Saint or sinner? The truth may be somewhere inbetween

"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." — Batman

At the end of "The Dark Knight," Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman, relays this particular piece of wisdom to Commissioner Gordon. Basically, it means, the longer you are around, the more time people have to find reasons not to like you or to find dirt on you.

What a difference a year makes — or three months. In that short amount of time, Joe Paterno went from an iconic, untouchable super-legend, whose name was synonymous with integrity and all that was "right" with college sports, to just a man who had made a huge mistake.

Paterno died Sunday morning after a public two-month battle with lung cancer.

Unfortunately, he lived long enough to become a villain to many.

In November, Paterno's former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, was accused of and arrested on child sexual abuse charges. During an attempt to save face, the Penn State board of trustees decided to fire Paterno, ending his 61-year association with the school, 46 as head football coach.

Technically, Paterno did everything "by the book." He told his superiors, who covered it up and were arrested for doing so. The first incident took place about 15 years ago. Still, for 15 years, Paterno saw Sandusky walking around a free man. It is still unclear what exactly Paterno knew and when.

Now, we are left trying to piece the puzzle together that is JoePa's legacy. The only problem is, no one knows how to do it. At the last second, the pieces changed and they look nothing like the picture on the box.

All we can do is start over with the understanding that the original picture was wrong. Now, we have to go over what we know for sure.

Paterno was just a man. He was not a horrible person. Did he make a poor decision? Yes. The problem seems to be that people thought he was a saint. The pedestal was too high, making the fall that much more devastating.

The truth is, perfection does not exist on Earth.

Honestly, good people are hard enough to find and Joe Paterno was a good person. Why wasn't that enough? Are the same people that put him on the pedestal to blame? He didn't decline the throne, did he? A look at his modest home shows that he wasn't in it for the money.

Paterno's brother, George, was once quoted saying, "Joe doesn't think one should have a great quantity of money. And if you do, you should share it!" JoePa shared his money. He constantly gave back to Penn State, including the library that Paterno knew the school needed to be considered a top university.

Maybe JoePa didn't want the money, but he knew the fact that he had the money gave him responsibility to use it for the greater good. Usually, with money comes power. And to quote another flawed superhero, "With great power comes great responsibility."

You can't deny he had power (just see how many people show up on your lawn to support you after you lose your job). I don't believe that one person should have the kind of influence that he had, but he did. Following his firing, ESPN camped out on his house for two days along with hundreds of students just to barely hear his voice or catch a glimpse of him. It was cult-like.

Did Paterno have an obligation to do more? Yes. He might not have asked for the power, but like the money, he got it and had a responsibility to use it for the greater good. The fact is, Paterno knew "something" had happened and he saw Sandusky for a long time walk free.

With all of that said, from an objective point of view, Paterno did way more good than bad. The problem isn't that he was flawed — it's that we thought he wasn't.

Earlier this month, Penn State announced that Patriots' offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien would be their next head football coach. They couldn't get a big name coach because no one wanted to be the first guy in after the scandal.

The old maxim states that, "It's difficult to follow a legend."

But maybe it's easier than being the legend.