I never said Tressel shouldn't have been fired. I'm just saying more heads should roll in this situation. The coach isn't the CEO, he's more of a department manager. There is no way the compliance department (who requires the players to "register" their vehicle with them) or the AD knew nothing about this. I wouldn't be surprised if the AD is dismissed before this is all said and done.
I believe you are correct. The thing that cracks me up with you Doug, the true buckeye fan.... After all the digging and digging that has gone on in Columbus.... This is all that was uncovered... Some kids sold some trinkets for cash and a coach (for unknown reasons) dealt with in in house... If one cannot understand how clean of a program Tressel ran than you have your head buried in your, errr I mean sand. How do you feel all the other programs would fair under such intense scrutiny from ESPN, SI, YAHOO etc reporters? Ohio State is possibly the largest brand in college football (with Notre Dame and Texas)... These guys hounded Columbus for one reason.... Ratings... It had little to do with the TAT5 cover. Had the TAT5 been Cincinnati, no one would have cared. You cannot deny that. Not paying athletes, no recruiting violations, no over-signing, no $180K payments, no recruiting service scandals, no killing of kid videographers, no contact with agents etc etc... Doug, you never liked Tress... You have complained about him for as long as we have talked buckeye football. This is just a convenient way for you to pile on a great man and good coach. You do not fool me. I mean come on LBJ is the greatest ever? That tells me all I need to know. LBJ will go down as an all time great.... However he has A LOT to do to even be thought of, let alone talked about on the same level as MJ.
Also Doug, since you are so worried about the money this could have cost the University. Had Tress been fired the university would have had to pay him millions of dollars for his contract buyout. But, firing Tress and paying untold millions in a buyout would have been more to your liking than Tress taking the high road resigning and passing on the huge payday. You are right he is evil.
This.. "Some kids sold some trinkets for cash and a coach (for unknown reasons) dealt with in in house" That was not his option. Therein lies the heart of the issue. Like I have said before in a post awhile ago, two football players on my team in college chose to make fake parking passes for parking on campus. The value may have been $100 max. Both players lost all of their academic credits for the spring, were kicked out of spring football, had their captain status taken away, and were forced to pay for 12-16 hours of summer school credits on their own dime to make it back on the team before the season rolled around. One of those guys went on to play in the NFL for two seasons which was huge for my college. So you can see even he was not off limits to being immediately punished. My coach didn't wait around hiding this info from the college, he addressed it immediately. Both players payed the price immediately (were not allowed to play the whole season and then the bowl game before action was taken). They learned their lesson, the coach kept his job and oustanding reputation with the college, and we all moved on. That is what Tressel failed to do and he paid the price.
Cars and Pryor, I give him until the end of July and he's gone as well He rolled up in a different one last night with temp tags, what a bonehead.
Actually, violating his contract, and being in OHIO, he is fire-able without any payment due. Trust me, I've learned MORE than I'd ever wanted regarding OHIO Employment law. And if you look OBJECTIVELY at MJ and LBJ's careers to this point, you'd see that LBJ is INDEED a better player to this point and will likely only be better over he next 8yrs. or so. He's gonna get his first title at 26, and already have 2 (and truth be known, he should have had a THIRD as he showed who was the true MVP playing against Derrick Rose) MVP's. He's a better passer, a better rebounder, and a better defender than MJ was, and in the overall realm a more VERSATILE player. Awe Gary, give the kid a break, a guys gotta have nice wheels when he's in college.... I drove my 77 Ford until the wheels were about to fall off of it when I was in school, only getting a "new" vehicle in April of my Senior year..... Haven't us WORKING class people all has 6-8 nice NEWER sports cars in the last 3 years??? Scott, Be a BUCKEYE fan, not a player/coach fan and you'll be better off. Again, it's about PRINCIPLES, either you have them or you don't. Tressel could have very easily sent on the info to the compliance people and dealt with it the HONEST way, he KNEW it was a violation, and one likely to cost him the services of his players, that's WHY he didn't report it. He wasn't sure he could win without them.
Doug, believe me I am an OSU fan first and foremost. No matter the coach, no matter the record. I have followed Tress since I was like 10 years old. I am a huge fan of Mr. Tressel. Let's not forget he coached and was wildly successful just 20 minutes down the road from me at YSU. I have heard hundreds of stories of his giving and caring of his players and his community. The man is a great mentor, giver and person.
On another note a few hours ago I heard that Pryor met with several agents and no longer holds NCAA eligibility. Not sure if it is true or not yet.
How do these players get these cars? I read something that the dealerships loan them out to the players. How does that work???
