Paterno funeral scheduled for Wednesday

STATE COLLEGE, Pa (AP) - Former Penn State coach Joe Paterno will be buried Wednesday, and his family has scheduled three days of public memorial events this week.

Paterno died Sunday at age 85, less than three months after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

In a schedule released by a family spokesman, the first public viewing will be held today, a 10-hour session starting at 10 a.m. at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus.

Another viewing will take place for four hours Wednesday starting at 5 a.m. A private funeral service is scheduled for 11 a.m. that day.

Finally, a memorial service will be held Thursday at 11 a.m. at the Jordan Center, the basketball arena next to Beaver Stadium.

Alumni, fans and students already racked by emotions were jolted by a much greater loss on Sunday - and the grieving process again could be complicated following two tense months that often had the Paterno family and the school at odds.

A family seemingly torn Nov. 5 after retired defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was charged with the first of dozens of counts of abuse allegations. Sandusky has maintained his innocence and is awaiting trial. Paterno testified before a state grand jury investigating Sandusky, and authorities said he wasn't a target of the probe.

Paterno fulfilled his legal obligation by reporting a 2002 allegation relayed by a graduate assistant to his university superior. But the state's top cop chastised Paterno, among other school leaders, for failing to fulfill a moral duty to do more and take the allegation to police.

Paterno himself said he "wished he could have done more" when he announced his retirement plans the morning of Nov. 9 before getting ousted by the university Board of Trustees that evening.

Diagnosed with lung cancer days after getting fired, Paterno entered the hospital Jan. 13 for what his family then said was a minor complication from treatments that included radiation and chemotherapy. Mount Nittany Medical Center was barely a half-mile from Beaver Stadium, the Nittany Lions' home field that Paterno helped make into one of college football's shrines during his 46 seasons as Penn State head coach.

While in the hospital, trustees just a couple miles away at a campus hotel on Thursday told of why they fired Paterno and cited in part a failure to fulfill his moral responsibility in connection with the 2002 allegation. His lawyer, Wick Sollers, called the allegations self-serving and reiterated that Paterno fully reported what he knew to the people responsible for campus investigations.

"I think his legacy should be everything wonderful he did here for Penn State and for the community. That's what I hope," Karen Long, 70, of State College, said at the women's basketball game Sunday afternoon between Iowa and Penn State. "I don't think he was treated fairly, though. Just the way they handled firing him was awful."