understood I had a, a guy sit down with me when I first came back, and this would've been in the mid-'90s, and at that time, there were not that many Black coaches in the profession, and this was a guy who was a Black coach, and he said to me, Jay, he goes, "You gotta understand one thing."

He said, "People think I'm only..." Even though this guy was a terrific football player and a terrific coach, he said, "People look at me and think I'm only here 'cause I'm Black." He goes, "Now, people are going to look at you and think you're only here 'cause of your last name and who your dad is." He said like me, you're going to have to be better than average for people to even think that you're average.

If you want people to accept you for being great, you're going to have to be beyond every-- You have to, it's going to be harder on you to prove to people how good a coach you are, so just understand that." So that was a good lesson right off the bat, and then the other part of the lesson was I just understood, I was mature enough to go, "You know what?

My dad did this." At that time, had been doing this for, a [00:22:00] head coach for 30 years at the time. He ended up retiring at the end of his career, he'd been a head coach for 46 years and a coach for 61. But I knew, I was like, "Look, I'm not going to chase him. I'm not, I'm never going to be the same coach he is."

And my dad gave me a lesson that was really good. He said, when I was in college, he said, "Look, I know you want to coach." He goes, "And that's okay if that's what you want to do." But I don't want you to coach because you think that's what I want you to do, that I expect you to coach. I don't want you to coach because you think that's people, other people think that's what you should do because of me.

So do, I want to release you from any expectations that you think anybody else has or that you think I might have." He said, "I want you to do, follow the career path you want to follow and be as successful as you can be and be your best." And I think that was, that lesson was great for me to hear because I got into coaching because that's what I wanted to do and I just, and I was never trying to chase my dad and be better than my [00:23:00] dad or say I'm going to b- I'll, I'm going to do a better job than him.

I'm going to be comfortable in who I am

David Pasqualone: Yeah, and I think that's a great, obviously, way to look at it because comparison never works out in anything, espe-

Jay Paterno: When you see how many people fail because... that are s- that are in the same profession as their father or mother, whatever it is, who are very successful, and it's like this, "I've got to show that I'm better than my dad or better than my mom."

That's... you're never going to be better. You're going to be different. And it's a stupid fight to take on. Life is hard enough without trying to compete against something that where there's no standard to say whether you're better at them or than them or not.

David Pasqualone: Yeah, and a father, and son or daughter, father, what is it?

Parent and sibling- Yeah ... they should be the first person helping them and growing and working- Yeah ... together and supporting each other. It should be, like, the best form of support, not a competition, yep. Good. Now talk about this. So now you're coaching... and again, [00:24:00] between the point where you're coaching with your father and your birth, is there anything we missed- Yes

we, you want to talk about before we transition to the next phase?

Jay Paterno: I don't think. I think we've covered it pretty well.

David Pasqualone: All right. All right.

Jay Paterno: And then- If something jumps out, I'll jump back. Don't worry. I've I've been known to go back and forth, but I'll try and stay to the script here.

David Pasqualone: Yeah, no,

Jay Paterno: I get you.

Not script, folks. Not a script the questions.

David Pasqualone: I get you. So now you're with your dad. You're coaching, and where does life go? Bring us from there to today, 'cause I know there's major hiccups in the road.

Jay Paterno: Oh, no question. I coached with him for 17, 17 years? Yeah, 17 seasons. And really there were some down years, some good years, but I think in the tough years, learned, probably learned more about myself as a coach and a person as to how I handled the adversity and stayed consistent.

I think one of the things people have a tendency to do is when things aren't going right, instead of just... The best way to handle [00:25:00] adversity is not to change your foundational values, not to change your foundational goals, but you change your tactic and your strategy to get to those. Because the tactics and strategy may falter, but the ultimate foundational values and things have to remain 'cause that's how you got to be successful in the first place.

So that, through that course that was important when we had those down years, that when we came back and had the last seven or eight years of my dad's career, we were as good as anybody in the country in terms of what we did on, o- on and off the field. The, when, the last seven years of my dad's career, we had the sixth-best record in the country, but we were the only school in the country that was graduating over 80% of our players and winning over 78, 80% of our games.

