Jim Tressel and the Wise Monkeys: When Players Try to Get Paid, Who Should Be Blamed?

(This piece originally was posted on Rock M Nation.)


My son turns four just after the first game of this coming season. Unless some weird recessive genes kick in, he probably won't be playing Division 1 FBS football when it's time for him to go to college. (And unless some other things about the game change, he won't be playing football at all. But that's another topic.)

If he does somehow manage to become a football star, though, my wife and I will have to be very careful in the vetting process. We'd want him to go someplace where he can be successful, a place where he'd enjoy the campus life (but not too much), a place where he can get a good education in a field he wants to study. And selfishly, it would need to be somewhere his mother and I would enjoy visiting a few time a year.

I'd want him to play for a good coaching staff. I want his position coach to be someone we really connect with and that he connects with as well; a coach that we'd trust our son with.

I'd want his head coach to be someone we could connect with as well; he should also be someone we would feel comfortable entrusting our son with.

Oh, and that coach should also be brilliant during game days and have a little of the three wise monkeys in him the rest of the week.

Yeah, the three wise monkeys. Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

I mean, what program doesn't want a head coach that sees nothing going on that's wrong, hears no malfeasance and doesn't say a word about wrongdoing because, well, there's nothing wrong.

Isn't that how this is supposed to work? Aren't head coaches supposed to be kept out of the loop when players are driving fancy cars or showing up with a lot of tattoos when you know that said players isn't from a background that can afford new cars or (literally) thousands of dollars of tattoos.

I have one tattoo. It's not small, and it's on my right bicep. I live in a not that cheap part of the country, and my simple tattoo cost $100. Even allowing for things to be cheaper in Columbus, Ohio than they are in Las Vegas, there's no way that somebody on the Ohio State coaching staff shouldn't have caught on to the fact that their players—many of whom are from disadvantaged or highly disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds—suddenly had half or full sleeves of ink.

It's not like they were saving up refund checks from their scholarships.

Yes, Ohio State is an easy target because they are in the news right now. But look around at any of the FBS programs. Don't tell me that athletes aren't trading on their name recognition. Given the way that the system is setup for some of them now, it's the only thing that they have to use.

Does that make it right? No. Even if the rules that are in place are crappy, that doesn't mean you have the right to go around breaking them and flaunt the fact that you're breaking the rules.

But for a coach to act like the three wise monkeys, or even worse, act shocked that there is gambling going on in here, is even more worrisome to me. Does all of the detail work that goes into film study and game planning, the work of hiring a staff and working on recruiting, helping to gladhand alumni and do media appearances...does all of that detail work and micromanagement leave one blind to the fact that players are accepting graft from a variety of sources?

The question, I guess, is this: Who should ultimately be held responsible when players get in trouble for selling memorabilia and merchandise? Does it strictly depend on who is doing it? Or, if it's been going on for almost a decade and the coach(es) either actively or inactively turned a blind eye to what was going on, do people higher up the chain need to be held accountable?

Lost Soul, Empty Vest

(This column originally appeared on Southern Pigskin)

He was the Senator. The Sweater Vest. The Righteous One who did things “the right way.”


In the end, though, he turned out to be a lost soul in an empty vest.

Jim Tressel “resigned” Monday. Walked away. Or maybe he ran. Perhaps he was pushed as more and more details from this sordid affair continue to dribble out of the holes from sources along the Olentangy River in Columbus.

He might hate this characterization, but Tressel was somewhat deified. That is something that is to be expected of a coach’s fanbase to be sure, especially when that coach does what the previous coach never seemed to do—in this case, beat Michigan.

To a certain extent, though, Tressel was also godded up by a complicit coterie of media and analysts eager to find what I would call the “anti-Saban.” A coach who wasn’t unnecessarily bristly with the media, with a certain amount of charm and charisma who could field a national title contender just about every season with something resembling balance in his life. It wasn’t just football 24-7-365.

Wow. Looks like a lot of folks were fooled.

It’s hard not to be cynical in this day and age when covering or following college football. It’s not like scandals are something new that popped up today; one of the most famous cases (the SMU “Death Penalty”) happened 25 years ago. Every few years, there seems to be some kind of tale.

Hell, during last season we had the North Carolina Agent-gate situation, with several overlapping suspensions derailing what should have been an ACC-title for the Tarheels.

Oh, and there was that little situation with the preacher’s son and a transfer of schools and $180,000. I wonder what the resolution of that case was?

But this time it is different. This is Ohio State, members of the illustrious Big Ten Conference—a conference that would never have one of its members stoop so low as to besmirch themselves with even the hint of a scandal. Let alone a scandal of this proportion.

