Sports Illustrated Joe Paterno: 1926-2012

Consider for a moment that Harry Truman was President when Joe Paterno came to Penn State. More than six decades later, the bespectacled, gravelly-throated football icon had won more games than any major college coach while guiding teams to five undefeated seasons and two national titles. Although that tenure came to a sad end in November 2011, followed by Paterno's death from complications of lung cancer two months later, his achievements and the way he went about realizing them will endure. He was the rare coach who championed values and demanded academic excellence from his players, remaining as straightforward and constant through the years as the Lions' blue-and-white uniforms.

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's retrospective of Joe Paterno is the definitive account of a remarkable career, collecting the best stories and photographs from the pages of SI to chronicle the story of this rare coach and the program he built. The man known simply as JoePa assumed a unique place in our collective sporting culture. This 208-page collection is a lasting remembrance of the history that he made at Penn State.