In resigning as Ohio State’s football coach Monday, Jim Tressel salvaged the few crumbs of honor he had remaining.
The man who didn’t offer an apology at the university’s comical March 8 news conference and who initially cowered under an aura of confidentiality in his cover-up of illegal bene
fits received by his players finally did the right thing.
Supporters will wonder if he fell on his sword for a host of NCAA transgressions that were not all his responsibility. They’ll wonder whom he’s trying to protect. That might not be known for months, if ever.
A potentially devast
ating story from Sports Illustrated is in the works, which would not have helped Tressel’s cause. Neither did ESPN The Magazine’s latest cover — his trademark red sweater vest with “Busted” in place of the school logo.
Ohio State is no longer sporting a black eye; its soul is now swathed in bandages.
Tressel had planned to go down fighting, hiring a former NCAA committee on infractions chairman as his lawyer for an Aug. 12 hearing in Indianapolis. When Tressel returned from a Florida vacation Sunday night, he met with director of athletics Gene Smith. The Columbus Dispatch reported that Tressel was encouraged to resign.
Evidently school officials decided the healing process and the rebuilding of the program’s reputation needed to begin immediately under interim coach Luke Fickell, in charge for the entire 2011 season. ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit reported that of coaches who have misled the NCAA in this type of situation, 78 out of 81 have resigned or been fired.
“I couldn’t believe it,” former OSU cornerback Dustin Fox said of the news. “I just saw (Jim’s brother) Dick Tressel on Tuesday at GlenOak and it seemed like everything was moving forward with the program. Especially after (Jim) hired that attorney to help with the case on Aug. 12, I thought they were going to fight this as hard as they could and as long as they could.”
Ohio State officials could have used that hearing to test the NCAA waters and decide whether ousting Tressel would lessen the sanctions. Perhaps they read the tea leaves last week, when the NCAA denied USC’s appeal in the improper benefits cases of Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo, which also included a finding of lack of institutional control. USC received a two-year bowl ban, a ban from playing in the Pac-12 championship game in 2011 and the loss of 30 scholarships over three seasons.
The potentially seismic loss of scholarships had to leave Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee and Smith quaking in their Bruno Maglis. It remains to be seen what effect Tressel’s resignation will have. In April, the NCAA accused Ohio State of major ethics violations but did not include “failure to monitor” or “lack of institutional control.” Tressel’s departure won’t stop the digging for more dirt, which has already prompted a probe of athletes’ used-car purchases at two Columbus dealerships.
Hallmarks remain
But the hallmarks in the players’ sale of memorabilia and discounted tattoos that led to Tressel’s demise are already recorded for the ages, including Smith saying at the conclusion of a Dec. 23 news conference something to the effect of “Maybe we should get our own tattoo parlor.”
Or Gee’s joking reply March 8, when asked if he’d given any thought to firing Tressel, “I’m just hoping that the coach doesn’t dismiss me.”
Or former receiver Ray Small’s admission to Ohio State’s newspaper, the Lantern, last week that he sold two of his four Big Ten championship rings.
“They have a lot (of dirt) on everybody because everybody was doing it,” Small said.
Former players blasted Small, who probably doomed his chances of ever getting a job in Ohio.
Fatal blunder
In covering up the transgressions of star quarterback Terrelle Pryor and five others, has Tressel done the same? In his 10 seasons, Tressel acted like he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. He survived investigations into improper benefits received by Maurice Clarett and Troy Smith. Tressel made the fatal blunder of signing an affidavit in September that he knew of no NCAA improprieties in his program.
He thought Ohio State could win the national championship in 2010. He wanted another title to go with the 2002 championship earned mainly with former coach John Cooper’s players.
So when he received an email in April that Pryor and receiver DeVier Posey had sold memorabilia to the owner of a local tattoo parlor who was the subject of a federal drug trafficking investigation, he forwarded them to Pryor’s mentor in Jeannette, Pa., not his bosses. He knowingly played ineligible players throughout the regular season, perhaps figuring he wouldn’t get caught. After all, those April emails came from a local attorney who’d played football for Ohio State in the early 1980s, when Tressel was an assistant.
Tressel was wrong to assume what happens in Columbus still stays in Columbus.
Good work
Unfortunately, Tressel’s stunning denouement will obscure all the good he has done. Recently he had his players write postcards to Ryan Anderson, the Kent Roosevelt offensive lineman who is battling cancer. There are hundreds of stories like that from fans and players Tressel inspired.
In a three-minute video the university posted on YouTube, Gene Smith thanked Tressel for his service and said: “There were a lot of people he touched in a highly positive way. … We had great success on the field and off the field, but more importantly in the classroom.”
Smith added that the football program’s last academic rating was its highest ever.
In his final hour, Smith chose to remember Tressel as an educator as much as a humanitarian and a winner. Better than as a hypocrite or cheater, I guess.
Father figure
Most of his players will still view Tressel as a father figure who taught them how to be men and what was important in life. But somewhere along the way, Tressel lost the crux of his own message.
In his book The Winners Manual, the first quote under the chapter titled “Responsibility” came from Mark Twain: “When in doubt, tell the truth.”
If only Tressel had.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
