College football related - Ohio State head coach out under scandal..

[tornado]

Jim Tressel who knew about his players selling their jerseys and stuff to keep the thousands of $$ for themselves and use it to get tattoos...

E mails prove he knew all about it and yet when NCAA asked quesitons,Tressel lied....and lying to the NCAA during an investigation (as Bruce Pearl found out) may be the one thing that actually gets the NCAA interested in penalizing a BCS school. Now Tressel resigns and Ohio State hopes NCAA backs off...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/andy_staples/05/30/Jim.Tressel.OSU/

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/716980-dwight-howard-candice-crawford-danica-patrick-and-mondays-top-sports-buzz/entry/88970-jim-tressel-resigns-sports-illustrated-story-could-have-more-dirt-on-tressel

But here is an interesting connection -- Bob Knight - who champions integrity in college sports and who claims he has always surrounded himself with honest and reputable people -- says Tressel is a great guy and honest and defends Tressel's integrity!

"There is no coach in college sports that’s a better example, in my mind,
of what coaching is all about and what it should be and how things should be
done than Jimmy Tressel. He has done a great job at Ohio State, not
because he’s won a lot of games, but because he has won a lot of games
doing things the absolute right way. And I think that he would be at the
top of the heap when it came to picking guys that did things the way they
were supposed to be done. There isn’t anybody who is better in that regard
than Jim Tressel is.”

http://www.insidethehall.com/2011/03/09/bob-knight-defends-jim-tressel-on-mike-mike/

Then Bobby goes on the claim all Tressel did was inadvertently miss some minor rule --

[AZ BU Fan]

Now OSU Trustees need to clean house and get Gee and Smith out of there.

Only then will there be some accountability at OSU for their rogue football program....

Next stop, investigate the OSU basketball program! Hard to believe the violations would be that extensive with the football players and not spill over to the basketball players. Particularly with the AD and University Prez integrity compromised with their football program violation denials.

I've got to believe OSU MBB players hang out and talk to OSU FBl players about who's getting what from various tat parlors/car dealers/drug dealers in Columbus....

[tornado]

Hmm --
Ohio State football scandal
USC football scandal
UConn basketball scandal
IU basketball cheating scandal
Calipari vacates Final Fours 2 - maybe soon to be 3 places --
Many of those found guilty such as Sampson, Calhoun, Tressel all testify that they only did this because they knew is going on everywhere else...
..and all these scandals were only pursued because the media kept poking and reporting on it -- not by any actual actions of the NCAA..
Makes you wonder just how deep it goes...

[Da Coach]

But here is an interesting connection -- Bob Knight - who champions integrity in college sports and who claims he has always surrounded himself with honest and reputable people -- says Tressel is a great guy and honest and defends Tressel's integrity!

Then Bobby goes on the claim all Tressel did was inadvertently miss some minor rule --

More on Bobby Knight- he believes the rule the Ohio State players broke is ldiotic and he continues to criticize the NCAA as out of touch-

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=6633220

I happen to disagree with Bobby. I still believe the NCAA should continue to ban this kind of stuff, and vigorously police these kinds of violations.
If this kind of stuff was allowed to happen (selling "memorabilia", autographs, etc) it would open the door to untold amounts of money changing hands, open professionalism among the athletes, and with no way to track or police it. And, of course, it would also greatly favor the big BCS powers, since nobody would pay for memorabilia or autographs from schools like Bradley, and only the rich would get richer. Why would any kid want to attend a midmajor school when even the scrubs on the Ohio State football and basketball teams would have access to uniforms, and memorabilia they could sell and profit from.

[AZ BU Fan]

Gee and Smith will have their Columbus,OH area homes for sale in the near future from what I am hearing from OSU retirees in the Phoenix Az area!

