Correction to Tribute to Joe Post

Originally, in the Tribute to Joe post, I improperly deduced that Joe Paterno had been diagnosed with cancer before his first broken pelvis incident, because of some ambiguity in Jay Paterno’s speech. My conjecture has been subjected to the keen eyes and minds of my readers, who have shown it to be false. What I initially published was:

One thing I picked up from his speech was that Joe had been diagnosed with lung cancer before he was treated for the broken pelvis, inasmuch as Jay spoke of taking a walk in Sunset Park with Joe after he was diagnosed, a day before he fractured his pelvis, which confirms my suspicions about his delaying treatment until after the football season.

After having received some comments, I reviewed Jay’s speech, but I still could not determine whether the broken pelvis incident was the first or the second. If it was indeed the second, it occurred on December 11, 2011, which wouldn’t imply that Joe delayed his cancer treatments. Clearly, I missed an obvious and important indicator, as one additional tweeter brought out: Jay had spoken of  it being cold during the walk and he had referred to “the few leaves”; therefore, I have deleted the above sentence from the post. Jay obviously implied that it was, indeed, December.

Furthermore, ESPN had reported the following:

Scott Paterno said on Nov. 18 that his father was being treated for lung cancer. The cancer was diagnosed during a follow-up visit for a bronchial illness. A few weeks after that revelation, Paterno also broke his pelvis after a fall but did not need surgery.

I’ll let that put the lid on this matter. I regret any inconvenience or concern my inappropriate conjecture might have caused.

One more thing. I have it on good word that Jay is the second youngest Joe and Sue’s offspring. Word!