Joe Paterno leaves behind one of the most incredibly complex legacies in the history of sports.

His tenure at Penn State University was legendary, both for its duration and for its success. Paterno turned Penn State into one of the most recognizable college football powerhouses of all time, and did so while graduating an unbelievable 87 percent of his players.

A darker side to Paterno’s legacy will be remembered as well. His failure to do more than he did in the face of sexual abuse allegations against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky cannot be forgotten. Whether or not he fulfilled his legal obligations, he was one of many people — and the most powerful of those people — who could have gone further to get to the bottom of horrific accusations that transcend football.

Such is the duality of Paterno’s legacy. Media and fans paint pictures in broad strokes of black and white, but Paterno’s picture is colored in inscrutable shades of grey. Ignoring Paterno’s contributions to Penn State would be shortsighted. Athletic programs are the ultimate form of creating brand recognition for universities. A top-notch football or basketball program attracts more publicity (and more donations from rich alumni) than a top-notch physics or performing arts program does. As a result, athletic success does tend to improve a college, which economically boosts the entire community around the college. Nothing can change the impact Paterno had on Penn State through his success as a football coach.

Nothing can change the impact of Paterno’s inactions either. Forget about quibbling over whether meeting legal obligations is the same as meeting moral obligations. At some point, Paterno made either a conscious or unconscious decision that he had done enough with graduate assistant Mike McQueary’s shocking claim of walking in on Sandusky raping a young boy in Penn State’s locker room showers. When the situation is reframed in terms of “how would you feel if it were your child allegedly being raped by Sandusky in Penn State’s showers?”, even the most diehard Penn State fans would have a hard time saying Paterno did enough.

The human mind will struggle massively to put both sides of Paterno in perspective. He will be remembered by some as JoePa, the warmhearted football coach who was a fixture of “Happy Valley” for decades, and by others as JoeFraud, the supposed exemplar of morals who looked the other way in the light of horrendous allegations and was so caught up in the myth of his own legacy that he led “We Are… Penn State!” chants on his lawn after the accusations came to light.

Seeing only one of Paterno’s two sides, or seeing one as much larger or more important than the other, is willful ignorance. Paterno, despite the legendary career and disgraceful downfall, was human like the rest of us. Both the good and the bad side of Paterno are part of who he was. Because the two sides of Paterno’s legacy contrast so strongly with each other, they are nearly impossible to put in context of each other.

I lack the moral authority to tell you what to think of Paterno, and I lack the emotional maturity to process the dual sides of Paterno’s legacy and tell you what I think about it. All I can add to the conversation is a request for those discussing the Paterno situation to frame it in realistic terms and keep from resorting to hyperbole.

Regardless of your opinions on Paterno, please do intelligent discourse a favor and don’t echo the “broken heart” mantra that several media personalities and former Penn State players have been repeating since Paterno’s death. Paterno supporters blaming the Board of Trustees’ firing or the media’s coverage of Paterno’s death are just as incorrect as Paterno critics who say he got what he deserved as karma for his complicity in the Sandusky scandal.

A broken heart didn’t kill Joe Paterno. Cancer did. Cancer cells don’t care how much you loved your job, and they don’t care whether or not you did enough to stop an alleged monster from hurting children. Paterno died because malignant cells multiplied in his body at a rate chemotherapy and other treatments simply could not stop. That’s all there is to it.

The Sandusky scandal contrasts starkly against what was previously thought to be known about Paterno. The juxtaposition has created a mountain of perplexing questions about what to think of Paterno’s life, so it is only natural to look for answers in Paterno’s death. In this case, though, answers and closure are nowhere to be found. Sometimes there are deeper meanings to events, but other times there is nothing but a cold and harsh reality.

That’s life.

Follow Hank Koebler on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/HankKoebler

President Nixon declared a war on cancer on Dec. 23, 1971. The war on cancer is arguably being lost on a daily basis. My daughter Alexis Agin, just two weeks shy of her fifth birthday, became yet another name etched on the proverbial wall of names who laid down their life in this war. Sure, some battles may have been won, but the war rages on, worse than ever, all these years after the initial battle cry. Unfortunately, some in the medical profession are estimating that cancer deaths may in fact double in less than 20 years. Does this sound like we are winning? During Alexis’ long battle, we saw behind the curtain of Oz that is the manner in which we fight this disease. I became convinced that we are losing the war because we are not properly equipping our soldiers.