So we were the standard for, to do things at the college football level with, what's right in the classroom and what's right on the field. Now, at the end of it,

David Pasqualone: And actually, hey, let's pause

Jay Paterno: Yeah

David Pasqualone: We have listeners from all backgrounds, and not all of them are football- Yeah ... fans. Not all... We have a huge, massive global [00:26:00] audience.

So ladies and gentlemen what Jay's talking about is a lot of colleges, it's just like you're on the football team, you're on the basketball team. They don't even show up for classes. They just get a rubber stamp diploma, and there's no education going on. So at Penn State, Jay, you're saying you made sure your athletes are actually getting an education?

Jay Paterno: No question. That was job one. If we had to, if we had to lose a game because a guy needed to learn about... If we had to sit a guy out because he wasn't doing what we wanted to and skipping classes and cutting classes, we would do that. We were not afraid to take that stand. Now fans may not like that, and people that are only worried, concerned about wins and losses.

But at the end of the day, college sports is supposed to be about helping young people find their way, become better leaders, get an education, and then the other stuff is p- just part of the, is part of the journey. And you can use that, the most powerful thing you have with guys that are on your team is they want to play.

At Penn State, we had 107, [00:27:00] 110,000 people in the stands. And to go out and play football in front of peop- that kind of crowd and be on national television is a real thrill. There's an adrenaline rush that comes with that. Now, to get there, you have to go to class. To get there, you had to be a good citizen.

Look, we weren't perfect. We had guys that, that didn't, that cut classes or did things they weren't supposed to, but at the end of the day, there were consequences for those, and we helped them learn. So that was, we were unique in that regard, in that... A lot of schools did it, but we did it at a higher level than everybody else.

David Pasqualone: Yeah, no, and I respect that, especially because there's very few people that are going to become professional athletes.

Jay Paterno: Yeah.

David Pasqualone: But I just was talking to a guest. I did not realize how bad it was. And what I mean by this is- These players are making, even sitting the bench, what is the, I think the bottom NFL, just to be a tackle dummy, you're making over half a million dollars a year, correct?

Jay Paterno: Yeah, about that, yeah.

David Pasqualone: Yeah. So- I think that

Jay Paterno: might be the [00:28:00] league minimum now.

David Pasqualone: Yeah, it's like the league minimum. So you get these players who are actually performing, and they're making millions, and even if they have a five-year career I heard a staggering number, like s- 70 to 90% of these people are broke after five years.

Is that what you've heard too?

Jay Paterno: I don't know if it's that high but what they don't realize is, a- and the NFL's doing a better job now. One of the groups that I've consulted with does n- does financial literacy with NFL players now, which the NFL is now saying, "Look let's help these guys understand this cashflow that they are used to is going to end in four years or five years or eight years," or whatever it may be.

It's not eternal. So they're making, let's say $10 million a year, 'cause that's easy math,

David Pasqualone: okay?

Jay Paterno: I like those round numbers when you do math. Okay all of a sudden I'm going to buy my mom a house, me a house, I'm going to have a house somewhere else, I'm going to have a house somewhere else with these cars, whatever, and they start to realize, oh, there's property taxes on those houses, there's all these other things that come with it, [00:29:00] these costs from owning these things.

And as long as you've got that $10 million a year cashflow, you can pay all those things. But if the minute that cashflow stops, you get hurt or you're done playing and you're cut, you still have to pay for all the upkeep and the maintenance and things for those homes and all of a sudden it's like, wow, the money's all gone now.

So it's difficult. So I think the NFL's done a better job with the financial literacy part of it. But so many of the guys, a, a lot of the guys I've coached that have gone to the NFL have made more money out of the NFL using the capital that they've garnered from playing and the education they got at school to then go on and do things beyond.

We had a situation where I had a guy named Michael Robinson who's on the NFL Network now, and he's been on NBC Sports, and he knew early on in his career that he wanted to be in television. So he had a concussion in a game and was cleared to come back, but the doctor wanted him to stay out another [00:30:00] week.

And I finally said, "Mike, if we were talking about a knee, that's one thing. We're talking about your head, and you know what you want to do with your career after football."

