Success

Yesterday's campus memorial service for Coach Joe Paterno should be required hearing and viewing for all Americans who aspire to see a return to the ethics and hard-working ideals that made this country the greatest in the world.

In honoring the coach, some speakers unlocked secrets they learned on who we are or should be as individuals, and a society. Nike CEO Phil Knight, former player and broadcaster Jimmy Cefalo, and son Jay Paterno, clearly showed how the Paterno Way had inspired them in life.

Growing up in the Wyoming Valley, I still remember a young Jimmy Cefalo as a game-changing high school player in Pittston. Even as a 16-year-old, he exhibited the poise and ease of speech in front of a microphone or camera that would launch him into broadcasting after his Penn State education and pro football career ended.

Chosen to be the spokesperson for the decade of the 1970s for Thursday's service, Cefalo hit a home run. His expertise as professional broadcaster showed through when he told us that he never allows a taped interview, because he doesn't want his words edited. That's a secret of being genuine that Barack Obama an expert in rehearsed speeches and presidential teleprompting might want to latch on to.

Cefalo told us that Paterno was able to recruit so many good Pennsylvania players the sons of coal miners, steel workers, and farmers because he was so good on personal visits to the home and spoke their parents' language of working hard. The living rooms and kitchens of prospective student-athletes became the launching pads for many a Paterno recruit.

As a much coveted high school recruit, Cefalo said he had made his decision to attend a college other than Penn State but when he burst into the kitchen to tell his mother, she was cooking pasta for a special guest at the table Joe Paterno. Cefalo said Paterno had a way with the mothers and the clinching statement for the Cefalos was when Paterno told Mrs. Cefalo that her pasta was better than what John Cappelletti's mom had made.

In highlighting Paterno's work ethic for us, Cefalo told the story about his final year at Penn State. Already having enough credits to graduate, he decided to lighten his course load and cruise through his senior year. Paterno called him into his office and asked him why he chose a number of less-than-challenging classes just to get by. That was not the Paterno Way and he made sure Jimmy knew about it.

This being an election year, our president and the GOP candidates would be well served to tune into some of Paterno secrets. It should be of great shame and concern to the Obama administration that the number of Americans receiving food aid from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance (or food stamp) Program is now over 45 million people. That's almost 15 percent of this country enrolled in a program for government handouts, a massive 31 percent jump since June 2009, when we were hearing that most of this recession was over.

It's true that a big portion of this number is attributed to joblessness and not preference, but a good number of people could certainly contribute to society by swallowing some pride and taking a lower-paying job. The self-esteem of getting a paycheck should trump getting a welfare check any day.

One simple lesson that Joe Paterno taught so well to so many like Jimmy Cefalo was that success is a product of hard work. It's the work ethic that produces results and by aspiring to do your best, you will already be a success.

By Jim Zbick

jzbick@tnonline.com