Joe Paterno won 409 football games during his coaching career, but he lost the two most important battles of his life.

He had little choice in his losing battle with lung cancer. By all accounts, he wasn’t a smoker. Some have suggested that radon might have caused the tumor in his lung. High levels of radon are found in the area in which he lived. But whether the tumor was caused by genetics or something in the environment, poor choices didn’t cause or contribute to his death at 85. But he did make a poor choice in his second losing battle, and it’s a choice he’ll always be remembered for.

While at Penn State, detractors claim that his players often received special treatment, and some feel he stayed on too long, simply because he wanted to win more games. But neither of those arguments diminishes the positive influence he had on many young men, and the large amounts of money he donated to improve the Penn State campus.

Yet, for 10 years, while preaching his credo of “Success With Honor,” Joe Paterno let his former assistant, Jerry Sandusky, have access to the football facilities and to more young boys, which Sandusky molested.

Paterno first learned of Sandusky’s sexual abuse in 2002, when graduate assistant Mike McQueary reported seeing Sandusky with a young boy in the showers of the football complex. Paterno waited a day before reporting the incident to his superiors and did not go to the police. And he never confronted his friend Sandusky––nor did he ban him from the facilities. While administrators at Penn State covered up the incident, the abuse continued, and Joe Paterno continued to look the other way.

In hindsight, it seems obvious that Paterno actually did more damage to his and to Penn State’s reputation, than he would have if he’d come forward with the allegations in 2002 and demanded accountability for Jerry Sandusky. But he didn’t.

A credo is only as good as the person behind it. Joe Paterno, despite all his victories and accomplishments, ignored what he preached to his players, and in so doing, he lost the most important battle of his life. And he should rightfully be remembered for it.