Glasses Be Gone? JoePa Gets Vision Surgery

By: Associated Press | NBC4i.com
Published: February 12, 2010

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Joe Paterno's glasses just got a lot thinner.

Penn State's Hall of Fame coach had vision surgery last month, a couple weeks after the Capital One Bowl on Jan. 1, which eliminated the need for those smoky, Coke bottle-thick frames that had become as much a part of his trademark sideline look as his rolled-up khakis and jet-black sneakers.

Paterno, who is farsighted, still needs to wear glasses to read, Guido D'Elia, director of communications and branding for the football program, said Thursday evening.

Otherwise, the thick-rimmed glasses are out for the 83-year-old Paterno.

"He's like Robo-coach," joked D'Elia, who also noted his boss' recovery from hip replacement surgery in late 2008.

Paterno is major college football's winningest coach with 394 victories. He revealed his vision surgery earlier Thursday while attending a charity function on campus for Center Volunteers in Medicine.

The new spectacles have less-than-stylish frames similar to his old pair, but with much thinner lenses.

"When I don't wear (them) and I put on a sweater, I reach to take the glasses off and I don't have them on," he told Fight on State, a Web site that covers Penn State football which first reported Paterno's comments Thursday.

Paterno said he had been having trouble reading the last six months, so he visited a Philadelphia eye doctor he had known for decades.

Last week, a pair of Paterno's glasses went up for auction to be finished at a charity dinner for Penn State Public Broadcasting on Feb. 20.

The timing of the surgery and the auction was a coincidence, D'Elia said. "They had no idea it was going to be the last remaining thick glasses."

Glasses Be Gone? JoePa Gets Vision Surgery

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