Supplemental draft? SI is now saying that Pryor may have driven as many as 8 different used cars over the past 3 seasons.
http://www2.nbc4i.com/sports/2011/may/31/14/pryors-cars-now-focal-point-ncaa-probe-ar-513024/ He does not even have a valid Drivers Lic
No dog in this fight, but don't think for a second Tressel had any bargaining room with a buyout of his contract. He breached his contract, which leaves him open for termination. This is the schools way of allowing him not to be fired, not the other way around. I think he may very well be a great coach and mentor, but also think he deserves what he got. Not that he ran a dirty program, but he lied and cheated and tried to cover up something that made his star players and possibly others inelligible. That said, if the AD, compliance department, and possibly even the School Prez aren't fired within the year as well...then it's a sad day for OSU. They need to clean house on this one and start fresh. WAY too many people would have to be in the know on this one, not just a coach who found out.
No dog in this fight either...but, a liar and cheater is a good coach, a good person person and a mentor? Really? Please keep this kinda coach away from my kid! He's no different then these other over paid athletes that think they're above and beyond! Good riddance Tressel, he should be banned from all college sports period!!!
Lets not get carried away. We are still talking about sports here, people. Tressel could very well be a good dude. He was faced with a tough situation, and made the wrong decision. A decision that has probably been made many times, by many different coaches, many of which never got caught. Tressel got what he deserved in this situation. He made a bad decision, got caught, and it cost him his job. But again, we are talking about sports. Its really not life and death. Many, many current and former players have come forward to defend the guy. Most spoke of the great man he is and the life lessons he taught them. Tressel seems like a well respected man, both by players and the coaching community. Outside of this poor decision, most have very good things to say about him. I think its funny the "experts" are suggesting Meyer as the next coach for OSU. If Tressel couldn't keep these kids out of trouble, how is a man that harbors convicts going to do it? Good news for me though, this could mean the Convict Bowl is back in business. The sponsors were getting kind of restless. Plus, if Meyer does go to OSU, the coaches of the Convict Bowl would be from the two teams I dislike the most, MSU and OSU. Things are looking up.
Scott, The more I read about him, the less I like him. I suppose you may have been blinded by an expectation of the greatness of a person that may have fizzled. Even on of his "unnamed" assistants said that he was "rigging raffles" making sure that his Blue Chippers were winning prizes when he had his football camps. If this is true, it's just plain dirty, and sad to think he's using a little rigged raffle as an attempt to recruit kids. Had Jimmy walked down the hall and turned over the e-mail, he may have been in a better place, BUT he chose not to. He chose to hide info that he DAMNED well knew was not good. He chose to play IGNORANT when it was uncovered, then when he was backed into a corner with undeniable proof, he admitted that he'd known. That BS about trying to protect his players don't fly with me. He was trying to protect his "WIN-LOSS" record. If he was trying to do right by his players, he'd have SUSPENDED them immediately and taken the high road, not the LOW road through the seediest part of town. Then again, maybe he knew how bad it really was and was afraid if he opened up this can of worms, it would only get worse because he knew things were far worse than just a FEW players..????? Who knows??? I stand by my principles, and try to be a man of honor. I've lost TWO jobs because I couldn't keep my mouth shut when patients were DYING because of medical negligence and malpractice. But at the end of the day, I still respect the man in the mirror. I try to live EACH DAY as such that at the end of that day, I'll still be able to respect the man in the mirror. If Jimmy had done the same, he'd probably still the the coach of "THE Ohio State University." But somewhere his "principles" got crossed, and he became a liar and a cheater. He tried to hide significant information about his players because it would probably have cost them at least PART of their eligibility. Not for THEM but for HIM!!! Had he done the right thing last April, we'd have never had to have this debate/argument. Now if the truth is fully known, if sounds like he had some issues up in Youngstown as well, but those were at a SMALL school, and were not as well publicized. I always believed there was at least a little to Maurice Clarret's story, and then we had Troy Smith being on the take, and now this, which is a lot bigger than just 5-6guys according to the latest reports. And you can't tell me he didn't notice TP driving around in a new car every 6 months or so. When a college kid pulls up in a 'Vette, or a Lexus, or a Z350, as a coach you'd BETTER be wondering where the hell he got it!!! And if he wasn't wondering where those cars came from, then he's got some issues. No different than if my little brother who's making $12/hr pulls up in a Porsche.... I'm gonna ask where the hell he found the money for a $60k car making $12/hr, and I'm gonna be asking because I'm really CONCERNED about him and his decisions he's making that may potentially get him into trouble. If Tress REALLY cared about the kids, he's have set them straight, suspended them, put them on probation, and saw to it that they were led down a better path, not one that kept taking them into a tattoo parlor trading their trophies for tattoos and maybe even a little POT according to the info we now have....??? Seriously, do you think hiding the infractions of a 20yr old 4th string right tackle would have happened??? Or do you think that kid would've been UNDER the BUS, and probably out of school??? I know which way I think it would have gone!!!
I just listen to an interview from the SI reporter who wrote the article, and he said there is more, lots more. I guess Pryor just took equipment from the locker room and was just selling like a mad man, where the hell was the equipment manager?