"

Jay Paterno: And if you get, continue to get concussions, you may not be able to do that." So he understood that and was, he didn't agree with it necessarily at the time, but once he got the idea okay.

And that's what we wanted our guys to understand, that this is all bigger than football. A- and 'cause football ends someday. Nobody gets to play it forever.

David Pasqualone: Yeah, and that's what I wanted to bring up. That actually, I really respect Penn State for that because if these individuals are starting businesses, they're employing Americans, and they're continuing to share the wealth.

It's not just they're an island. So having money management skills and entrepreneurial skills, it's great that Penn State's actually holding them to a standard of, "Hey, it's still college. You still need to finish your degree, and even though you're great and you're on our football team, the chances of going pro are still small."

Jay Paterno: Yeah, [00:31:00] and it's never forever. And, it... And part of the other things that's been really rewarding is there are guys I recruited, guys I coached, guys I was teammates with, a lot of them have gone out and done well financially, and then turned around. I have a teammate of mine who he and his wife, he was very successful on Wall Street.

He and his wife are building schools in Rwanda and educating young people, and then getting to go to university. And then, another another guy that I recruited and coached, he's done the same thing in Ohio where he, a tough area where he came from, where now he's getting young people in inner cities to look to horizons of, "Hey, I can go to college.

I can change my life. I can do certain things." And another guy in Richmond, Virginia, who I coach, who's done that. So e- those things are even more satisfying to see they've done well with their own lives, but also now to see those tentacles go out and say they're going to lift other people up because of the examples that they l- understood and grew up with.

David Pasqualone: Absolutely, and that's biblical. Love God. Yep. Love [00:32:00] others. So it's- Yep ... what we should be doing. All right, so do this, Jay. You're coaching 17 years. You guys are doing everything you can to help the students and to be a winning team, but not just winning on the football field, but in life. Bring us through what happens next.

Jay Paterno: It gets very complex, but- At Penn State, there was a situation where a former coach was accused of sexual assault of children, and he would-- he had not been-- at the time he was arrested, he hadn't been a coach at Penn State for over a dec- for over 11 years. But it became a media firestorm because my dad, who did nothing wrong, he was told of one report and reported it exactly as he was supposed to under the law and to the fullest extent he was allowed to under the law.

The media narrative did not understand that or chose not to understand it. So as this media tsunami unfolds, he's [00:33:00] fired and, he says, "I'm going to, you know, finish out the year and I'm going to be done," and he's fired. So he loses his job. He becomes... He goes from a respected patriarch to, in some people's mind, a reviled pariah, even though he did nothing wrong but report a rep- report something that was reported to him.

He didn't witness a crime, didn't commit a crime wasn't even sure there was one, but he reported it. But at the end of the day, as we all know, that's not what moves the needle in social media or in the regular media, and so he became the scapegoat in this thing in many ways. And so when that happened, he lost his job at the end of the year.

I lost... I-- Because of my name association with him, I became unemployable as a coach, and then I had to really shift my life and go into different things, and I got into some other things. I got into some private equity raises, wrote a book about my dad and what my life was like with him. Wrote two other books about college football.

I eventually became a member [00:34:00] of the Penn State's Board of Trustees. I've consulted in college football and done a lot of other things. So I've had a started my own television show about, Penn State football show. But I've done a lot of other things in my life, which at that time in my life, I'm 43 years old when this all happens.

And I'm at the point where the greatest earning years of my life as a coach are about to happen, and all of a sudden it's all ripped away from you. And then within three months of all this happening, or within two months really my father, we find out he has lung cancer and he dies. So all these things came at me at once.

Your career's over. Your dad's, been wrongly accused of things. Your career's over, Jay, and now you lose your dad who was this guiding light in your life along with your mom. And it, you know- two weeks after he, it may have been two or three weeks, I, but it w- I can't remember if it was two or three weeks, but after he died, I went and did the first Penn State event, alumni event I went to [00:35:00] was in New York City.

And my dad had grown up in Brooklyn, and he went, as a kid, went to St. Edmund's Parish in Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn. So I got up early next morning, I went to mass in Sheep- at St. Edmund's Parish, which is still there. And he'd gone to elementary school there in the '30s. So this is the 1930s.

