Tressel Billboard: Not Our Fault

Let's be honest: anyone who listens to Jim Rome probably deserves to be mocked.

and the terrible, awful, biased FREEP. I'm sure they're involved somehow or other. If only Section 1 could post some tangental, spittle covered post about their evils.

...not saying/saying that. It didn't need/needed to be said.

"Biggest fan" might even be an understatement.

This is Dantonio speaking about Tressel, on http://spartannation.com/?p=12699

“He is very special to me and our children.  He is special person in our life.  Going all the way back to when I was a grad assistant at Ohio State in 1983-84.  We also had the time we spent to together at Youngstown State and again at Ohio State.... I am from the Jim Tressel school of thought. This position has to be about winning more than football games. I am not naive we will be judged by that, but we have to serve people and this state.  We have to try and make it better.  Whether it is the youth camps before the spring games, summer camps, or whether (we’re) going and seeing coaches or visiting high schools to speak at a national honor society event.  I am in this place and I need to do more with it than just win games.  I have young men who will watch me as a role model.  I need to lead them. I have the Spartan Nation that I represent.  If we are only about winning and nothing else, then we aren’t winners. This position and this responsibility is about a lot more.”

Tressel returns the love:

"Tressel shares the same genuine love for Dantonio.  He told Spartan Nation, “Deano and I grew up together…kind of like growing up with a brother…who has very similar experiences, very similar beliefs, similar mentors, so many things we grew up to learn and believe in and then saw it tested in our own lives to see if those beliefs were upheld.  We have been through a lot together and have learned a lot from one another.”"

...........

Just to recap: Jim Tressel coached at Youngstown State from 1986 through the 2000 season, when he took the OSU job starting with the 2001 season. The Maurice Clarett saga started in 2002, although the recruitment of Clarett started well before that, of course. After Tressel left YSU, they were hit with an NCAA investigation into allegations of that QB Ray Isaac received improper benefits, starting virtually from the time he arrived on campus there in 1988 while Tressel was HC. ESPN has good article on this: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1920867

Everybody is familiar with the stuff that has happened at OSU, starting with Clarett continuing up to the present day with the Tatgate 5 and who knows how much else.

What I wasn't aware of until yesterday was the extent of the relationship between Tressel and that paragon of virtue, Mark Dantonio. I knew that Dantonio was with Tressel at OSU from 2001 through 2003, which includes the Clarett era, but I didn't know that he was on Tressel's staff at YSU from 1986 through the 2000 season, which means Dantonio was there when Isaac was receiving all the largesse from the YSU boosters in Youngstown.

Mark Dantonio is an excellent position to speak authoritatively about how Jim Tressel is such a moral example for his young men. He's also in an excellent position to speak about where some skeletons are buried as well.

I quibble with this characterization.

He claimed to have "found information" when, what he found, was the lack of information - a "no comment", in essence. His theory may have been proven correct, but that's not an indication that it was more than a wild-ass-guess. If we're doling out congrats for that, then...congrats, Section 1.

He was correct, I suppose, but I would disagree with the part about him not being "hysterical".