Disgraced Jim Tressel leaves Ohio State as a Big-time fraud
BY JOE COWLEY jcowley@suntimes.com May 30, 2011 8:24PM
Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel resigned Monday after months of scandal related to the activities of some of his players. | AP
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Updated: July 7, 2011 3:22PM
Jim Tressel is quite the wordsmith.
That was on full display in his 2008 book, The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life, in which he wrote, ‘‘The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.’’
Powerful stuff, Coach — especially with the news that broke out of Buckeye Land on Monday morning.
Yes, the former Ohio State football coach is quite the wordsmith, as well as quite the liar, coward and fraud.
Throw a sweater vest in there, and that’s what’s left of the mighty Tressel legacy, an era that will be remembered for Tressel covering up e-mails and the indiscretions of his star players in 2010 for the sake of a winning program obviously void of any control. All the while, he paced the sideline with a holier-than-thou attitude with the blessing of a university that gave him free rein until the embarrassment of public opinion left too much mud on its hands.
Tressel’s minions were running to any talk show that would have them, letting everyone know he did it for the kids. He was protecting his players, first and foremost.
No, he was protecting a win-loss record that would’ve been in jeopardy last season if he had acted like a head coach of a Division I program, and if he had acted like a man.
Tressel knew the 2010 Buckeyes were a threat for a national title, and without quarterback Terrelle Pryor, running back Daniel Herron and receiver DeVier Posey in the lineup, they were another average team in the Big Ten — Northwestern in scarlet
and gray.
He covered up the information that those players had been selling memorabilia and accepting tattoos from an alleged drug trafficker. With a tell-all Sports Illustrated article poised to hit the newsstands this week, who knows
what else Tressel was covering up?
When the university president has the spine of a jellyfish, heck, have at it, Coach. OSU so-called president E. Gordon Gee should resign simply for this remark in March when he was asked about firing Tressel: ‘‘Are you kidding? I hope he doesn’t fire me.’’
Now Gee and the rest of the Buckeyes brass can focus on the cleanup. The hypocritical NCAA doesn’t take kindly to being lied to, so OSU’s problems are far from over.
The Tressel Era is.
Oh, by the way, The Winners Manual was on sale Monday at Amazon.com for $16.49. Expect the price to keep dropping.
