IMHO, Curely was Paterno's immediate superior in the same manner a Second Lieutenant outranks a Sergeant Major. There are wire diagram organization charts, and then there is reality.
That’s unfair Joe. JVP was once the AD for a few years and didn’t much like it. He had to cut funding to non-rev sports and had to raise ticket prices for everything - this was in the early 80’s.
He couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
People don’t seem to realize that while he was a lot of things to a lot of people - to himself he was a football coach. That’s where his focus was.