Sue Paterno wants you to know that life with her famously impatient husband, Joe, hasn’t been that difficult as he rehabilitates his injured left leg. “He’s been super,” she said, “as long as I change the videotapes when he needs that done.” Those are football scouting tapes. “He doesn’t use a DVD player. They put everything on VHS tapes for him,” she said. Where formerly Joe Paterno had confined his football work to the orderly clutter of his den, now it’s spread to the kitchen table, and a room off the kitchen and living room where a bed has been set up for Joe to use during his convalescence. Staff members come over individually, and sometimes in groups. “I’m glad I’m not in the staff meetings he’s had at the office,” she said. “They’re pretty lively here.” Serving as a home health aide is a role reversal of sorts for Sue. In the summer of 2005, she suffered a broken leg while vacationing at the New Jersey shore. It happened when she was walking grandchildren to an ice-cream parlor. A chronic back problem, which makes her knee buckle occasionally, caused a fall that resulted in the fracture. Joe cut in half his scheduled two-day appearance at the Big Ten preseason media event so as not to be away from her overnight. It was a major concession, Sue said, considering she had driven herself to the hospital for the birth of her son, Scott, because Joe was at football practice and she didn’t want to disturb him. But, as Sue recovered from that broken leg, Joe said his wife’s health would be one of the few things that could make him give up coaching. Sue bounced back strongly and continues to do rehabilitation work for her leg, as well as swimming daily to help with her back. Joe has been able to put some weight on his left leg, which had a broken shin bone and torn knee ligaments repaired in a Nov. 5 operation. “He’s mobile with the walker, but that was a little slow because of the shoulder injury in October,” Sue said. She revealed that not only did Joe get run down once in practice this year, but he also was hit in a drill the next week. That is in addition to his becoming ill during the game at Ohio State and then enduring the sideline collision and injury at Wisconsin. “I told him, ‘Are you getting a message, Joe• ‘ ” she said. Not really. When Joe was brought back to State College on a private plane from Wisconsin, he refused to ride in an ambulance from the airport. Sue got a wheelchair from a hospital and, after removing seats from a daughter’s van, met her husband at the airport. He refused to spend the night in the hospital after the preliminary X-rays the night of Nov. 4. “He had spent maybe one night in a hospital since he was a baby, and that was in 1974 with a hernia,” she said. “He always thinks he can shake things off.” Jay Paterno spent the night of Nov. 4 with his parents. Joe relented and went back to the hospital at about 5:30 a.m. Nov. 5 and had surgery later that day. He was forced to watch the Temple game Nov. 11 on television from home. “Living this close to the stadium, seeing people walking past going to the game, it was pretty hard for him,” Sue said. “I left the room a couple of times because it was killing him. I knew that wasn’t going to happen two weeks in row.” The next Saturday, Joe and Sue watched the Michigan State game from the coaches booth at Beaver Stadium. Joe’s 80th birthday is Thursday, but the family held an early celebration. It was held the Saturday after Thanksgiving at son David’s house. The grandchildren gave him a canvas of their handprints, each in a different color. The Paterno clan will be in Florida, 27-strong, for the Outback Bowl, but they were planning to celebrate Christmas today. “From the time our kids were little, when we started going to bowls, we moved it up,” Sue said. “We had them write letters to Santa asking him to come to our house early. And he always did.”

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