So this isn't years, this is 2012 And they get to the first reading, and the first reading is from the Book of Job. And I'm like, "You gotta be kidding me." Job loses... Everything's going great for Job, loses everything. At the e- at the very core of it, Job never lost faith in God, and I'm like, "Okay, I am right where I'm supposed to be, and I'm here in exactly what I'm supposed to be."

So now I walk out, I go, Jay, you can sit around and cry about what you lost, or you can get on with it and re- reinvent yourself at 43," and that's what I had to do, and I... my faith carried me through it a lot, my family. My wife has been an absolute rock star through this whole thing.

[00:36:00] So many people that go through these types of public events end up divorced, and she didn't. She was rock solid next to me the entire way. And those are the... Th- that was... My life is really, there's like a wall that goes up in your life, and there's before that wall and after that wall, so to speak.

And it's been tough. It's been a j- learning process, but at the end of the day, I'm happy and my kids are happy, and I think I can look myself in the mirror.

David Pasqualone: And we're going to talk about how you came to this specifically, 'cause many people go through unjust persecution, and they go through trials like you talked about, Job in the Bi- Bible.

So we want to go through the steps of what you did to get through it. But before we do, I do want to just summarize. Again, I haven't deeply researched this topic, but from talking to you, doing surface research, the person who committed this, your father had no idea.

As soon [00:37:00] as he found out anything, he reported it as he should have.

Jay Paterno: Yeah, absolutely.

David Pasqualone: It still destroyed his career and reputation. It affected your career and your reputation, and other people's careers and reputation. Yep. That's the summary. So ladies and gentlemen, I want you to understand what Jay's talking about. And when your father passed in 2012, he still didn't get that restoration of his credibility, correct?

Jay Paterno: Correct. A- at the end of the day-

David Pasqualone: He has it with God, and that's what matters ...

Jay Paterno: no, no question.

David Pasqualone: But in the public eye, he didn't see it on this side of eternity, correct?

Jay Paterno: Yeah. A- and, the majority of people that know anything about the story know the reality. And, you don't live your life a certain way- Your entire life is about doing things the right way, and in one instance you just decide, "I'm going to throw all that away."

And I tell people all the time, because you have people like, "Oh, you had to know. You..." And I knew the guy that did it. I've known him my whole life. My own kids were around him. We were around him as kids, so if you thought we knew and would [00:38:00] put our own kids around someone like that, like what kind of person do you think I am?

There's not a football game in the world that's worth winning that you would put your kids at that risk. So we didn't know, and we absolutely did not know. And these, and if there's one thing I would tell people- we grew up in an era where you thought the child predator or the person you had to be aware of was, like, the guy in the white van with, "Hey, kids, you want some candy?"

The free candy in the white van guy. And what I... and that's how, until this story became public and we became aware of it, that's how I viewed it. And then you realize that there are people like this around in every community, and they are right next to you, or they live in your neighborhood, and you don't even know it.

And so we didn't know about this. And that... You can sit around and cry about the injustice, and certainly, my dad did not. My dad, one of the last things he wrote on a notepad before he went to the hospital, it wasn't about, "This has been so terrible for me," it [00:39:00] was, "If there's a silver lining in this, maybe we all will learn more about these things, and some good can come out of this if it helps prevent the next ones."

So so that which I thought was an incredible... And it's not like he said, "Hey, look at this note." It was just a note we found after he died and went, even in these difficult times where he gets cancer and he's dying and all these things have happened to him, he's thinking about how this can improve the lives of others, and that was a really powerful thing for me to see.

David Pasqualone: And I think for all of our listeners, ladies and gentlemen, that is a great applicable truth. He was looking at the positive. Yeah. Focusing his mind on the good, not the bad. And- Absolutely ... that is, I think, what really makes a difference in people having hope versus losing hope, and being crushed and moving on.

So I think that's a great lesson. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, Jay. Yeah. Now, what else did you... 'Cause, we're not without sin. [00:40:00] No. But thankfully, through Christ, we're forgiven. But when it comes to life, there's nobody that's ever walked this planet that's been completely innocent, and yet more persecuted and falsely accused than Jesus.

