Penn State legend LaVar Arrington had a lot to say about former PSU assistant coach and current trustee Jay Paterno recently, and Paterno responded to it.
Penn State Legend LaVar Arrington Blasts Jay Paterno, Anthony Lubrano
In an interview with WVSportsNow’s Mike Asti on “Mike Drop,” Paterno denied Arrington’s claim that Paterno was involved in the Penn State coaching search.
“It’s absolutely not true,” Paterno said. “Ask Pat Kraft. I never called him once during this whole process. So I did not get involved. I did not want to get involved, because as it would happen, it was going to be tough.”
Paterno said that whether he was asked a question on a public interview for his new book Blitzed!: The All-Out Pressure of College Football’s New Era, or asked privately, he would not give his input on who Penn State should hire.
“I did probably two of three dozen interviews during this period to talk about the book, and every time somebody asked me ‘what do you think’ I said ‘look, I’m not getting into it. The athletic director has to handle this,’” he said. “I had people come up to me privately. My barber even asked ‘who do you want?’ And I said ‘I’m not answering that question. When we get a coach, we’ll get a coach.’ And that’s how I was throughout this whole process. So any implication to the contrary is absolutely just not true.”
So have Paterno and Arrington conversed since Arrington’s comments?
“No,” Paterno said, “I haven’t had any conversation with him about it, but again, he has busy stuff in his life, I have things I’m doing in my life. So if people say stuff, they think they hear something, so be it.”
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Paterno wasn’t sure what the motivation for Arrington’s comments were.
“No… a lot of that stuff, it’s to get attention and to get people to react,” he said. “That happens.”
WHAT LAVAR SAID
Arrington held nothing back when talking about his feeling on Paterno and fellow Penn State trustee Anthony Lubrano.
“The Paterno family is such a prominent figure in the history of the school,” Arrington said. “Jay Paterno was basically at the center of politicking to get James Franklin out. He didn’t want Franklin there. I often wonder what exactly he wants to happen so he can leave us alone.”
“I just wish Jay Paterno and (trustee Anthony) Lubrano could go somewhere and never come back to the Penn State community. To think you’d be okay shorting the stock of our credibility, the stability and prestige your dad helped build, that you’d be part of why things are falling apart…it’s crazy.”
JAY ON CAMPBELL
Eventually, Penn State’s search ended with Iowa State’s Matt Campbell, and Paterno is a fan of that hire.
“He wants to focus on high school recruiting,” he said. “He wants to develop guys over time. He wants to build teams, not just rosters, and it’s not just about the money. I think his answers really showed that on Monday at the press conference which I went to.
“He talked about the academics, he put that front and center at his press conference. So I think his approach, his attitude and the way he wants to build a program are going to fit with a history going back 100 years at Penn State. To guys like Bob Higgins, Rip Engle, certainly Joe Paterno. He’s going to fit into that mold, and I think people are going to be very happy with what happens.”
