Filed Under » Joe Paterno

After their usual Wednesday night riot began dispersing, word began to spread among Penn State students that Nittany Lions head football coach Joe Paterno had been fired earlier that evening.

“Whoa. Are you serious? Joe is gone?” said junior Tommy Vanover around 2:00 a.m. “I would totally be up for rioting over that, but I just got maced and I’m tired. Maybe we can riot about it tomorrow.”

While most students were upset over the news of Paterno’s ouster, others thought it was the right decision.

“This gives us a reason to riot now,” said senior Mike McAllister. “Honestly — and don’t tell my friends this because they won’t respect me anymore — but sometimes our usual riots here seem somewhat pointless. I mean, just last week we torched the town because Chipotle briefly ran out of light sour cream. But this? This is something I can really sink my rioting teeth into.”

Students said they would go back to their dorms and apartments, rest up for a few hours, then start drinking and meet up around lunchtime for a new Paterno-based riot.

“Hopefully the town will put some of the streetlights back up by then so we have stuff to tear down,” said Katie Jones, Penn State student council president, while vomiting.

Facing increased attention on the health and age of their 84 year-old head coach, Penn State admitted today that the man thought to be Joe Paterno has merely been someone dressed up in a JoePa costume since 1996.

“When Joe suddenly passed away 15 years ago after a full and happy life, we were in a bit of a bind,” said Penn State president Graham Spanier. “We didn’t really have a high-profile successor available, and Joe was so much the face of the program that we were worried what would happen to Penn State football if he was no longer the coach.”

One thing led to another and before Spanier and other Penn State officials knew it, a man dressed up as JoePa was on the sidelines for the 1996 opener against USC.

“We won the game and we went on from there,” said Spanier. “No one ever asked if the costume guy wasn’t Joe, so we never said anything. Plus, Joe had long since become sort of a mascot anyway, so making him a true mascot didn’t feel too misleading.”