Former Penn State Football Star Goes After Jay Paterno

The Paterno legacy at Penn State remains a complicated one, and likely will for many years to come.

So it should be no surprise that one former Penn State star was willing to go after Joe Paterno’s son, Jay Paterno, over a recent issue regarding funding for the football program. Appearing on the Fox Sports Sunday podcast, LaVar Arrington ripped Paterno for voting against a major renovation to the football program’s facilities.

Arrington started off by dismissing Paterno’s claim that the school couldn’t afford to spend the money during COVID-19. He pointed out that the money be designated for the renovation was generated by the football program itself.

“Which is a crock of bull-S,” Arrington said. “People have always dealt with those life rigors, and for what it’s worth, what are you talking about? We’re talking about money that’s being generated through the football program. You would not have State College where it is and as developed as it is, if you did not have a football program that generated constant growth in that farm town…

“Financially, people will bring up, ‘OK we’re borrowing that 50 million to do the renovations. We’re borrowing it.’ But do you understand we can borrow that amount of money because of the equity that we have built up and what our football team is able to generate? Do you understand a lot of the things that you’re able to enjoy and do is based upon that revenue that the football program generates?”

The vote for the renovation ultimately passed. But Arrington then accused Paterno of attempting to undermine head coach James Franklin and the rest of the program by trying to withhold the money in the first place.

“…It was a power play by Jay Paterno and I didn’t like it, because you know what right now? We have a coach that saved our program, basically. He saved our program, and we’re basically saying we’re not going to give him any more resources to be able to try to build the program.

“…But if you were the head coach — which you tried to be the head coach — if you were the head coach, you would want all of the resources possible for you to be able to have success so that you could build that program and keep your job and try to rebuild the brand and the legacy that was built there by your dad. So was it, I feel like this was the start of a campaign to create cracks to actually possibly get James Franklin out of coaching at Penn State, and I didn’t like it.”

LaVar Arrington clearly doesn’t like how Jay Paterno is handling his role as a Penn State Board of Trustees member.

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