Joe Paterno inducted into Hall of Fame

NEW YORK – The College Football Hall of Fame news conference already started by the time Joe Paterno showed up and grabbed his seat at the end of the dais.\n“I apologize for being one year and 20 minutes late,” the 80-year-old Penn State coach said.\nNo apologies necessary, JoePa.\nThe second-winningest coach in the history of major college football was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2006, but his induction had to be put on hold because this time last year he was recovering from a broken leg caused by two players running into him during a game.\nThe rest of the class of 13 new Hall of Famers, including 1984 Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie and former Oregon star Ahmad Rashad, were voted in earlier this year and were to be inducted at a banquet Tuesday night at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in midtown Manhattan.\nPaterno, who led Penn State to an 8-4 record this season, was hoping to take his children back to his old neighborhood in Brooklyn while he was in town, but he has been too busy.\n“I’ll always be a New Yorker,” he said. “It’s great to come back.”\nPenn State threw a reception at another Manhattan hotel for Paterno on Monday night. About half of the 400 people present at the reception were Paterno’s former players, including Franco Harris, John Cappelletti, Lydell Mitchell and Todd Blackledge.\n“So many of the kids came back,” Paterno said. “It was very emotional. I didn’t get to spend enough time with any of them. It was like holding court.”\nPaterno will complete his 51st season as head coach at Penn State in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 19 against Texas A&M. No other major college coach has been at one school longer and his 371 career victories ranks second only to Bobby Bowden (373).\nBowden and Paterno were supposed to be inducted into the Hall of Fame together last year, but Paterno was still gimpy from a surgery to repair his broken left shinbone and torn ligaments in his knee.\n“I’m only sorry I wasn’t here last year with Bobby Bowden, somebody I respect so much (and) somebody I think has done a magnificent job at his school,” Paterno said. “We’ve been very fortunate. God’s given us good health. Every once in a while you get a little sloppy on the sideline and let somebody run into you.”\nPaterno became the head coach at Penn State in 1966, before any of the 12 players in the latest hall of fame class started college.