STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno will be buried today in a private ceremony. And in a nod to the university to which he devoted most of his life, his family also announced Monday three days of public memorials on campus.

The plan drafted a day after Paterno’s death at 85 from lung cancer reflected a thaw in the icy relations between the family of a man who did much to further Pennsylvania State University’s academic and athletic reputations and the school’s leadership, which fired him over his response to child-sex-abuse allegations involving a former assistant coach.

Paterno’s family had reportedly rebuffed efforts by university president Rodney Erickson and a handful of others to mend fences after the coach’s curt dismissal, which a member of the board of trustees delivered by phone Nov. 9. That changed to some degree Monday. When the Paternos sought to hold funeral and memorial services on campus, university officials worked with them on arrangements, sources close to the trustees said.

“Joe Paterno loved and supported Penn State to his last breath,” family spokesman Dan McGinn said. “The family wanted the involvement of the university in every way appropriate.”

According to the schedule released Monday, the first public viewing of Paterno’s body was for 10 hours yesterday afternoon at the Frank and Sylvia Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, an all-faiths facility on campus to which the coach and his wife donated $1 million.

The center typically does not allow viewings, but an exception was made at the family’s request.

A second, four-hour viewing will follow today before a private funeral at 2 p.m. in the Pasquerilla center. The funeral motorcade will leave the center around 3 p.m. and pass the university library wing funded by Joe and Susan Paterno as well as Beaver Stadium before traveling along College Avenue in the center of town. Burial will be private.

The Paterno family also plans to hold a larger public memorial Thursday at the university’s Bryce Jordan Center. School officials expect the nearly 15,000 seats to be filled.

University officials said Monday that Penn State would have no official role in the ceremonies but would provide facilities, transportation, and security support. The trustees plan to hold their own ceremony honoring Paterno at a later date, they said.

Still, the trustees said, the schedule of memorials marked progress in what board vice chairman Keith Masser had described only a day earlier as “maneuvering through a minefield” of hurt feelings.

Shortly before Paterno’s death, the university launched a media offensive defending the trustees’ decision to fire the longtime coach amid the scandal involving former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

Paterno’s dismissal at the end of a 62-season career, including 46 as head coach, was necessary, trustees said, because he had not diligently followed up on reports that Sandusky was seen in 2002 sexually abusing a child in a campus locker room.

Paterno had relayed the allegation to two university administrators, who are now charged in a criminal case.

Days before he died, Paterno said that in hindsight, he wished he had done more.

The firing itself was done in a phone call by John Surma, then vice chair of the board of trustees. Susan Paterno called Surma back minutes after her husband had hung up.

“After 61 years, he deserved better,” she said she told Surma during an interview with the Washington Post published Jan. 14.

Paterno died before the school could honor him for his years of service as a record-setting coach, philanthropist, and passionate advocate of Penn State’s rise to become one of the nation’s leading research universities. Monday offered the first signs there might be hope for healing between his survivors and the school.

The trustees have reported receiving threatening mail, prompting university police to investigate whether the messages represented actual threats. There have been calls for heightened security at Thursday’s memorial service.

Meanwhile, Penn State’s faculty senate prepared for a meeting Tuesday in which it was to consider a no-confidence vote on the board.

At the bronze statue erected outside Beaver Stadium in Paterno’s honor, a copy of the Penn State Daily Collegian’s Nov. 10 issue lay soaked in a puddle. The headline “FIRED” had been overwritten in marker with “Killed by Trustees, Jan. 22, 2012.”

“How he was let go as coach was undignified. Joe deserved better,” said Keith Becker, a 47-year-old fan from the Harrisburg area who joined the steady stream of mourners visiting the makeshift memorial at the statue Monday.

When lawmakers in Harrisburg opened their session, House Speaker Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, defended Paterno’s reputation after a moment of silence.

“The legacy of the coach will survive the public rush to judgment he was exposed to by some in the media who chose to react without getting his side of the story,” he said.

Gov. Tom Corbett _ who opened the Sandusky investigation in 2008 as attorney general, handled its fallout as governor, and is as a voting member of Penn State’s board _ ordered flags at state facilities flown at half-staff until Paterno’s burial. Corbett also has faced criticism from the coach’s most ardent supporters for not stepping in to arrest Sandusky earlier.

The White House issued this statement Monday:

“Earlier today, President Obama spoke with the late Joe Paterno’s wife, Sue, and son Jay to offer his condolences for their family’s loss. During their conversation, the president recalled fond memories of when he first met Coach Paterno and said that he and Michelle would keep the Paterno family in their prayers during this difficult time.”

And the rabidly antigay Westboro Baptist Church was heard from as well. The Kansas group, known for protesting at high-profile funerals, said it would picket outside Paterno’s services Wednesday.

But at the Koch Funeral Home, just a few miles from the Paternos’ house in State College, workers appeared to be calmly negotiating the high-wire act of planning what is sure to be one of the state’s most closely watched memorial services ever in a mood fraught with tension.

Funeral director John “Jay” Herrington noted that the home had handled high-profile funerals before, including that of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s sister-in-law in 1954 and one 15 years later for which President Richard M. Nixon arrived in a helicopter to attend his uncle’s services.

Asked Monday how he was handling the heightened attention around Paterno’s arrangements, Herrington replied: “This isn’t our first time.”

• Andrew McGill, Associated Press