STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Joe Paterno was upbeat and confident in his final days and didn’t die brokenhearted over his firing in November as Penn State’s longtime football coach, one of his sons said yesterday.

Scott Paterno said his dad was “serenely calm” before his death from lung cancer on Sunday. Only days earlier, Joe Paterno was antsy to leave the hospital so he could start planning a vacation with his wife, Sue.

Scott said his father’s health had deteriorated by Friday afternoon, prompting the family to announce on Saturday that the 85-year-old Paterno was in serious condition. He died the following morning.

“He wanted his family in his room. He wanted to be around people. He wanted to talk,” Scott said. “He wanted to have people, even when he had trouble speaking, he wanted people around him talking. How are your kids? It was so natural. It was like we were having dinner around the kitchen table. It just happened to be his hospital bed.

“Even at the end when it was clear that he passed a line of no return, it was never a moment of bitterness. It was never a moment of fear. He was serenely calm, even right up to the end.”

Along with their five children, Sue Paterno was at her husband’s bedside at Mount Nittany Medical Center when he died.

“If there’s any message I think my father would pass on to everybody at this point, it’s, ‘Let’s build this thing up,’ ” Scott said. “He was so positive and so confident at the end of his life that the things that were important about this place would endure.”

Meanwhile, Paterno’s family announced a two-day viewing and a public memorial this week on the Penn State campus. The family gave no details on who might be invited or asked to speak at the memorial Thursday at the basketball arena, which can hold 16,000 people. Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said the specifics were still being worked out with the Paternos.

Many alumni and students say Paterno was treated shabbily by the Board of Trustees in November, and trustees and other members of the administration might not be made to feel welcome at the memorial.

“I don’t think it’s going to be heavily laden with administration and trustees,” said trustee Linda Strumpf, who lives in New York and will not attend. “This is something the family is putting together and not the university. I don’t think the university wants to be in a position to tell them what a memorial service looks like.”

But trustee Al Clemens said he will be there to honor a man he described as a good friend.

“This is really a family thing, and so we’re just going to go as individuals,” Clemens said. “Joe was a great guy. No matter what the situation was in the last two months, it doesn’t take away from what he’s done through history for so many people. He’s just been tremendous.”

The viewing will be held today and Wednesday at a campus spiritual center, followed by a private funeral on Wednesday afternoon. The public memorial will be at the Jordan Center and is expected to draw thousands.

Michael Day, a 1973 Penn State graduate from Hagerstown, Md., whose father taught there and whose four children all have Penn State degrees, said the trustees were wrong to fire Paterno, and he believes they ultimately will be replaced. He said he hopes they don’t attend.

“I think the Penn State community is separate from the Penn State Board of Trustees,” he said. “The Board of Trustees has separated itself from the Penn State community, and the Penn State community loves Joe Paterno and always will. So it’s appropriate for the Penn State community to honor Joe Paterno in this service.”

Bitterness over Paterno’s removal has turned up in many forms, from online postings to a note placed next to Paterno’s statue at the football stadium blaming the trustees for his death. A newspaper headline that read “FIRED” was crossed out and made to read, “Killed by Trustees.” Lanny Davis, lawyer for the board, said threats have been made against the trustees.

Clemens said the board will later consider more lasting tributes to Paterno, including scholarships in his name. Because of Paterno’s generosity to the school, his family name is already on the library and a spiritual center.

There has also been a movement over the past few years to change the name of Beaver Stadium, the football team’s home field, to Joe Paterno Field at Beaver Stadium, and yesterday the man behind it, Warren W. Armstrong, a 1960 graduate and retired advertising executive, said he would renew his efforts. Some are suggesting renaming the street leading to the stadium Paterno Way.