Nearly 14 years ago in an appearance on “The Charlie Rose Show,” former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich revealed that he had sought advice from Pennsylvania State University coach Joe Paterno while at the helm of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I’ve talked to Joe Paterno at Penn State a couple of times and said, ‘Alright, I’m not getting this thing done right. What would you change?’ He gave me very good advice about how he coaches and how he brings along his assistant coaches and how he deals with the players. He said, ‘First of all, you’ve got to be clear in your own mind,’ and that’s one of the reasons for writing the book.”
The book he was promoting at the time was “Lessons Learned the Hard Way,” which came just months before he resigned from the speakership after the November 1998 midterms.
In the interview, Gingrich elaborated on what tactical advice he received from Paterno.
“You’ve got to know your game plan. Then you got to meet with all your assistant coaches and listen to them carefully and I talked in there about listening. And then you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘As a team, are you ready to go out and meet with the rest of the team?’ Because if the coach and the assistant coaches don’t have their act together, they’re going to be offering very conflicting signals when they go through practice. And you got to remember that there is practice. Nobody is good all the time, first time.”
Although Gingrich represented Georgia, he was born in Harrisburg, Pa., two hours from the Penn State campus.
A grand jury report has alleged that at the time of the interview, one of Paterno’s coaching assistants, Jerry Sandusky, was committing sexual abuse against children.