Seven months after Joe Paterno died, his brand appears to be following suit.
Brown University said it has dropped Joe Paterno’s name from a top athletic award and is reviewing his election to the school’s hall of fame after the late Penn State University football coach was implicated in that school’s sex scandal.
Photo: Penn State |
Brown since 1993 presented an award named after Paterno to its top male freshman athlete, but took his name off the award for this year’s presentation. “The director of athletics has now recommended and the university has approved the decision to remove permanently the Paterno name from the award,” the school said in a statement July 17.
Brown also said Paterno’s election to the university’s athletic hall of fame is being reviewed and that a coaching chair position named after Paterno was previously eliminated.
Following the release of former FBI director Louis Freeh’s report on the Penn State scandal, Nike CEO and president Mark Parker -- a 1977 graduate of Penn State -- said the company would change the name of the Joe Paterno Child Development Center at its headquarters in Oregon.
On the campus of Penn State, the makeshift tent city that forms to buy Penn State football tickets each year which is sanctioned by the university will be changed from “Paternoville” to “Nittanyville” this year. The organization said it will donate proceeds from its fundraising to a local organization to raise awareness of child sexual abuse.
“Now, it’s a new era of Nittany Lion football,” said Troy Weller, a Penn State senior and president of the newly dubbed Nittanyville Coordination Committee, “and by changing the name to Nittanyville we want to return the focus to the overall team and the thousands of students who support it.”
The university itself, after taking time to mull whether to remove a prominent statue on campus of Paterno, on July 22 removed the statue. The tribute had become a flashpoint for criticism and support of the late coach.
The NCAA announced July 23 an unprecedented $60M fine among other sanctions against the university, although the so-called “death penalty” punishment of canceling the school’s football season was not invoked.
Edelman and La Torre advise Penn State on PR.