I guess I didn't realize doing things the "right way" included looking the other way while his players broke pretty obvious NCAA rules, lying about it when caught, allegedly rigging HS FB camp drawings for prized HS recruits to win, having the University President and AD lie about it to national media, scam the system to allow guilty players to play in NCAA Bowl games, etc etc etc.

I mean a playa just has to have a body full of tats, a nice ride for his posse,
and some loose change for weekend spending money with his women.

Boy, how naive am I?

But hey, he beat Michigan and that's all that apparently matters to OSU and its students, faculty, athletic program, fans etc.

What would really be interesting is if any of the FB/BB OSU athletes actually attend classes and do any meaningful work to pass that would keep them eligible....Oh yeah, another one of those pesky NCAA rules right Coach Knight?

When will the IRS drop the hammer on the players that got all sorts of financial goodies from selling their stuff and getting free rides? Bet none of them filed a 1040 reflecting the actual memorabilia sale income/value of goods and services provided them for free....

[tornado]

Meanwhile Terrell Pryor quits school and drives away in his 350Z (roughly $30K value) - registered to his mom




edit -- now reports emerging that evidence says Terrelle Pryor made as much as $40,000 selling his apparel, autographs, etc...and he didn't waste it all on tats..

http://www.nesn.com/2011/06/ohio-states-terrelle-pryor-made-thousands-signing-memorabilia.html

Anyone who doesn't think this stuff is going on at ALL BCS schools is naive -- tell me all these "amateur athletes" are making NOTHING off the open sale of multiple items of their signed memorabilia!!

Harrison Barnes
Enes Kanter
Kyrie Irving
Brad Beal
Mo Creek
Cody Zeller
Anthony Davis
Jaren Sullinger
Austin Rivers

[tornado]

So far the Ohio State basketball program has stayed clean of the building scandal, but ..

"Matta confirmed ...that senior William Buford and former
player Jon Diebler each bought a car from a Columbus dealership that
is under investigation for whether its sales to OSU football players and their
families violated NCAA rules."

[AZ BU Fan]

If the NCAA doesn't put the hammer down on OSU, which is still on probation from earlier basketball problems, it will never happen.

If the NCAA is hesitant to apply the death penalty to OSU FB, which clearly has displayed no institutional control, they at least have to hit OSU FB with the same sanctions they hit USC FB with.

Can only hope the NCAA continues to hit major school cheaters with increasingly harsher penalties to get the point accross things have to change.

There was a claim made on sports radio this morning that student athletes have to turn over their personal bank statements to their Universities while they are on scholarship...Don't know if this is true, but if it is, then OSU should have known about the payments to their football players if true, unless the players kept their moola out of their bank accounts.....

[tornado]

Some intriguing facts are starting to line up...(clips from recent articles)..

Remember the late model sports car Terrelle Pryor was tooling around in with new car temporary plates??? Well -- the details help explain why Pryor suddenly quits school to go play pro ball --

"The NCAA is looking into the sale or loan of used cars from two (local) auto dealerships at bargain prices to a few dozen ..players and their families in the past six years."
"...at least 50 car sales to Buckeyes athletes and relatives.."

"The two auto dealerships in Columbus (Jack Maxton Chevrolet, Inc., and Auto Direct Columbus, Inc.), where Ohio State is based, ostensibly gave deals to some but not all of the student-athletes and their kin." Cars were deeply discounted or free to athletes.

"under NCAA guidelines football players..are not allowed to get special consideration and discounts that everyday students couldn't also get."

"..both auto dealerships have football memorabilia in their showrooms with autographs from some of the players."

"..Buckeye linebacker Thaddeus Gibson..purchased a pre-owned Chrysler 300C.... but some documents uncovered by reporters say he paid nothing."
"A separate document through the..bank says the car was bought for nothing in March 2008."
"The mother and brother of Buckeyes quarterback Terrelle Pryor also purchased cars from the dealerships."
"Pryor, who will be a senior this fall, might have driven as many as eight cars in his three years in Columbus."

