By Andrew Staub

At an open football practice today, Joe Paterno addressed recent happenings around Penn State athletics, including the resignation of women's basketball coach Rene Portland and an alleged hazing incident involving the Penn State wrestling team that surfaced earlier this week.

Paterno said he hasn't seen the photos of the alleged hazing incident, some of which depict men in just their jock straps with 40-oz. beer bottles duct-taped to each hand. However, he said he's seen the headlines in the newspapers.

"What'd they do?" he asked. "When I was in college, when you got in a fraternity house, they hazed you. They made you stay up all night and played records until you went nuts, and you woke in the morning and all of a sudden they got you before a tribunal and question you as to whether you have the credentials to be a fraternity brother. I didn't even know where I was. That was hazing. I don't know what hazing is today, you put it on a Web site … "

Paterno said the environment of the country is changing and said even he has to be aware of what pictures he allows himself to appear in.

"I'm down there on a vacation and a pretty little girl comes over to me in a bikini and wants to get her picture taken with me with her boyfriend," he said. "I'm scared to death. You know what I mean? I mean … I get my picture taken with a cute kid and the whole bit, put it on a Web site, there's that dirty old man."

The photos, sent to wrestling coach Troy Sunderland and the Daily Collegian by an anti-hazing advocate via e-mail Tuesday, have spurred the athletic department to launch an investigation of the team. Members of the wrestling team, whose identities have not yet been released, were also questioned by the university's Office of Judicial Affairs Thursday.

The photos were originally posted on Webshots.com, a popular photo-hosting Web site, but have since been removed.

Paterno, who hired Portland to replace Pat Meister on May 20, 1980, said he has not spoken with Portland since she announced her resignation in a statement released yesterday, ending a 27-year career at Penn State.

"I'm sure she's doing what she wants to do," Paterno said. "I hired Rene. I've always been very fond of Rene. I think she's done a great job. … If she wants to get out of it, she wants to get out of it. I think it's up to her. She's done a great job."