JoePa Loses Glasses (On Purpose)

Joe Paterno has been the face of Penn State football for more than 44 years, and that face, until now, has always been adorned with thick framed glasses. Well, not any more. From FightonState.com comes the story that JoePa is ditching the specs. ↵↵⇥“I had trouble reading for the last six months, so I went down to Philadelphia to the Penn Scheie Eye Institute,” the 83-year-old said. “And the guy says to me … I think we can fix that up. So they went in and did it. I don’t really need glasses any more.”↵↵Paterno does mention that he “feels strange” without the glasses on and that he finds himself reaching to take them off whenever he goes to put clothes over his head. So he very well may sport the same style glasses this coming season, just with much thinner frames. Wearing glasses without lenses just for the looks? Wearing pants a few inches too short? Is JoePa turning into a hipster?↵↵And let’s hope that JoePa does sport some set of glasses when he takes the field. This would be like Bear Bryant deciding at the end of his career he doesn’t need his signature hat, or Tom Landry…deciding…he doesn’t need…his signature…hat. Hmm…oh, it’d be like Bill Belichick putting on an actual shirt with sleeves. Wow, there aren’t a lot of football coaches with such iconic wardrobe accessories, which is all the more reason for JoePa to keep the frames…corrective lenses or not.↵

↵↵Scout.com has a video of Paterno talking about the surgery, and the change in style. You need a subscription to view it, but we think the conversation probably went a little something like this (audio possibly NSFW):↵

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