When any person dies, his or her time must be viewed in its totality, out of respect for a life lived, to give the ritual of death its dignity; and for the sake of posterity, to provide clarity as emotions surge and cool over the months and years.
For the famous, it is a difficult task, for that totality is a myth. Only the public face exists; the rest is projection. For Joe Paterno, who died Sunday morning at the age of 85, his 60-year football life transformed in less than three weeks from icon to infamous, a total picture of his time might be an impossibility, at least now.
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