So you're not Jesus. I'm not Jesus. Your dad's not Jesus. But when you're being falsely accused of things, it is hard to not want to strike back or to fire back or to fight it till you die, right? Yes. So how did you learn to let these haters and liars go?

Jay Paterno: My dad used to always tell us, "Don't get in a pissing contest with a skunk."

He said, "Because you... I- even if you win, you lose." Which is great advice, but I think one of the things is that this, is that- you, there's two types of people in the world. There are problem people and there's solution people. And problem people are a dime a dozen. They can say, "This is wrong, that's wrong, this is wrong, that's wrong."

Okay, great. You've pointed out all my faults and pointed out all the things that are wrong. [00:41:00] And then you have solution people, and solution people say this is not right. Here's how we get past it. This is not right. Here's how we get past it." So I've always tried to be the solution person, so as these things started to happen to me there's no question there were moments of bitterness.

There's no question there were moments of anger. There's no question there were moments where you're literally saying, "God, really? What did I do to deserve this?" And yet at the end of the day, you go, "Okay, I can sit around and cry about it, or I'm going to go do something about it." And getting and this, these particular crimes, we did a lot of things to try and educate people, which was what he want...

What goes back to that note my dad made. We did things to create programs that would train people to recognize these things. We cr- we got involved in some, some things where we became advocates publicly in these issues. And so about a year and a half, a little more than a year after my dad died, we had iss- we had done, my mom had f- funded and the estate had funded [00:42:00] some reports to talk about how you identify these people.

So I did some interviews along the lines, went up to ESPN and did a whole day of interviews and things and was on CNN and was on CBS. I think I had everybody. But at the end of the day, unbeknownst to me, there were people that were threatening my life because how dare you take the side of someone like your dad, 'cause they didn't know the whole story.

And they, it became this, "You're defending a guy who's a horrible human being," which was not the case, obviously. So the police f- identified two different people who had threatened my life and threatened my family's life, and they were going to come to, threaten to come to my town and kill me and kill my family.

And they said we identified one of them, and we, what do you want us to do about this?" And I, and I gave it some thought, and I called them back and I said, "Look, my bet is this particular person had been abused at some point in his or [00:43:00] her life." And never got resolution, never got the help or feels like they had never...

So now they see me. I said, "Look, tell this person if that is the case, if I'm right and they need help, we have resources and people we can refer them to, to help them get the help they need. I don't want to , take a, a weak moment in a person's life and ruin that life. Let's see if we..." And it ended up the person had that issue, and that person did end up getting health and help, and they never c- came back to me and said, "Hey, here's how it all resolved itself," but that was the course of action they followed.

And I'm glad that, I was thinking of what my dad would have done at that point. And I was thinking of what we should do at that point. And, when that resolved itself, I felt like it, like I had been given a test that I passed and felt good about, okay, this is what I can do with this rather than be angry

David Pasqualone: [00:44:00] Yeah, you found-

Jay Paterno: Look, I was angry for a few minutes, but once, once I thought about it, I got myself to where, "Okay, what do you do next?"

David Pasqualone: Yeah, no you found a better way. Yeah. You didn't go with what everybody said. You thought through it- Yeah ... and what's the best outcome scenario and percentages.

Jay Paterno: Yeah.

David Pasqualone: All right. When you were going through this, you mentioned early on a lot of families end in divorce 'cause just the- Yeah

stress and the strain, and it overflows in every area of your life. For people going through these extreme trials, what relationship tips do you have for them to keep open your relationship with God, yourself, and your spouse?

Jay Paterno: The fact that we came through this, I'll give all the credit to my wife 'cause she, my wife Kelly's probably the person that can answer that question better than me.

But I think the reality is this is I think when adversity arrives in whatever form it may be, you can't let the adversity define you and your relationship. At the end of the day, your relationship that was there before [00:45:00] has gotta be the basis of what comes after. And so the adversity is just out there, essentially this thing that's out there that other people are assigning to you, or it's temporary or whatever it may be.

So whether it's your relationship with your spouse, relationship, how you handle your kids and how you raise them, all that kind of stuff, or your relationship with your faith you gotta understand that the adversity doesn't become the end-all be-all. That's not the last chapter written in your life.

