Joe Paterno's firing, a good thing for Athletic Training?

Joe Paterno the legendary coach at Penn State University was recently fired because of a sexual abuse scandal.   I am not going to talk about the scandal as it is being covering in intimate detail throughout the country by a  legion of writers. I do want to address a little know fact about Penn State Football and the profession of athletic training. You can turn on a college football game being played anywhere in the country and if you watch the sidelines close enough you are bound to see either female athletic training students, female certified athletic trainers or both working the game. This is pretty much a given. If you do not, it most likely a military academy or a school that just does not have an athletic training program. Even many schools without programs have females enlisted to help the certified athletic trainers. This is not the case at Penn State. If you watch their sideline you will not see any female athletic training students nor male student athletic trainers. This is not because Penn State does not have a program. They do.

At one time male athletic training students worked with the football team. Unfortunately, Joe Paterno did not allow females to work during the season. He did allow a limited number of females to work spring football.  This was only after he personally interviewed and approved them. One time Athletic Training Program Director, Craig Denegar decided that this was not a very fair arrangement. In a meeting with Coach Paterno, Mr. Denegar tried to convince him to allow females the same opportunity as the males. Coach Paterno refused.  Sticking to his principles Mr. Denegar had no choice but to withdraw all  athletic training students from a clinical rotation with Penn State football. The football team scrambled and filled the lose of student with graduate assistant athletic trainers.

Coach Paterno's reason for denying females an opportunity was because he did not want to offend their sensibilities with the kind of language that can be heard on a football field. It is a shame he did not share that  protective attitude when it came to young boys.