Five months after his firing, and three months after his death, Joe Paterno‘s financial relationship with his beloved Penn State has officially come to an end.
The school confirmed Thursday that it had made a settlement/payment of $roughly 5.5 million to the estate of its former head coach. A PSU spokesperson stated that $3 million of that money was in the form of a retirement bonus.
In a statement sent to the Patriot-News, a Paterno family lawyer disputed the school’s claim that the money was a settlement instead of what was contractually owed to the ex-coach.
“In January, university officials acknowledged they would fully honor the (coach’s) contract. … It should be noted that this exercise was a straightforward payment of monies indisputably owed to the Paterno estate,” the statement from attorney Wick Sollers read.
“The university had requested that the family agree to a full release in return for the payments under the contract. That request was declined and no release was signed. It would be incorrect, therefore, to characterize the payments as a settlement.”
Regardless of the specific characterization, the money represents the end of Paterno’s and his estate’s contractual relationship with a university which he devoted 62 years of his life to, 16 as an assistant and 46 as a head coach.
Paterno was fired Nov. 9 amid the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. He passed away Jan. 22 following a two-month battle with lung cancer, which was diagnosed less than two weeks after his dismissal.
