By now anyone who knows anything of Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky or the Penn State football program has surely heard all about the recent child abuse scandal. The scandal centers around Sandusky, an assistant football coach under Paterno at Penn State.

Sandusky has been found guilty of more than 40 counts of sexual abuse on young boys. Paterno, for his part in the scandal, allegedly did little to nothing to stop Sandusky, even after being informed of what may have been going on. Apparently Paterno reported whatever he was told to his superiors, but neither followed up with them nor with Sandusky in any meaningful way.

This is of course a travesty and is one of the most heinous crimes a person can commit, but there has been something many people have missed in their condemnation of Paterno, Sandusky and the Penn State football program.

Many have been saying Paterno, along with many other sports figures, should not be given any shelter from his actions just because he won some football games. I am not suggesting Paterno, or anyone in a situation like this, should be given reprieve based on other actions, but just winning some football games is the least of what Paterno accomplished at Penn State.

The ultimate goal of any coach is not just to win. Winning may be nice, and it may be one of their main goals, but as any athlete will tell you, good coaches are not machines. They are people. People who try to bring out the best in their players, and who try to bring a whole team of others together for a common purpose. In doing so they foster bonds not only between their players, but between themselves and those they coach. At least I know that has been my experience.

Coaches, like their players, are not just brutes flexing their muscles against other brutes. Football players do not play football because they like watching the pretty lights change on the scoreboard when their team scores a touchdown. Basketball players do not play basketball because they enjoy watching an orange ball fall through a white net. Athletic endeavors of all kinds are a symbol for something more.

That something more is the concept of action. This classical Greek notion of action states mere men and women can achieve immortality through their deeds if they can set themselves apart from and above those around them. This is what drove warriors like Achilles to seek battles such as the Trojan war, and athletes from all over Greece to seek the Olympic Games, which we celebrate to this day.

This individual prerogative exists in a modified form on athletic teams. On a team, the individual no longer acts as an individual but instead acts as part of a cohesive unit that allows the many to act as one. Binding together these actions of many is the goal of a coach, and it is a lofty goal indeed.

That lofty goal is what coaches like Paterno truly achieved. I doubt any player Paterno coached between 1998 and 2011 suddenly felt their time as a Nittany Lion was a waste when the NCAA vacated the 111 wins Penn State earned over that time period. The victories earned by a team are only a superficial representation for their actions together. Striking wins from a coach’s record changes nothing but a stat sheet.

Paterno’s legacy as a football coach should not excuse any lack of action regarding Sandusky’s abuses, but he should not be remembered simply for that and his win record. He should not be remembered just for leading the Nittany Lions to two national championships, 24 bowl game victories, three Big Ten championships or for creating a football program that needs a home seating capacity in excess of 100,000.

He impacted the lives of thousands of young men and women who were the players, trainers and assistants of his team in a very meaningful and very positive way — and that is what a coach does. That is a legacy we should not — and cannot — take away from Joe Paterno.