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Buckeye Blogger Network
Jim Tressel
Update – For the full press conference video, please visit OhioStateBuckeyes.com’s report on the conference.
Jim Tressel, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith and Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee sat down this evening to discuss the news released in a Yahoo Sports report. That press conference was aired over the internet at for everyone capable of sitting down and stomaching what was said. For those who missed/skipped the presser, here’s a run down of what happened.
It has become clear that what Yahoo Sports discovered was not the violations themselves, but the University self-investigation of the violations committed by Jim Tressel. It turns out that in April of 2010, Jim Tressel received emails regarding information on a Federal Drug Trafficking case. Those emails implied there were potential NCAA violations regarding 2 unnamed student athletes at Ohio State. Tressel, however, either did not notice the implication, or refused to face the implication.
The press release does not make the connection clear between the two cases. Despite that, it is clear that the cases were linked in the sense that the emails Tressel received involved the Tat-gate situation. It is also clear that the Yahoo report was a leak of the investigation that required the school to come clean before they were ready.
The NCAA was reportedly notified of the situation on February 3rd and sent special investigators to the University on February 8th. It is obvious that the University did everything they needed to by NCAA bylaws to solve this problem as quickly as possible.
The press release states a set of self-punishments:
As part of its self-report, the university has self-imposed the following sanctions: a public reprimand and apology; a two-game suspension; attendance at a compliance seminar; and a $250,000 fine.
Of course, the whole investigation itself has not be concluded, so we won’t know the full resolution of this situation for at least several weeks yet. However, this is the report that the University is sending to the NCAA following their investigation.
As of now, the Yahoo news story has functionally concluded in about the best way it could have. Rather than this being a new thing for the University to face, it is something that they’ve already been dealing with for a while now. While it’s a small comfort in the end, it’s substantially better many imagined it could have been.
Stay tuned to the Buckeye Battle Cry for more as the story unfolds.
March 8th, 2011 at 7:53 pm
Meh, that could have been a whole lot worse.
If this sticks, or even if Tressel gets a few more games tacked on to the suspension (hell, give him five and let him chill with the tatted five) I am fine with it.
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March 8th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
If past NCAA action is any guide, this will get worse. These are considered major violations and OSU has basically just slapped Tressel’s wrists. In the NCAA’s eyes, this will show that OSU is not taking this seriously. This will not end well.
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Lurking_Michael
March 8th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Really? I point to Jim Calhoun and Bruce Pearl as examples of serious violations where the punishment was light. Calhoun gets 3 games in a much longer hoops season. OSU also recommended to the NCAA that Tressel be suspended from spring practices and summer camps, so that’s even a bit more harsh.
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Joseph Whalen
March 21st, 2011 at 10:34 pm
Pearl just got fired by Tennessee. 12 of 13 coaches who have lied to the NCAA have lost their jobs. Won’t happen in Buckeye land. News flash….Jim Bob is not a Boy Scout.
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MaliBuckeye
March 21st, 2011 at 10:45 pm
It’s James Patrick- so “Jimmy Pat” might be more apropos.
While certainly comparable, the magnitude of the situation at Tennessee is significantly different than any issue at Ohio State. Not that wrong isn’t still wrong, but my impression is that UT is trying to clean house before the NCAA makes their ruling- having a new football and basketball coach (the teams under scrutiny) might certainly help.
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March 8th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
Been a Buckeye fan for over 15 years but I have to admit this been coming for quite a while. OSU has been pushing the envelope for years and this Tattoo gate runs much deeper when you read some of the quotes from former players. The non-education compliance issue is a conveienent excuse. All schools drill it into athletes heads what is allowed and what isn’t and most of the time they have to sign documents that says they understand. This happens at the D-3 level so I have to assume it’s done ten fold at OSU. Let’s face these classes are not needed as these athletes are all high school graduates and should know the rules by now hearing about others transgressions. I really hope this goes away for OSU and isn’t the beginning of a much larger cover up.
BTW – Great job on this website. The recruiting coverage is incredible.
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March 8th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
I do not want to hear anything else denigrating the SEC. The Big 10 has bad actors as well.
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Jim
March 8th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Ohio State is clearly not squeaky clean and will certainly take its lumps for this, and deservedly so.
College sports in general has plenty of bad actors, not just the Big 10. The SEC just happens to have a helluva lot more of them running rampant in a corrupt culture. If you feel the need to justify the SEC’s antics every time another program runs into problems, more power to you.
Your attitude is actually pretty telling: Everyone cheats, so don’t give me a hard time no matter how much more often or severely we do it ourselves.
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Jeff at The BBC
March 8th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Congrats on being the first SEC fan to spell every word properly.