First, there is the way the government manages the care and access to treatment of those diagnosed. Imagine being sat down in a small, cramped dark room next to a nursing station. Your 27-month-old daughter sitting right across the hall. The previous night was a sleepless one on a narrow bench next to your daughter’s metal hospital crib. You are told that your child has cancer and that she has six months, maybe a year to live. Sent back to your child’s room with no other information, you know nothing about the world of pediatric cancer. You have no idea about the limitations on access to drugs that may help your child. The red tape, paperwork, institutional review boards (IRB), and the Federal Drug Administration. Although these are all theoretically established to protect the patient, it becomes patently obvious that they hinder your child’s chances of survival in many respects. Patients given terminal diagnoses are often not allowed to try the most novel therapies under the guise that the government is trying to protect the patient from harm. Yet, these individuals have no hope, no possibility of beating the odds and are told they are going to die. Instead, these soldiers are left to lose their personal battles.

Then you have the cancer hospitals. When it became obvious that Alexis’ tumor was progressing in the wrong direction, we scoured the Internet, spoke with her doctors, overturned as many rocks as we could, and ultimately decided that the most promising treatment was located at Memorial Sloane Kettering (MSK) in NYC. This was the only location where this therapy was offered. Each week we traveled from Washington, D.C. to New York City. Each week, Alexis obtained an infusion of a drug called Temsirolimus. She also received an oral chemotherapy with the infusion, which we were able to give her at home. Despite the hardships on Alexis, our jobs, our family, I often wondered why we had to travel each and every week for a drug already approved by the FDA. The reason we had to travel and could not administer this treatment regimen here in Washington, D.C. was simple; the FDA and the IRB of MSK. This trial regimen was only approved at MSK. Interestingly, Temsirolimus was being administered at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. as part of another trial. Thus, there was plenty of experience with this drug locally. Consequently, if you wanted your child to participate in this trial, you traveled on a weekly basis regardless of hardship, despite the readily available nature of the drugs. For us, we were lucky that we lived within reasonable proximity to MSK. For parents unable to do so, despite the potential promising nature of the treatment, their child was unable to receive the drugs in this combination.

It is this set of obstacles that tie parents’ hands and keep this war un-winnable. It is for this reason that participation in clinical trials is declining. Several publications in the spring and summer of 2011 highlighted this fact. The red tape and impediments placed before patients hinders the ability to recruit and fill slots. It makes for a difficult system for the average parent and patient to navigate. Physicians do not have the time to educate parents on this system. With respect to Phase I clinical trials, there are rotating enrollments. Thus, timing is everything. If a slot is not open for your child at the time they are eligible, they may ultimately lose the chance to be placed on that trial.

Finally, for pediatric cancer patients, the fact that a new pediatric-specific cancer drug has not been approved in the last 20-plus years is indicative of the mentality of how we approach pediatric and childhood cancer in this country. There are little to no incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop new pediatric drugs. The Orphan Drug Act, Public Law 97-414, as amended, may hopefully change this equation. It has yet to be seen whether this system of incentivizing drug manufacturers to release drugs targeting orphan diseases, such as the one that claimed Alexis, will have any impact. Pediatric and childhood cancer is not a profit center for the large pharmaceutical companies. Bald children do not sell or generate profits.

Regulation is necessary in order to maintain control and standards. Regulation does protect those who require protection. That being said, those who are given a death sentence should be afforded all opportunities and access to any treatment that is feasible. And if that means taking a calculated risk, then so be it.

To sum it up, I firmly believe we need to shift the paradigm and try a different approach, lest we continue to let children die. The FDA and the institutional review boards, rather than being impediments to patients gaining access to potentially life-saving drugs, must become a partner with patients. Regulatory impediments before parents must be eased. This paradigm is shifting slightly. Thanks to so many parents who are on the front lines, change has already happened, unfortunately not fast enough. As long as the government remains embroiled in partisan fighting with an eye on issues that do not surround life and death, the war on cancer will continue to claim more victims. This simply is unacceptable.

Follow Jonathan Agin on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/@jonathanagin