Joe Paterno Fired, Board Of Trustees Confirm; Graham Spanier Out Immediately As Well

Penn State head coach Joe Paterno and president Graham Spanier have been both been dismissed effective now, the PSU Board Of Trustees announced at a press conference Wednesday night. Tom Bradley will be the interim head coach. Rodney Erickson will be interim president of Penn State.

The board says the specifics of the child abuse allegedly committed by Jerry Sandusky have yet to be determined, and are not really the point. Rather, the board’s goal was to move forward swiftly and decisively to take the university in the right direction and act in the “long-term interest of the university, which is much larger” than the football program.

“We believe we did the best job we could,” said John Surma, VP of the board. Surma keeps emphasizing that the board doesn’t have access to much more information than the public does, and certainly doesn’t have complete information, but feels that there is enough to make a judgement regarding Paterno and Spanier.

A number of the journalists asking questions to Surma sound downright angry. I can only imagine how a lot of the students feel.

We’ll have more on the press conference as the evening goes on.