Brown eliminates Paterno’s name from athletic award

PROVIDENCE – Brown University has eliminated the late Joe Paterno’s name from its annual award given to an outstanding freshman male athlete in light of the former Penn State football coach’s role in covering up former colleague Jerry Sandusky’s criminal activities.

The university announced the decision on Tuesday also saying it is considering Paterno’s status in the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame. He was inducted in 1977.

“The director of Athletics has now recommended and the University has approved the decision to remove permanently the Paterno name from the award,” the university said in a statement.

Last Friday, Providence Business News reported that Brown had given the award this past spring as the First-Year Male Athlete Award, which was widely seen as a move to distance itself from Paterno. The news became national by Tuesday morning.

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The Joe Paterno ’50 award had since 1993 had honored the school’s late alumnus, who was fired by Penn State amid the sex-abuse scandal involving Sandusky last November. Paterno was a quarterback for Brown from 1946 to 1949.

An investigation by former FBI director Louis Freech released last week indicates Paterno helped conceal Sandusky’s criminal activities by failing to report him to authorities in 1998.

Sandusky was defensive coordinator at Penn State from 1977 until his retirement in 1999. He was convicted in June of 45 of 48 charges of sexual abuse of young boys over a 15-year period.

The Howard D. Williams ‘17/Joseph V. Paterno ’50 football coaching chair was eliminated earlier this year due to issues unrelated to the Sandusky scandal, the university said.

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