“This is a tragedy,” Paterno said of the abuse. “It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

Paterno has been besieged by criticism since former assistant coach and one-time heir apparent Jerry Sandusky was charged over the weekend with molesting eight young boys between 1994 and 2009. Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz have been charged with failing to notify authorities after an eyewitness reported a 2002 assault.

Paterno, who is in the middle of his 46th season with the Nittany Lions, has won 409 games, a record for major college football. But now, the grandfatherly coach known as “Joe Pa,” who had painstakingly burnished a reputation for winning “the right way,” leaves the only school he's ever coached in disgrace.

“I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case,” he said. “I grieve for the children and their families, and I pray for their comfort and relief.”

But Paterno might not be able to execute his exit strategy as the school's board of trustees is still considering its options, which could include forcing Paterno to leave immediately. Penn State, which is ranked No. 12 in the AP college football poll with a 8-1 record, has three more games to go this season, plus a likely end-of-season bowl game.

Paterno has not been accused of legal wrongdoing. But he has been assailed, in what the state police commissioner called a lapse of “moral responsibility,” for not doing more to stop Sandusky.

He has been questioned over his apparent failure to follow up on a report of the 2002 incident, in which Sandusky allegedly sodomized a 10-year-old boy in the showers at the team's football complex. A witness, Mike McQueary, is currently an assistant coach for the team but was a graduate assistant at the time.

Paterno told Curley, who has since stepped down and has been charged with lying to the state grand jury investigating the case. The Penn State vice president has also been charged, and the university president could follow.

But in the place known as Happy Valley, none held the same status as Paterno. And in the end, he could not withstand the backlash from a scandal that goes well beyond the everyday stories of corruption in college sports.

The coach defended his decision to take the news to his athletic director. Paterno said it was obvious that the graduate student was “distraught,” but said the graduate student did not tell him about the “very specific actions” in the grand jury report.

After Paterno reported the incident to Curley, Sandusky was told to stay away from the school, but critics say the coach should have done more _ tried to identify and help the victim, for example, or alerted authorities.

“Here we are again,” John Salveson, former president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in an interview earlier this week. “When an institution discovers abuse of a kid, their first reaction was to protect the reputation of the institution and the perpetrator.”

Paterno's requirement that his players not just achieve success but adhere to a moral code, that they win with honor, transcended his sport.

“Deep down, I feel I've had an impact. I don't feel I've wasted my career,” Paterno once said. “If I did, I would have gotten out a long time ago.”

Along the road to the wins record, Paterno turned Penn State into one of the game's best-known programs, and the standard-bearer for college football success in the East.

National titles in 1982 and 1986 cemented him as one of the game's greats. In all, Paterno guided five teams to unbeaten, untied seasons, and he reached 300 wins faster than any other coach.

“He will go down as the greatest football coach in the history of the game. Every young coach, in my opinion, can take a lesson from him,” former Florida coach Urban Meyer said after his last game with the Gators, a 37-24 win over Penn State at the 2011 Outback Bowl.

The terms of Paterno's departure conflict significantly with the reputation he built over nearly a half-century of turning a quaint program into a powerhouse with instant name recognition.

He made it to the big-time without losing a sense of where he was _ State College, population 42,000, a picturesque college town in the middle of Pennsylvania.

Paterno and his wife, Sue, raised five children in State College. Anybody could ring up his modest ranch home using the number listed in the phone book under “Paterno, Joseph V.”

Anybody could walk up to offer good luck as he walked to home games.