This column was first published on LandLoyalty.com on March 11, 2011.
I like Ohio State. I like that the players are from this area and I’ve seen many of them play in high school. I like that they’re good, and I wear Buckeye gear. I’m FAR from a die-hard.
The whacky post-season system of college football takes away some of the luster from the college game. I’ll watch, but I care much, much more about what happens on Sunday. As sacrilegious as it may be in this state, I don’t think Jim Tressel walks on water.
So when the news broke this week about Jim Tressel and his cover-up, I wasn’t stunned. As Jim Rome always says if you aren’t cheating then you aren’t trying – and it’s only cheating if you get caught.
When Jim Tressel stood in front of the cameras and issued his apology, he said how truly sorry he was. I took that as he was sorry he got caught.
What he did wasn’t malicious. It was un-ethical, but in his defense I would venture to guess that close to every other coach in the country would have done something similar. They can spew at the mouth about graduation rates and everything, but it comes down to wins and losses.
The Jim Tressel scandal is HUGE news – it made the front page of USA Today – so I don’t want to undermine that. But in the big scheme of things, it’s just another example of all that is wrong with the college athletics. It’s a runaway train, and giving people a slap on the wrist by taking away 7% of their annual salary is hardly going to deter a millionaire coach from lying again in the future.
The five-game penalty that the Buckeye players were sentenced to is much more appropriate. Sit out games against Miami (FL), Colorado and Michigan State. Ohio State very well could lose one of those games and their hopes of winning the 2011-12 national title. That will teach future kids not to screw up. Break the rules, and you won’t be a champion. To most kids that matters. Does Terrelle Pryor care? He seems to care more about Terrelle Pryor, but that penalty could make future kids think twice before breaking the rules.
But penalties like Tressel’s or the SEC suspending Bruce Pearl for eight regular season games gives little reason not to break the rules. I’ll sit out a few games … but my team can still win it all. If we win it all, the alumni are happy and the recruits keep coming.
Their legacies will take a hit – at least in the short-term – but really it will be a small section under ‘controversy’ on their Wikipedia pages.
What it comes down to for me is that Jim Tressel is no better than any other coach out there, and The Ohio State University is no better than any other school. They just win a few more games.
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