Joe Posnanski's Paterno bio is the most talked about sports book of the year with the circumstances surrounding Paterno's firing and death completely changing the narrative. Paterno's involvement in a university cover up regarding the sexual abuses of Jerry Sandusky has brought down the legacy he built at Penn State.
The timing for Posnanski's book couldn't have been worse as he looked to write the definitive biography on the pre-Sandusky Paterno myth in a post-Sandusky world. Posnanski is a great sportswriter who was dealt a terrible hand. While there is still widespread respect for Posnanski the sportswriter, reviews have called the book "largely sympathetic" (New York Times), "disjointed at best and apologetic at worst" (Sherman Report), and "at war with itself" (Deadspin). Also, Posnanski sees "gray where there is only black" (Wall Street Journal).
The situation surrounding Paterno the biography wasn't helped by the book being rushed into publication and the limited media appearances by Joe Posnanski himself. Posnanski has been largely unheard from with the book hitting shelves, doing a Q&A with GQ, a USA Today column, and not much else. Posnanski's relative silence is incredibly odd given the magnitude of the work and the propensity for authors taking any and every interview possible to sell their book. (Sometimes that does more harm than good though, see: Sapp, Warren.)
Posnanski will do one major interview though with someone who played his own small part in the Sandusky-Paterno narrative: Bob Costas. NBC announced Posnanski as the guest for an hour long Costas Tonight next Wednesday night August 29th at 9 PM ET.
Interestingly, Costas Tonight will also air the entire Costas interview with Jerry Sandusky from all the way back in November 2011. That's strange considering the huge lapse in time and also the criticism NBC faced for not airing the entire interview initially, especially a particularly damning quote from Sandusky. While the Posnanski interview is a huge get for Costas and NBC, I don't see the point in airing the full Sandusky interview almost a year after the fact since Sandusky has already been found guilty.
As seen in that Sandusky interview though, Costas can deliver a compelling interview. Given Posnanski's lack of media appearances in the wake of the Paterno biography and the interest that still exists in the subject matter, it should be worth setting your DVRs for.
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