How quickly a hero rises--and sometimes keeps rising, despite a fall--as was the case with Joe Paterno, who today was posthumously stripped of his record for the most wins for victories for college football coaches thanks to scandal surrounding convicted former coach Jerry Sandusky's child abuse.

Once the hero in his home state and beyond, a search of  mentions of the name "Joe Paterno" on Sunlight's Capitol Words shows the peak at 88 in November 2001, soon after the coach led Penn State to break the record for NCAA division I-A victories, reaching the 324 mark, defeating Ohio ...