CHICAGO -- The old man who was barely audible Monday, whose wrinkles stood out more than his new tan, had not changed.
He spoke softer this time, impossible to hear unless you sat one seat next to him. Even then it was like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, trying to catch the gist of the rare peek inside his mind on the state of his coaching career and football program.
Hearing what he said didn't do you any good. What everyone here heard and read Monday when Joe Paterno took the dais in front of a national TV audience was a sad sonnet, a glimpse at perhaps the beginning of the end.
This man was not the crippled solider done in by a sideline collision at Wisconsin nor relegated to a walking cane.
Paterno was seen at face value after a three-month hiatus, an 83-and-a-half-year-old man. Eyes and ears signal as much.
Tuesday left you with the same red flags raised a day before. The worn-out look, the quiet voice. But the complexion of the man revealed wit -- no, not bathroom jokes -- honor, pride.
Maybe he's dangling on a string, biting his teeth and tensing his grip while every bout with stomach ailment, ligament damage, hip replacement and eye surgery forces one finger to let go, the sad realization that this story will end with narcissism.
Or, maybe Todd Blackledge said it best.
"For a lot of us, going to the dentist is what this is like for Joe. He wasn't as playful. Maybe he wasn't as vibrant as he's been in the past, but I think part of that is that he just wants to go back home and coach."
Listening to Paterno for 120 minutes Tuesday, listening instead of just hearing, makes me think Todd has it right.
The fuss about his weight loss? I guess he noticed the other coaches his age carry around some extra pounds and easily tire, because he says he's worried about his stamina.
Monday night, he stumbled into a long-time scribe in the hallway of the hotel, alone and disappointed a rain shower would keep him from an early evening walk.
Hours earlier, in weakened, staggered speech, he was being written off, the jokes about his bowel control issues a way to cope with the death of a loved one. In this case, the last of a dying breed in college football.
Bryant. Hayes. Schembechler. Bowden. Robinson. Paterno. Names synonymous with an institution.
The fear with Paterno is not the sunset but the darkness, a time he knows is coming soon, but like us, does not know when.
No, Joe Paterno is not sick. He's not ailing or pretending to hide any suffering. He is what any man his age is -- old.
And when the old man rose from his seat, two hours after he was the first Big Ten coach to take one, a Penn State official cut him off from a fleeting question, prompting Paterno to quietly poke fun at the official and say next he'll cut off a part of the coach not suitable for print.
Know this, it was a little bit below the intestines.