And, one of the... back in 2013 I was asked to consider running for Congress as a Democrat and I went down to... And I'm a very moderate Democrat. And I went down to DC, and I had gotten to know Joe Biden a little bit, who was then vice president. So this is 2013. I go down to DC and Joe Biden, he says when he's done meeting with all these other people, have him come over and he, I go over to see him and he says, Jay," he goes, "Just a couple things."

He goes... Y- and there were [00:46:00] these political advisors and he said, "Look, I just want to talk to Jay by ourselves for a minute." And he says, "Jay, I went through some things in my life and some adversity and I felt like I wanted to quit." And he said, "I went home and people kept telling me, 'Look, Joe, it's, this is temporary, and Joe, this is not who you are and your core values are still this and your faith tell, still tells you that and keep fighting on.'"

And so he told me at that moment, "Don't, do not let adversity overtake you. Do not..." He said, "I've seen what... You're out there fighting for your dad, doing interviews and trying to get the story straight. Keep doing that." And he said, 90% of the people in the world know what kind of person your dad was, and they understand what you're doing, and they want you to keep fighting for him.

The other 10%, you never had 'em. You're never going to get 'em. The hell with 'em." And it reminded me of a lesson my dad had always taught me about, he s- he used to say to us, Jay, you want everybody to like you." He goes, "It doesn't work that way." He [00:47:00] said, "It's never unanimous." He said, occasionally it's unanimous, but it's never unanimous."

He said, we... He said, "We believe Christ was the Son of God, Jay." And I go, "Yeah." He goes, "And he had 12 apostles. Did all of them stick by him? No." He even, he said, "Even Christ, who we think is the Son of God, lost one of his 12 closest people." He goes, "Even the Son of God, so who the heck do you think you are?"

And I said, "Okay, good point." But I had forgotten about that until Vice President Biden said that to me, and on the way home, driving home from DC, I was like, "Oh my God, that's identical what my dad used to say to me." And I was like, that was an important lesson that I had forgotten in all the adversity of that year and a half at that point, I had forgotten something that basic, and it all came back to me in that moment.

David Pasqualone: Yeah. I agree, with the Bible. It's always right, and that illustration with Jesus, I remember thinking my whole life, especially professionally when I'd run companies, I'm [00:48:00] like, "You're not going to get 100% buy-in." Like, all these gurus, and I put... For those listening, I put my fingers in h- in little quotes.

Yep. They're like, "Oh, get everybody with buy-in. Get everybody behind you," this, that. You will never get a whole entire company everybody. The majority, yeah.

Jay Paterno: Yeah.

David Pasqualone: And you can be doing the right thing, but there's never a time, like you said, Jesus himself had someone betray him. And can you imagine? We judge, but Judas saw Jesus every day.

He saw his holiness. He saw the miracles he did, and he still betrayed him. Absolutely. If Jesus has a betrayer in his midst, I'm going to have at least three, four. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Jay Paterno: As my dad said, "He was the Son of God. Who the heck do you think you are?" Yeah. And I s- I said, "Ma..." I said... I did say to him, I said Dad, Mom is pretty dang holy."

I said, "Are you sure you didn't marry someone who was a deity?" 'Cause the, 'cause she's put up with you for all these years. And he started to laugh. He goes, "Yeah, your mom is a saint."

David Pasqualone: Yeah, that's-

Jay Paterno: And she is.

David Pasqualone: That's fantastic. All right. [00:49:00] I don't want to skip anything. I don't want to have anything you want to communicate to our audience be cut off.

So is there anything else, Jay, a message, a life theme, a, a instance in your life that you want to discuss before we wrap things up today?

Jay Paterno: No. You've dra- you've done a great job asking the right questions and drawing stuff out of me that I think we've covered the major things, and the things that have gotten me to where I am. I used to always joke when I coached that, I'm like a little kid, okay? If you said, you showed me a barn full of horse manure, I'm going to go there's gotta be a pony in here somewhere.

I'm going to find the pony." And that's how I've always looked at life, is no matter how bad things are and how much crap essentially piles up, horse crap piles up, there's a pony in there somewhere, and I'll ride out of there with the pony hopefully at some point. And that's just, I'm just ever the optimist.

