Joe Paterno Statue Taken Down Outside Beaver Stadium at Penn State

by Sean Peick on Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 8:39AM

The last visible vestige of Joe Paterno's 46-year tenure as Penn State's head football coach is gone.

University president Rod Erickson announced in a statement released at 7 a.m. Sunday that the 7-foot, 900-pound statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium would be taken down and moved into storage, calling it a "source of division and an obstacle to healing in our university and beyond," according to ESPN. That followed reports Friday that the statue would come down sometime over the weekend.

"I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse," Erickson wrote.

Construction crews and police arrived at the statue earlier in the morning. They put a chain-link fence around the area of the statue then covered it with a blue tarp to block views of the dismantling. The street and sidewalks near the statue were also blocked off.

The statue was jackhammered out of the ground and taken away by forklift at about 8:20, while the rest of the memorial — a quote by Paterno and a few statues of nameless players — remained.

Erickson said in his statement that Paterno's name will remain on the campus library.

Photo via Twitter/@centredailycom