"The account executive at the car dealerships who handled the sales ....received game passes to seven football games from players. Passes included seats for the 2007 national championship game and the 2009 Fiesta Bowl"


Then moving on to basketball...
"..(at least)... two men??™s basketball players were named as having been involved with the business in question. Matta said that transactions involving both William Buford and Jon Diebler involved purchase of cars from the dealerships being investigated..
.. senior William Buford and former player Jon Diebler each bought a car from a Columbus dealership that is under investigation for whether its sales to OSU football players and their families violated NCAA rules."


How many people besides me, PTTB, and PTownHawkeye recall the kid named Jiri Hubalek (played at Iowa State) who was hammered by NCAA and suspended numerous games just because years earlier he was living while in junior college with a host family and was allowed to drive their car (a stinking 1986 Pontiac valued at less than $1200) without re-imbursing them??
But then -- Iowa State isn't apparently on the NCAA favorites list...

[tornado]

A local editorial joins the ranks of those saying what the Ohio State kids did and what they got is trivial and harmless and that we should allow it ...

Here are my rebuttals...and it's pretty funny that the editorial focuses only on the sale of their autographs as if that's all they did --
when it's clear they sold equipment and got freebies from local businesses...LINK and LINK and LINK

-Scholarship athletes already get plenty -- education & tuition, room and board, lots of extras, warmups, travel, food and lodging on the road, notariety and the chance to develop and go pro and make millions.

-Now we are saying let them sell their signatures for whatever they can get and sell their equipment and get special deals buying cars??

-Their equipment really isn't theirs. If it's given to them and they sell it then they should give the $$ either to the benefactor who gave the $$ for their scholarship or if it is a state school - give it to the taxpayers.

-If we allow them to sell their signature -- then any time money changes hands in an unmarked envelop (OJ Mayo) or a player gets to live in a luxurious condo for free (Reggie Bush) or any player seems to benefit from money given to him (POB) then the player can simply argue - that was the allowed reimbursement for my autograph....so where will it end? There'd be absolutely NO way to police this and money would be flying everywhere for all the best athletes.

-Historically NCAA has always nailed even the tiniest programs for the tiniest violations of impermissible benefits (see below) -- REMEMBER Rick Majerus got cited and penalized for buying a hamburger for a player and Bradley got penalized because one booster took one player to dinner at Mt. Hawley Country Club.
Where was our local editorial writer standing up for the Bradley kids when NCAA hammered Bradley for impermissible benefits? Isn't this a sudden hypocritical change of directions?

-The players also got lots of other freebies....some apparently even got cars for free or special reduced prices -- how can you police that?? Obviously the bigger BCS schools have more wealthy donors and boosters, those guys would go hog wild giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to kids to land the best recruits....hey, I guarantee it is already happening - LINK

The non-BCS schools would never get any decent recruit since the BCS boys would simply buy them all up -- who could stop them if their simple defense would be "they just gave me some money for my autograph!"

-The bigger NCAA violation here is NOT what they did -- it's that they knowingly broke the established rules then were enabled by the coaching staff and nobody ever did a thing -- this is rampant cheating and loss of institutional control over the rules-breaking. If Bradley was hammered with a major violation because they should have known POB was INADVERTENTLY getting paid more at his summer job that he was working even tho it would have been next to impossible for BU to know -- then how does Tressel and OSU get away with knowingly letting their kids break the rules and cheat...and actually encouraging them to by guiding them to the booster-car dealers who are slipping them freebies?

-which brings up the never ending question -- why does the NCAA endlessly go after smaller schools like Bradley for trivial impermissible benefits like paying Anthony Webster for a phone call, a few hundred dollars to POB & WF, and a guest dinner at Mt. Hawley?? We all know the BCS schools do this kind of freebies endlessly and 100 fold more than the little guys.

