A lesson on the danger of hero worship:

Twenty years ago, the PTO at Great Oak Middle School in Oxford paid for a “Wall of Heroes” exhibit to inspire kids. Among those pictured was Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, with this quote on his mural: “My best team will be the one that produces the best doctors, lawyers, fathers and citizens, not necessarily the one with the best record. Let’s keep it in context.”

Sadly, Paterno, who died several months ago, did not.

Under his leadership, “Linebacker U” produced a lot of good citizens as well as winning teams. But his image on the wall of heroes at Great Oak Middle School will be painted over soon, school officials decided. As well it should be.

The now-disgraced coach broke faith with youngsters in Oxford and all over America when he helped orchestrate the cover-up of alleged child sexual abuse involving one of his longtime assistants, Jerry Sandusky, so as to not embarrass the university and the football program. What a pitiful motive.

This in part is a cautionary tale about what can happen when coach and athletic program are so beloved — or at least so successful — that they are not held accountable. It is about what can happen when the coach is regarded as the most powerful person on campus.

It says something about Paterno’s inflated status throughout the country that he shared space on Great Oak Middle School’s walls with, among others, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein and Anne Frank. A football coach? Really?

A few years before the end of Paterno’s half-century-long career at Penn State, the president of the university and the athletic director — both his superiors, on paper — went to the coach’s home and told him he must retire. Paterno showed them the door and kept on coaching.

In that context, the Sandusky cover-up is explainable.

— The Hartford (Conn.) Courant