Paterno alma mater weighs stripping his name from athletic award CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Joe Paterno's alma mater may remove his name from its annual award for student athletes amid a child sex abuse scandal involving an assistant to the legendary Penn State football coach, Brown University said on Tuesday. Brown also eliminated a football coaching chair named after Paterno earlier this year "due to issues that predated the Penn State matter," the university said in a statement. The award has been given annually since 1991 to an outstanding male freshman athlete. Soon after it was created, the yearly honor was renamed for Paterno, who graduated from the Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island in 1950 and was inducted into the Brown Hall of Fame. The award was given this spring without Paterno's name attached, the university said. A decision on whether to permanently remove his name from the accolade given in future years is pending. A report released last week by former FBI Director Louis Freeh accused Paterno and other Pennsylvania State University officials of failing to take steps for 14 years to protect children victimized by assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky, 68, was arrested in November and convicted last month of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years. Paterno was fired by the board in November and died in January of lung cancer at age 85. His family, angered by the Freeh report, has said it will conduct its own probe of the scandal. "Now that the Freeh report has been released, the University will make a decision about the naming of the award in future years," the Brown statement said. Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Cynthia Osterman