Here's YET another example of how the NCAA makes a major case out of virtually NOTHING --
just last month they hammered Samford (a school that is a threat to nobody) with a MAJOR VIOLATION (!!) for giving free books and schools supplies to non-scholarship athletes!!!!!
These were WALK-ONS doing summer school!!!!!

http://ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/ncaa/ncaa/media+and+events/press+room/news+release+archive/2011/infractions/20110513+samford+university+coi+rls?pageDesign=old+news+releases+template

http://www.bgsfirm.com/college-sports-law-blog/the-ncaa-committee-on-infractions-has-spoken-samford-university

[AZ BU Fan]

If OSU isn't hammered by the NCAA, and their AD/Prez not replaced, it will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the NCAA is scared sh****** about the major BCS schools dumping the NCAA and going their own way with athletics and the money they generate.

[tornado]

only remotely related to Ohio State -- but there's worry at USC --

now that the NCAA hearings are underway for Tennessee (Bruce Pearl and ex-FB coach Lane Kiffin) for all their cheating--

and it is feared that Kiffin - who is now the HEAD COACH at USC could well get hammered with a Kelvin Sampson-like 5-year ban -- forcing USC to have to replace their head coach again..

http://dailytrojan.com/2011/06/14/storm-clouds-hanging-over-usc-athletics/

[tornado]

Nice EDITORIAL in Boston Globe discussing all the recent big time scandals in college sports..
and leveling charges at NCAA that their failure to enforce rules for decades against the big boys has led to this atmosphere of cheating freely...

http://articles.boston.com/2011-06-20/bostonglobe/29680393_1_sports-scandals-stipends-football-championship

"The scandals have reached such a crescendo that some people are proposing
cures that are worse than the disease. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany is
floating the idea of paying players stipends to make them less covetous of
gifts. Football coaches in the Southeastern Conference are talking about giving
players $300 a game out of their own inflated salaries. But athletes are already
pampered and lionized on campus. Handing out stipends won??™t prevent them
from accepting gifts; if anything, it would convince them that they??™re deserving."

"The current system, however, is riddled with holes. The lag time between
violations and sanctions allows corrupt teams to reap all the glory of a
winning season at the cost of an asterisk several years down the line. By the
time punishment is meted out, the coaches have departed for even more
lucrative rewards in the pro game.
Quicker, tougher penalties are clearly in order. The only thing that may get (their) attention ..
is a full ban of retrograde programs, something that has not happened
since 1987 when Southern Methodist??™s play-for-pay slush-fund scandal
resulted in a two-year shutdown."

[tornado]

A couple of current news items relevant to the Ohio State scandal...

-the tattoo parlor guy who traded freebie tats for the players' autographs and jerseys...just was found guilty of federal drug trafficking and money laundering charges...
So the guy is not just a cheater, he's a big time criminal...making you wonder how involved the OSU athletes were with the guys dealings beyond tattoos...hmm...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hOwM4j394stxR_UXTCHV-1Kb_1mQ?docId=bb88a84378f443fcbc7e8c82fa20e734

-digging a bit deeper into the Jim Tressel era -- Ohio State begrudgingly admits he ran roughshod over the rules many, many times...
He had multiple serious lapses that led to NCAA violations..

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2011/07/15/tressel-ohio-state-records.html

-meanwhile -- the head of the NCAA says this is a problem that all the D-I programs share (thus blaming the massive and unconscionable cheating of UConn, USC, Ohio State, and other big, arrogant, repeat offenders on even the clean guys)...and he wants to have a retreat where everyone holds hands and sings Kum-ba-yah..

http://articles.boston.com/2011-06-20/bostonglobe/29680393_1_sports-scandals-stipends-football-championship

[tornado]

Here's an interesting offshoot to the Jim Tressel revelations...

Head basketball coach Thad Matta also had FIVE separate OFFICIAL CAUTIONARY LETTERS FOR VIOLATIONS during his time there at Ohio State.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/07/15/sports/ncaafootball/AP-FBC-Ohio-St-Records-.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&ref=sports