Lavar Arrington leaps all over Jay Paterno’s ‘deflection’

Ex-Penn State Football assistant coach Jay Paterno has been the topic of discussion of former Nittany Lions since he voted against the approved upgrades and expansion of the Lasch Building.

Penn State Football great Lavar Arrington became the latest former Nittany Lion to pile onto Jay Paterno after it was made public knowledge he was one of six Board of Trustees members to vote no to the approval of renovations and expansion to the Lasch Building.

Arrington played for Joe Paterno at Penn State from 1997-1999, where he was a consensus All American in 1999 and took home the Bednarik, Butkus and Lambert awards before he would go on to be the second pick in the draft by Washington in 2000.

Jay Paterno cited the lasting Covid-19 impacts on the University, the furloughing of employees, and had an interesting anecdote from his “former boss”.

"“My former boss used to say, ‘Football is here to serve the university, not the other way around,’” Jay Paterno told the board. “Football is a part of life, not life itself.”"

Arrington appeared on the Fox Sports Radio’s “Up On Game” and was not pleased with Paterno’s lame excuse for trying to vote these plans down.

https://twitter.com/j_a155/status/1363870208151216130

"“It was a deflection by Jay Paterno, and I didn’t like it. It was a power play by Jay Paterno, and I didn’t like it,” Arrington said. “Because you know what? Right now, we have a coach who saved our program basically. He saved our program, and we’re basically saying we’re not giving him anymore resources to be able to try to build the program. But if you were the head coach, which you tried to be the head coach, you would want all of the resources possible for you to have success so that you could build that program and keep your job and try to rebuild the brand and the legacy that was built there by your dad. I feel like this was the start of a campaign to create cracks to actually, possibly, get James Franklin out of coaching at Penn State, and I didn’t like it. I don’t fool with it. I don’t think his reasoning was sound and I had a problem with it.”"

Arrington did not hold back in his feelings on Paterno.

James Franklin is bringing this program out of it’s darker days and rebuilding the Nittany Lions’ brand, and what people think of when they see Penn State Football.

Back in 2019, PennLive published an article where Paterno admitted he would love to get back into coaching, so there is validity to Arrington saying he wanted to at one time to be the head coach.

Jay ever thinking he could potentially return to Penn State Football, or any football for that matter, speaks to his ignorant and pompous attitude, and failure to understand the magnitude and gravity of the scandal that took place.

He seems to always make headlines, whether it is voting against football projects or suing the school. It is refreshing to see former players, especially one of the ilk of Lavar Arrington, take him to task.