Chickens Come Home to Roost at OSU with Jim Tressel Suspension
Bravo to Ohio State University Athletic Director Gene Smith and his staff for suspending and fining Buckeye head football coach Jim Tressel $250,000 for his alleged failure to report NCAA player infractions in a timely manner.
According to official statements released by the University, Tressel knew—well before the NCAA investigation which lead to four of his star players (Terrelle Pryor, QB; Dan Herron, RB;DeVier Posey, WR; Mike Adams, OT and Solomon Thomas, DE) being suspended for five games —that two of those players had committed NCAA rule violations. But Tressel failed to report his findings to the University as required by NCAA guidelines. In other words, Jim Tressel appears to have engaged in a possible cover-up.
OSU is required to report to the NCAA its findings that led to their suspending Tressel for the first two games of the 2011 season. Unfortunately for Tressel, he now faces the possibility of further sanctions being imposed by the NCAA.
Perhaps all this is fitting being that Tressel had the gall to make those suspended players pledge to return to the University in order to play in the Sugar Bowl this past January. That decision did not sit well with me (see article Another Low in College Sports…) or with some of the folks inside the Buckeye program. Even more so, understanding how the system works; therefore, speculating correctly that Tressel must have known all about these infractions well in advance of any NCAA investigation. Yet Jim Tressel allowed those players to play throughout. And now we learn that Tressel did know about these infractions and did not report them.
Jim Tressel’s public spectacle of forcing those suspended players to make a pledge to return in lieu of playing in the 2011 Allstate Sugar Bowl may have just backfired in his face.
The chickens have come home to roost at OSU, and as a result the Buckeyes football program is now sporting a huge black eye.
Related Links
ESPN: Scandal tarnishes, Tressel, Ohio State
Another Low in College Sports: Jim Tressel Extorts Suspended Players’ Promise to Return
