If you didn't think Ohio State football is a joke, you should now. Yahoo! Sports broke a story Monday revealing that Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel knew as early as April 2010 about violations reported by the school in December.
So when Ohio St. AD Gene Smith called a press conference Tuesday, I had to watch. When I turned to the press conference around 7:10 pm Tressel was already at the podium rambling about having a player die, having players arrested, etc. What this has to do with Tressel lying about violations I don't know, but I digress.
Ohio St. suspended Tressel for two games (OSU's first two games are vs Akron and Toledo, both at home) and fined him $250,000 (Tressel makes $3.5 million a year, so 7% of his salary). Say I make $3,500 a year, if Ohio State was fining me for breaking their rules I'd have to pay $245. Not a little bit of money but nothing that would set me back horribly.
Now lets ignore the part where Tressel knew about this issue in April and didn't report it and look at the fact that he didn't say anything when the US Attorney's office comes knocking on OSU's door in December. In other words he covered it up (Deadspin.com compiled this list of Tressel emails surrounding the incident).
Now this isn't the first time Tressel has had players involved in scandels.It's not the second or third time either. This cover-up, separate from the kids selling memorabilia will be Tressel's FIFTH time being involved in a major violation.
The ball is in your court, NCAA. Maybe in five years Ohio State will have to"vacate" their wins from the 2010 season, or the school will lose a few scholarships for a couple years, or maybe, just maybe the NCAA can actually do the right thing and actually do something and do it soon.
A self imposed punishment is not acceptable.
-Post by Marc Kravitz
No comments:
Post a Comment