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March 8th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
I come here most often as a reader and haven’t posted that much, but I just can’t let this go. I met Coach Tress a few years ago – extremely nice man, down to Earth, and all that – but my perception of him has definitely changed. First, let me say that I think the NCAA rule is stupid, the NCAA is a joke in and of itself, and yes this may happen at many places, but this doesn’t make it right. Coach prides himself on integrity, and while everyone makes mistakes, how can you not forward that April e-mail or contact someone if you read it and thought it was “a very serious situation”? I just don’t know what to think of the man now. Honestly, I’ve been so disgusted by the Auburn, Tenn., USC, Oregon, UNC, and other situations, that people just need to start losing jobs so that there’s actually an ounce of integrity in college athletics. Are the Tat-5 going to learn anything from this now?
I’ll still root for the silver bullets next year, but my whole opinion of Tressel has definitely changed a bit. Like Chris said earlier, I hope this doesn’t snowball into an even larger cover-up.
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Joe
March 8th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Steve, I appreciate the comments, but respectfully disagree. This does not change my perspective on Jim Tressel as a man of integrity. I honeslty don’t think he was lying. I believe that he probably did some digging into this, maybe outside of the compliance offer, which is wrong, but I don’t believe for a minute that he just ignored this, and hoped that it would go away or try and hide it.
A man of true integrity is a man that when times are tough will show his true colors, and to me he was sincere in his comments tonight, and I also feel that he would love to be able to tell the whole truth to all fans and onlookers, but due to the investigation and legalities is not able to discuss with all of us fans.
The great things that he does, and I am not talking about his ability to coach and recruit, far out weigh him not reporting this, or whatever else he has been drug through the mud for.
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Steve
March 8th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Yeah, we’ll see what else comes out about what he did and did not know. I still have respect for the man. Maybe I did not make that clear, but I also find it hard to believe that he is completely innocent in all of this (and not just technically speaking). But again, continue to wait and see. I think a lot more will come out.
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Joseph Whalen
March 21st, 2011 at 10:37 pm
He wasn’t lying? What? He stated and signed documents indicating that he was not aware of any possible NCAA violations involving his players.
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March 8th, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Let’s review…six guys sell some of their stuff and 5 get 5-game suspensions, a sixth gets one game and their coach gets at least 2. Pay a kid 200 grand and you get a national championship and a Heisman. NCAA, you’re not doing it right.
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March 8th, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Before this gets out of hand.
If you are new to posting here, please read our posting rules before doing so. You can find them here.
Posts will be deleted if we deem them to violate these requirements. You’re more than welcome to agree or disagree with or any other contributors here, but we will not tolerate grossly immoral comments. Thanks.
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Jim
March 8th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
The term “grossly immoral” made me laugh for some reason. We reserve the right to delete for much smaller offenses than that.
But seriously folks, I already had to delete one post. Let’s keep it clean tonight.
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March 10th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
I wonder why it is we have become so quick to denigrate and besmirch people that we only know from afar. In the past few days, I as an Ohio State fan, have been taken aback by the fervor with which, OSU coach Jim Tressel has been lambasted by local and national media types. Apparently, Jim Tressel murdered an entire village or at least that is the way everyone has been acting. Whatever happened to perspective? Whatever happened to viewing the entire picture, looking at the totality of a body of work?
In this snap shot age of TMZ and rapid fire gossip, the eagerness to drive ratings, we have become a society of cynical, self righteous, pompous, asses. All in the name of creating tweats, facebook posts, instant e-mails or views on a tv/radio channel. I have to admit it, I’m ashamed, I’m embarrassed, and I’m sad. Not because of what Jim Tressel did or didn’t do, but because of callousness with which we treat people.
Is it unfortunate what coach Tressel did? Sure. Could he have handled the situation better? Sure, Do I wish, as an Ohio State fan this all didn’t happen? Sure. Do I think Coach Tressel will learn form it and thus making him a better man? Sure. But should this condemn the man? No. Should this outweigh the contributions he has made to our society as a whole? No. Should it outweigh the good he has done for current and former players, the Ohio State University Community, The Youngstown State University Community, the city of Columbus, the city of Youngstown, the state of Ohio and beyond, ABSOLUTELY NOT. We all need to step back from the ledge and look at the overall man, the overall body of work.
Coach Tressel IS an honest man (yes even despite recent events) he IS a genuine man, he IS a man of integrity, but he IS not perfect, just like all of us are not perfect. We live in imperfect world filled will imperfect people. At the end of the day, we all do the best we can. I just hope that I associate myself with people that do more good than bad, people like Coach Tressel. Like Chris Speilman said the other day on one of the national radio shows, if I am fortunate enough to have a son that is good enough to get a scholarship to play football, to a major university like Ohio State, I want Coach Tressel coaching him. Because I know he has my son’s best interest at heart, he will help make him a man and a complete adult, not just a football player. We all need to look in the mirror and expect of yourself what you expect of others. We will all be better off for it.
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MaliBuckeye
March 10th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Great thoughts, James… thank you!!
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March 21st, 2011 at 10:41 pm
He may be genuine, but in this incident he was absolutely totally NOT honest. He knew better and basically denied it on several occasions. Lincoln said “the true measure of a man’s character is measured by what he would do if he thought no one would find out”.
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