And part of that I think is just how having some faith in that right will overcome wrong. I think I've read a lot about Lincoln, and you think about a guy who was in some dark places [00:50:00] and continued to march forward and overcome some things. Th- there's al- so many li- lessons in life like that, and I think that's really how I got to where I am.

David Pasqualone: Yeah, and let's do this. I don't... god leads these interviews hopefully and not us. But the, the thought just came to me, not everybody grows up with a winner's mentality, and a lot of people, they're just told their whole life, "You're a piece of trash. You're a piece of trash." And deep down they know that's not true, but that's all they've ever heard.

So where a winner's always "Man, I'm the... I can do this. I can do this," they don't question it. They just grew up with that winner's mentality. And at your level, you're surrounded by those people. Yeah. But there's a lot of people who are champions, and they have this just giant inside of them, but they've been beat down so long, and they didn't maybe have all the advantages.

They grew up automatically, they just walked into a tough situation. But [00:51:00] whatever you started out with, it's not how we start, it's how we finish. But that mindset, that process, that thinking, sometimes it's so hard to shift and get your train on the tracks. So as someone who grew up with a winner's mentality through your father, through the people you're surrounded with, you and what you're teaching your kids, y- you, what's natural to you and what's second nature, how do we help our listeners to get on that track?

So basically this is my question. For those listening right now, Jay, who are discouraged in any area of life, who want to quit professionally, family issues, they're being accused of something they didn't commit, what encouragement or what words of advice do you have for those listeners?

Jay Paterno: The natural tendency when things go wrong is to view this thing as this massive thing that

You know, we- we've become so impatient because of social [00:52:00] media or we order something on Amazon that's there in a day or two days, where, when we grew up, it was like shipping was like seven to nine days. So this idea of patience has been literally destroyed and patience is the most important thing you can have along with your faith.

The, the, in, in War and Peace, Tolstoy writes, "The greatest warriors are time and patience." And that, that works. And but I think the movie Shawshank Redemption is one of those movies that I saw and it will stay with me forever and he talks about hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and, that character literally had to crawl through a hundreds of yards of sewage, a sewage pipe, to get out on the other end, and when he get out- gets out on the other end, he's now a free man after being wrongly incarcerated for all those years and he tears off the prison uniform, and he's there in the rain and he's got his freedom.

And I think it takes [00:53:00] one step at a time. Everybody wants to get to the end line and say, "Oh, I've made it," and they don't realize that to get there sometimes hard work comes disguised as a bucket and mop or it may be hacking away at something. But I think keep getting having a goal but understanding that goal has to be reached little by little.

It's hard to do, especially when there are naysayers, but if you can keep that focus and you can keep that step by step, and that when you wake up in the morning, it's the next step. When I coach quarterbacks, I would say, "Take what the defense gives you on this play.

Whatever the outcome is, good or bad, go to the next play. And then on that play you take what they give you." And I think that's a great lesson for life is that every day is going to be a play. At the end of the day you may have been successful that day, you may not have been, but learn from that and get to the next play and don't wallow in what has happened or wallow in injustice because the greatest re- the greatest revenge is not the [00:54:00] word I don't think is the right word here, but the greatest way to get back at those who doubt you is to keep faith in yourself and prove them wrong, and it's totally satisfying but it doesn't happen all at once.

David Pasqualone: I think that's excellent advice. Thank you so much

Jay Paterno: Yeah.

David Pasqualone: You know what? Ladies and gentlemen, for those who are not familiar with War and Peace, that n- that novel is known for being one of the longest books ever

Jay Paterno: published Yeah, I think it's 1,200 or 1,300, and I sat down to start reading. I'm like, "What am I getting into?"

David Pasqualone: Yeah.

Jay Paterno: But the irony is I said, "Okay, I can do 50 pages a day. I'll have it done in a month." And I, just like the, ironically, and that was not intentional, just like the advice I gave you, one day, one day, one day, and the days start to stack. I had a player I coached that did not handle alcohol very well.

I had guys I was friends with in college that went through alcohol rehab. I had, I know, I've known people I'm related to, whatever. But there was a guy I [00:55:00] coached and he, I sat him down and I said, "Look, you need to get control of this." And he said Coach, you drink beer." I said, "You know what?

