The Penn Stater Magazine

Joe’s Got a Brand-New Hip

November 23, 2008 at 7:38 pm Tina Hay Leave a comment

About a half-hour ago, I got a news release via e-mail, announcing that Joe Paterno underwent successful hip-replacement surgery today. You can read the short announcement here.

I thought two things were interesting in the announcement. One is that team physician Wayne Sebastianelli “led the surgery team.” That doesn’t necessarily mean he was the one wielding the knife and/or the saw. I figure a sports-medicine doc like Sebastianelli probably doesn’t have occasion to do too many hip replacements—I can’t imagine the young clientele he usually deals with are the folks who tend to need joint-replacement surgery. So maybe Sebastianelli brought in a colleague who does, say, 100 hip replacements a year to do the deed under his supervision.

The other thing I found interesting was the prediction that Joe will be able to resume his coaching duties a week from Monday. I know the guy is tough, but wow. If it were me, I’d still be taking it reeeeeeeal easy eight days post-op.

Oh, and can I just point out that Joe did not announce his retirement during yesterday’s game? There were all kinds of rumors that there would be an announcement at halftime, or after the game. I heard a store clerk at the Nittany Mall tell a customer that Joe was going to announce his retirement and that former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher would be his replacement. An interesting idea, but it didn’t happen. Our senior editor Ryan Jones sent me a story about Friday’s “Rally in the Valley” in which Joe makes it clear he intends to be back next fall. And the Altoona Mirror‘s Neil Rudel wrote an interesting column prior to Saturday’s game that talks about why, if Joe were thinking of retiring, he wouldn’t be likely to announce it now.

Tina Hay, editor

Entry filed under: Joe Paterno, Penn State football. Tags: Bill Cowher, hip replacement, Neil Rudel, Rally in the Valley, Wayne Sebastianelli.