Joe Paterno's wife crusades to save his legacy

Joe Paterno's wife crusades to save his legacy

Lou Rocco/Disney-ABC

Sue Paterno, wife of former Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, sent a letter to former football players do dismiss the claims made about her husband by Federal Judge Louis Freeh. She will also appear on Katie Couric's talk show next week.

The widow of disgraced Penn State football coach Joe Paterno launched a Hail Mary attempt Friday to rescue her husband’s ruined reputation.

Breaking her silence for the first time since the scandal broke, Sue Paterno said her husband was smeared in a report by former FBI director Louis Freeh that accused him of covering up allegations of sexual abuse against scores of children by assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

Calling her late husband a “moral, disciplined and demanding man,” the angry widow said in a letter to hundreds of former Penn State football players that she “did not recognize the man Mr. Freeh described.”

“I am here to tell you as definitively and forcefully as I know how that Mr. Freeh could not have been more wrong in his assessment of Joe,’” she wrote.

RELATED: JOE PATERNO'S WIFE TO TALK WITH KATIE COURIC

Sue Paterno did not say how Freeh was wrong, but said her lawyer’s experts have gone over Freeh’s report and will be unveiling their rebuttal on Sunday.

Those findings, she said, “unreservedly and forcefully confirm my beliefs about Joe’s conduct.”

Paterno’s wife will continue her campaign on Monday when she sits down for her first interview about the scandal with Katie Couric. She will be joined by three of her children â€" Diana, Mary Kay and Jay â€" and several former Penn State players.

Paterno, whose name was synonymous with Penn State football for generations, was fired in November 2011 along with then-college president Graham Spanier after the sordid Sandusky story broke.

RELATED: SUE PATERNO DEFENDS JOEPA IN LETTER TO EX-PENN ST. PLAYERS

JoePa died â€" still insisting he was innocent â€" two months later of lung cancer at age 85.

Sandusky was later convicted of 45 counts of sex abuse of minors in June 2012.

Freeh, who spent months investigating the Penn State coverup, concluded that Paterno, Spanier and two other top university officials “repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from the authorities.”

They did it, Freeh concluded, to protect the football program.

RELATED: JUDGE: NO NEW TRIAL FOR JERRY SANDUSKY

Spanier and the two other officials have been charged with perjury, obstruction and other charges. All insist they did nothing wrong.

Last July, the NCAA hit Penn State with a $ 60 million fine and stripped Paterno and the Nittany Lions of its wins from 1998 to 2011. A statue of Paterno that had stood in front of Beaver Stadium was mothballed.

Sue Paterno insisted she was not trying to restore those wins or the statue.

“Joe Paterno’s legacy wasn’t a statue, a winning record or public adulation,” she wrote. “His legacy is his family and you, his players.”

csiemaszko@nydailynews.com