I'm done." And so I don't I'll occasionally have a glass of wine or beer somewhere, and that doesn't mean that's wrong to do that, but I wanted to help him go on a journey. And, so much of what that is, you get, you made it a week, and you've made it, I've been sober for a day or whatever, and the next thing you know, one day becomes one week, becomes one year, becomes two years, becomes 10 years, and that's how.

Just keep stacking the days, and the days build into other things

David Pasqualone: Yeah I agree and I think that's excellent advice. And I was thinking the same thing when you were talking w- the lesson from War and Peace is patience. When you're reading- Yeah ... a 1,200 page book, y- it's- Yeah ... and like you just said, the small victories stack, and that's what you just described, and that's how you even conquered the book.

Yeah. So Jay, man, it's been an honor. It's been a remarkable interview and experience. I'm thankful we could share it together. Anything else you want to share with the [00:56:00] listeners before we wrap things up today?

Jay Paterno: No, I really enjoyed it, and it's... The great thing about interviews like this is sometimes it draws things out of you that you don't think about for, haven't thought about for a while.

So even though you're asking me questions, I'm talking, there are things like, "Oh yeah." It's great to have somebody rack your brain like that. And I, so I appreciate it.

David Pasqualone: Oh, anytime, man. I can do

Jay Paterno: this all day. There's not a whole lot of brain there to rack, but what is there, you did rack.

David Pasqualone: All right.

Ladies and gentlemen, like our slogan says, Listen. Do. Repeat. For Life! Don't just listen to the great information that Jay's shared, but do what you need to from it. Repeat it each day. Form those healthy habits, like Jay said. Small. Stack those small victories 'cause they turn into massive ones. But what we've both communicated is you can have a great life not just in this world, but an eternity to come, 'cause life is a grain of sand of a grain of sand compared to everything we know in the universe, right?

Yeah. So we [00:57:00] want to make sure, share this episode, share this show, not so we can be famous, but so you and those you love can enjoy the m- most joy and peace in life, but more than anything, in eternity. So I'm David Pasqualone. This is our remarkable friend, Jay Paterno. Thank you again, Jay, for being here, and thank you as a listener.

Thank you for being here. Jay, thank you again, my friend.

Jay Paterno: Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

David Pasqualone: Awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, we love you, and we'll see you in the next episode. Ciao!

​

David Pasqualone: Ladies and gentlemen, I sincerely hope this show has inspired you. The whole purpose of the Remarkable People Podcast is to inspire you, to motivate you into action, to help you have an even better life, to overcome things you've not yet been able to overcome, or to grow to the next level that you never thought possible.

And all of this, not just to benefit you in this world- ... [00:58:00] but to have you come to a relationship with God where it grows every day stronger. And not just this world is blessed, but your eternity is blessed. And we sincerely want to do just that and to glorify God. And we hope with this episode we accomplish that.

If we did, please let me know. It's great to be encouraged and to spread the word to our remarkable guests that it helped in your life. If we didn't, let me know. Write me an email. You can go to davidpasqualone.com, go to our Contact Us page and let me know what you think. I got tough skin. Let it rip.

Anything you can think of to make this a better podcast to help you grow and to glorify God, I'm in. So that's it. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Thank you for sending us feedback. If we can help you in any way, let us know. And if you can spread the word about the Remarkable People [00:59:00] Podcast, share the episode to your friends, your family on social media, it would be a huge honor and blessing.

Again, I'm not trying to be the most famous podcast in the world for my benefit. I truly want a podcast that's the best podcast in the world to help as many people as we can to have a better life, come to know Christ, to grow in the Lord, and to have that salvation so they can be with God in peace and joy and eternity.

And right now we're together on this earth, so let's do everything we can to work together and help each other grow. Like the Bible says, love the Lord thy God is the first commandment, and the next commandment is to love thy neighbor as thyself. So let's do it together. I'm David Pasqualone. I love you, not as much as God loves you, but if I can help you in any way, just ask. And again, please share this to your friends and family so we can help them too. Ciao, and see you in the next episode!