Penn State adds Jay Paterno to board of trustees

Penn State University has added Jay Paterno, the son of former PSU head football coach Joe Paterno, to its board of trustees, Paterno announced on Friday.

Paterno is a former Penn State assistant, being on-staff from 1995 to 2011. He also played quarterback for the Nittany Lions from 1986 to 1990. He will serve a three-year term on the board, after receiving the most votes out of the three other alumni trustees up for election. Paterno made the news official via his Twitter account.

“Between my mom and dad and my family, we’ve been connected with Penn State for more than a century, when you add up all the years we’ve given there,” Paterno said in a statement to ESPN on Friday. “We feel very strongly about the university and what it can be. There are some challenges at Penn State and in higher education around the country, and I thought it was time for me to get involved.”

Penn State’s board of trustees made the decision to fire Joe Paterno in 2011 amid the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal. Jay Paterno told ESPN he’ll “still be able to work with trustees” to make decisions regarding the university.

“I want to become a part of the solution from the inside out,” Paterno said via ESPN. “I thought it was the best way to be a part of Penn State as we move into the future.”

In Jay Paterno’s book released in 2014, titled Paterno Legacy: Enduring Lessons from the Life and Death of My Father, he offered criticism towards the board for how it handled the firing of his father.

“After 60 years of university leadership, they didn’t even try to get in a room with him to talk about how they could all work together to move forward to do what was best for Penn State,” Jay Paterno wrote as transcribed by ESPN. “I resented the fact that they had so little respect for Joe’s perspective. I resented that they didn’t even involve him in helping this school navigate the future. Above all, I resented the lack of respect for what he had done for this school.”

The summer following Joe Paterno’s death in January 2012, the university removed the statue of Paterno that had sat outside Beaver Stadium, and it’s been gone ever since.