Things like this don’t happen with Big Ten teams, where players are getting tattoos in exchange for trinkets or game-used gear. The Big Ten doesn’t have players and their families getting access to nice cars under questionable circumstances.

Quarterbacks of Big Ten teams don’t get caught driving multiple cars over a three year period because their car is “in the shop” or because they want “to get the opinion of their family” about a car and yet they never seem to commit to a new ride.

Maybe we all should have listened when Maurice Clarett spoke up in 2003.

Turns out that much like Jose Canseco, even whistleblowers with checkered pasts can be right.

B-U-S-T-E-D!

(This column originally appeared on Southern Pigskin)

Legacy is an interesting word. For Ohio State's Jim Tressel, his legacy involves Marurice Clarett, Troy Smith and now Tatgate. But hey, he beats Michigan.


If there is one maxim that web 2.0 has taught us here in the 21st century it is this:

You can’t take anyone being a “good guy” on faith anymore.

Sure, there may be people that do good things, but it is becoming harder and harder to find a good guy.Don’t believe me?

Look at what is happening right now in Columbus, Ohio.

Oh sure, Jim Tressel has had a bit of a reputation outside of Ohio as a shady figure, a “Teflon coach” to a certain degree.

Maurice Clarett’s situation. Troy Smith being suspended for a bowl game for improper benefits. Tatgate.

But Tressel has managed to escape having anything stick to him until this week, when Ohio State was forced to admit that Tressel knew about the situation with the Ohio State players (including star quarterback Terrell Pryor) receiving improper benefits in the form of tattoos by trading or selling various awards and trinkets.
Ohio State reported the violations in December 2010 and the players were still allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl this past January before serving out suspensions at the start of the 2011 season.

Apparently, Jim Tressel found out about the situation and what the players were doing…in April of 2010.

April 2010?

Yes, April 2010. That means that Tressel knowingly played players that should have been suspended pending investigation. Hell, use the catch-all “suspended for violating team rules” line until the investigation is complete and call it a day.

How would that have been any less damning that what has happened over the past three months?

Did I mention that on September 13, Tressel signed an NCAA Certificate of Compliance that stated that he had reported any known violations to the NCAA?

Whoops. That means that not only did Tressel lie to his own athletic director and compliance department, he also lied to the NCAA.

When Bruce Pearl was caught in lies regarding improper recruiting, he was suspended by Mike Slive for half of conference play and fined $1 million by Tennessee.

Ohio State suspended Tressel for two games and fined him $250,000.

I’m sorry, but that’s not enough.

Ohio State had a chance to make a stand and didn’t. If some of the players involved in this situation got suspended for five games, Tressel needed to be gone for at least as long – if not longer.

He is the head coach. Ostensibly, he is the man in charge (and if Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee is to be believed, he is truly the man in charge at Ohio State – even above him) and he should be held to a higher standard.

If you write books about leadership, and talk and preach about instilling integrity in the men that you are leading and then don’t walk the talk, you should be punished accordingly.

Let’s see if Jim Delany or the NCAA will do what Ohio State’s leadership was too spineless to do.

I don’t have a whole lot of faith, though.

Why No Big Ten Love

It's funny that I wrote a piece talking about four FBS conferences that I thought were searching for respect on a national level, and most of the comments address one conference that I didn't discuss:

The somewhat lamentable Big Ten.

Was it oversight on my part?

Nope.

I think the Big Ten gets a proper amount of respect given the current state of the conference:

1. Wisconsin is trending down
2. Michigan hit rock bottom last season and has to prove that they are on the road back
3. Michigan State lost some senior leadership and needs to prove that last year was not a fluke
4. Ditto Northwestern
5. Illinois has some work to do, although Juice Williams and Rejus Benn have the potential to be a dynamic pitch-and-catch duo.
6. Purdue and Indiana are afterthoughts at this point
7. I personally don't trust Minnesota and Iowa to be consistent at this point

Which leaves us with Ohio State and Penn State.

The lasting image for Penn State right now is Mark Sanchez and the Trojans running roughshod over the Nittany Lions. Couple that with one of the weakest non-conference schedules I've ever seen, and I feel like the Penn State season basically comes down to the Ohio State game.

Ohio State's task is tougher: They have to beat USC. No excuses. The game is in the Horseshoe, and USC's quarterback (if it's Matt Barkley or Aaron Corp) will be starting their first road game ever.

That is the game that can help raise the Big Ten's image; it rests on the backs of the Buckeyes to bring honor to the clan.

Update 8/28/09: ESPN.com's Pat Forde examines the Big Ten's respect issue.