Bradley returns to the sideline

— -- MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Tom Bradley doesn't want a story written about him.

He is an anachronism in SelfieWorld, a guy who loves people and has no interest in tooting his own horn. That said, Bradley's reticence has something to do with his background. He is speaking in his office at West Virginia. Bradley spent 37 seasons at Penn State, where he rose from freshman to starter to team captain to graduate assistant to assistant to defensive coordinator to, three years ago next week, interim head coach.

No one knew Joe Paterno better.

Now, after two years in radio and television exile, Bradley is the senior associate head coach for the Mountaineers. His job is to coach defensive linemen and serve as a font of wisdom to Dana Holgorsen's staff, especially defensive coordinator Tony Gibson.

Gibson is one of the reasons Bradley wanted to return to coaching at West Virginia. They knew each other from the recruiting trails in Pittsburgh. Another reason is it's almost home. As a kid, Bradley, a Johnstown, Pennsylvania, native, came to games at old Mountaineer Field. His office is 65 miles from his house in Pittsburgh, the one he bought for his mom after his dad passed away in 2002. Now his mom is gone, too. Bradley still sleeps at the house a couple of nights a week.

UCLA sniffed around Bradley, but he is comfortable here.

"You know what? It was just a great opportunity," Bradley said. "I really enjoyed, when Coach Holgorsen called me, I got to spend some time with him. Of course, Oliver Luck was a big factor in it."

Luck, the West Virginia athletic director, has a law degree. He did his due diligence regarding Bradley.

"I read the Freeh Report," Luck said. "And I read it a second time. He's not in it."

Luck wooed Bradley for a year. When the time came, Luck suggested Bradley spend a day with Holgorsen and the defensive staff, just to make sure everyone could play in the same sandbox.

"He knew West Virginia," Luck said. "He recruited against all of us for all those years. We all knew each other. He and Gibson are pretty good friends."

Bradley learned the 3-3-5 defense Gibson coaches. He is coaching the defensive line, which he has never done.

"I couldn't tell," junior tackle Kyle Rose said with a laugh. "I could tell he knew so much about the college football game on the defensive side of the ball. It was just him translating all that knowledge back to us simple-minded defensive linemen."

Rose said Bradley has taught the linemen the whole defense. He wants them to understand their role and everyone else's.

"I never really knew coverages," Rose said. "Knowing the back end, knowing they are in man coverage makes me go that little bit extra to get to that quarterback a little bit faster, knowing those guys are on an island behind me.

"I live in a closet," he added in reference to the close quarters of line play, "but I know where I am in the house."

Moreover, outside Paterno's family, Bradley is the world's leading authority on the coach who won more games than anyone in FBS history.

For his entire adult life, Bradley told JoePa stories and took for granted that he had a willing audience. Then, suddenly, a lot fewer people wanted to hear them. Anyone associated with Penn State and Paterno became radioactive.

Three years out, the mud is dissolving from his beloved coach's reputation. Bradley is telling stories again. His mimicry of Paterno's high-pitched nasality remains uncanny. His respect for the man remains unabashed.

In 2000, Penn State started 1-4, finished 5-7 and gave up an uncharacteristic 24 points per game. Bradley starts his story by saying, "When I was getting pounded ..." Paterno handed him a sheet of paper.

"I want you to read this," Paterno said. He had given Bradley a copy of "If," the four-stanza poem Rudyard Kipling wrote for his son in 1909.

"Coach, I know the poem," Bradley said.

"But have you read the poem?" Paterno asked. "Do you understand it? I want you to read it."

Bradley read the poem that day. He kept the copy in his locker. On the afternoon of Nov. 9, 2011, as the Jerry Sandusky scandal engulfed Paterno and his football program, Bradley went to his locker. He grabbed the poem and walked out to the practice field to find Paterno.

"I didn't know the day ... was going to be his last practice," Bradley said. "So I went out because things had kind of happened.

"'Coach,' I said, 'I think you need to read this now.'"

Paterno looked at poem and said, "But I gave this to you. Did you learn anything?"

"I think so," Bradley said.

"I think you did, too," Paterno said.

Bradley turned and walked away. "I looked back," he said, "and I see him out there reading it, and then he puts it back in his pocket."

Bradley stood up and walked to the other side of his desk and held out his phone. The wallpaper is a picture of Paterno, with his right hand in the pocket of his blue windbreaker. He is looking down. He appears lost in thought. The university would fire him that night.

"You see the picture?" Bradley asked. "That's his last practice. You see where his hand is in his pocket? That's after I gave him the poem. One of the managers took the picture. And no one knew [what they had discussed]. But I knew what had happened."

Ten weeks later, Bradley walked into the funeral mass for Paterno. On the back of the mass card, the family had printed the poem. Joe's grandson had found the poem in the pocket of the windbreaker. He began reading it in the hospital.

"My dad knew every word," Jay Paterno told Bradley. "That was his favorite poem."

Bradley has kept his head when all about him were losing theirs and blaming it on his mentor. He has waited and was not tired by waiting. He is coaching again, and maybe he will forgive the writing of a story about him.