The Nittany Lions have a bye tomorrow, so instead I'll turn my attention to the baseball greats that said "Good-bye" earlier this week.

Tony Gwynn hung up his spikes after two decades of hitting lousy pitches through tiny holes in the infield. His teammate, the seemingly ageless Rickey Henderson, still flying around the basepaths at 42, said farewell to Ty Cobb's record for runs scored, and some old bald guy in Maryland decided to give up the diamond for the first time in 21 seasons.

Cal Ripken's career has many parallels to the career of a certain Penn State football coach. And since the former has written his last chapter in sports history, and the latter appears to be close to it (patience, we'll discuss this in greater detail in a few weeks, I promise), I'll include football elements in this week's column after all.

Ripken played for two decades — nearly an eternity in baseball, where pulled hamstrings and bad knees are far more commonplace than .300 seasons or consecutive All-Star Game appearances. Not only that, but the majority of his 3,001 career games he spent at shortstop, the most wearing position on the field.

Joe Paterno is in his fifth decade of coaching college football, which is at least the equivalent of Ripken's endurance. He didn't do things the easy way either, taking the Nittany Lions from relative obscurity to eastern power to Big Ten contender.

Both men are legends in their respective regions. Ripken is on more billboards in Baltimore than Nike, Coca-Cola and Ford combined. Paterno's advertising prowess in central Pennsylvania may extend only to Italian bread, but State College would be a far, far different place today had Rip Engle chosen a different successor.

Both enjoyed their greatest successes in the 1980's — Ripken's in the form of a World Series title in '83, Paterno with national championships in '82 and '86.

And both have fallen upon hard times in 2001. Ripken's farewell tour included a storybook All-Star game and home runs and standing ovations at nearly every stadium he went to, but the career .276 hitter finished his career mired in a 2-68 slump. Paterno, after stringing together 11 consecutive winning seasons, could only guide his Lions to a 5-7 mark last season and is off to an 0-4 start this year.

Some argue that the decline of these two greats is due to the fact that they stayed in the game too long. Ripken could have retired in '96 or '97 — no one's ever going to reach his record. Likewise, no one would have thought less of JoePa had he hung it up after turning 70, or even after his Rose Bowl triumph in '94.

But both decided to stay in the game, for the same reasons that got them in the game in the first place — they loved it. Ripken didn't go out on top of his game, like John Elway or Michael "Can't stay away" Jordan, and Paterno will need to turn his program around 180 degrees if he wants to accomplish that.

But who can argue that either professional baseball or college football has been the worst for it?

Both Ripken and Paterno have dealt with their recent hardships the same way they played or coached the game for so many years — with class, with grace and with dignity.

Bottom line: Ripken may not have been the most productive shortstop of all time, but he was an ambassador for the game in a time when baseball sorely needed one.

Likewise, Paterno was, and, in spite of what you might read in the papers, still is a class act, respected by current and former players and by nearly every man who's coached against him.

Say what you will about the last laps of their prominent careers, but the sports world needs more guys like these. Did they overstay their respective welcomes? Ha. Anyone who knows these men knows that would be an impossibility.