Mural artist paints over Joe Paterno's halo

What the hell was Paterno doing with a halo in the first place?

An artist named Michael Pilato painted a giant mural in State College, Pennsylvania, depicting important figures from the university. It was painted twelve years ago, right around the time that Mike McQueary, an assistant football coach, reported Jerry Sandusky for sodomizing a child in the lockerroom.

The mural is 100 feet wide by 24 feet tall. Jerry Sandusky was in it, but Pilato painted over him. Then he added the halo to Paterno after he dropped dead. Then, after the FBI report came out, he removed the halo and, oddly, added a blue ribbon to Paterno's lapel symbolizing what the artist claimed was Paterno's devotion to child abuse victims. What was the thinking there?

Spanier, the university president who resigned in disgrace, is also pictured in the mural. People have been throwing eggs at his likeness.

The artist says that he still thinks "Joe Paterno is an amazing human being. I think he made a major bad decision in his life,"

His "bad decision" was a crime he would likely have been prosecuted for had he not dropped dead in January. And it went on for twelve years. He spent more than half his life as head coach and he spent a quarter of those years knowingly facilitating Sandusky's crimes.

In what way was Paterno "an amazing human being"?

I've told people before not to idolize or name a child after anyone who hasn't been dead for ten years. And don't idolize someone for something stupid, like being a football coach.