Terrelle Pryor on Improper Benefits - "I felt like I was doing God's work."
Well, um, I'm not sure what to say other than to quote and link this article. Terrelle Pryor details the story of selling his Gold Pants for $3,000, money he says he used to pay his Mom's rent and heat bills.
Whenever I write my book the proof will be in there, the receipt that the money I gave my mother was to pay the electric and heat bill. The truth is going to come out one day when the time is right. I don't think I deserved (being punished) in that way, because of the reason I was doing it. I felt like I was doing God's work in a way, and I was getting driven into the ground.
Strangely, he mentions nothing about tattoos, loaner cars, etc. Some people are just crazy enough to believe their own nonsense.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/jim_trotter/05/09/terrelle.pryor/
I'll take an offer. Did I hear $3000 for my left?
This had me seriously considering what my asking price would be for one of my feet.
I get what you're saying, but it's completely beside the point. Whether or not you agree with NCAA rules, you still have to follow them. Someone might think it's stupid that you need to be academically eligible to play NCAA football, but it doesn't mean playing a bunch of ineligible guys isn't against the rules. I might think it's stupid to play with only 11 guys, but I can't put a 12th man on the field.
There needs to be an even playing field. No matter how full of shit the NCAA rule book is, everyone has to follow it, or there's not an even playing field. Now TP is in the pros, he can sell whatever he wants (although he still can't steal things and sell them, I think even you would agree that's not a stupid rule).
...it is a stupid rule because what is the point of stealing things if you can't sell them?
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! +10000
I have nothing of substance to add. Considering the subject matter, that isn't real suprising.
As much as we laugh at Ohio State, a free education to Ohio State University plus room and board and books and some expenses is far from nothing. Terrelle Pryor as an Ohio State brand was worth more than the sum total he received, but then he couldn't have gone very far without 84 teammates who got the same deal. And all of the non-revenue sports that wouldn't exist without people unfairly using Pryor-based dollars to fund them.
It's easy to overrate how much one player, even a star quarterback, gives to a football team. You can look to Michigan to see an extreme example of what Ohio State might have been without him, but even going 3-9 in 2008 for want of several Pryor-level players didn't dramatically change Michigan's finances (for a given definition of "dramatically"). Terrelle Pryor alone wasn't a big revenue generator--it was Terrelle Pryor in an Ohio State jersey that was a big revenue generator. You see the difference? If he left Ohio State and went to play for a semi-pro team who could pay him, what's his value then? A Euro team might take him for 30k euro; that's barely different from what he was getting to play at Ohio State except instead of living like a pauper in a country where he doesn't know the language and nobody cares about him he got national exposure and top of the line coaching.
Remember the market sets the value and there isn't a very big market for players who are not yet NFL eligible. If he had spurned Ohio State they would probably have recruited another quarterback and sold a fair amount of his jerseys. He wasn't a brand unto himself as was, for example, the Fab Five. It wasn't mostly Michigan people were fascinated with but the style and attitude and brand that those guys created themselves. If they left Michigan, any one of them would have had a Nike contract in a day, even if they weren't eligible to play in the NBA (they were).
Pro players are worth $millions because if they weren't playing for X team then Y team would pay $millions to get him. Until Pryor was eligible for an NFL contract, his true market value was hardly much more than what he was getting.
True, and I don't mean to undersell your comments, but you also have to take into account the fact that Michigan jerseys are selling like hotcakes in Ohio these days. That has to come into play here somehow. Not sure how, but definitely somehow.
It's a start...
Costal,
I applaud your honesty and your conviction. Further, philosophically, I agree with you that in a free society one should be able to sell their personal property as they see fit. Although I think the NCAA has some issues, I think the one needs to understand the reasoning behind the rules about selling awards while still a student-athlete -- remember, there is no prohibition on selling those items after one leaves college. Programs cannot openly pay their players, we all know that. But imagine a scenario where a program gave extremely expensive items for every game played, every TFL, TD, or INT. If they were able to go and sell these items, it would be effectively the same as outright paying the players for playing. The day a player leaves college, they're able to do whatever they want with their awards.
Remember, this is NOT unprecedented. The SEC (not the conference) has laws concerning the sale of certain types of stock shares during IPO's. Holders of these types of stocks shares sometimes have to wait YEARS before they're able to sell their interests.
The point that I think is so incidious about the situation at Ohio is that there was something akin to a "cottege industry" that had grown up around players selling their awards. Whether you agree with the NCAA regulation or not, it is obvious that with it in place, such a cottege industry would likely be a huge enticement to potential players -- especially those that are from low-income familes.
I agree with your assertion that "The NCAA rulebook is full of shit." I would like to see everything Pryor did become legal, and the NCAA's sham-ateurism shot down in court.
That being said, whether or not the rules are fair is totally irrelevant to what Pryror did. Pryor knew the rules when he signed up. When a system of rules is in place, it only works if everybody follows the rules.
Pryor signed up with THE Ohio State University because they offer free cars, free "hostesses," free tats, free drugs, free golf, golden handshakes, and "tutors" who guarantee that the player can get a degree without working. Somehow, this wasn't enough, and he still found it necessary to steal memorabilia from his own locker room, and then sell that memorabilia. Sorry, but this does not qualify as "God's work."
The program is dirty, and players who take advantage of illegal perks are dirty. They are cheating, and it gives the program an unfair advantage in personnel over schools that aren't offering everything a player could want to sign up with them.
Pryor is pond scum, Ohio State is a cesspool, and none of his rationalizations will make what he or Ohio State did "right."
...to steal equipment from the locker room and sell it on the open market?
*couldn't care less
But I could care less!
I care a little bit, but not enough for the could to become couldn't.
Point saved.
Otherwise you could have boosters "buying" those gold pants for $150,000. That's the problem the NCAA is trying to avoid.
Have all the football players join the art school, I'm sure they could sell every piece of experssionist artwork they can crank out...
Everything he sold was protected by licensing agreements since pretty much forever, and those agreements stemmed far from, specifically, football players. No other student of any college is allowed to auction off anything that has their school's trademarked logo for a profit, just like a Google employee can't start slapping Google on merchandise and retailing it.
My high school was the Central Catholic Fighting Irish, and 20 years ago we were invloved in a lawsuit with Notre Dame because our angry Irishman was too similar to theirs so now Central Catholic's emblem-dude is standing with one foot facing backwards. Football is small fraction of all things college, and likewise played a miniscule part in how this is handles.
Not to mention this shit's protected by the constitution and international trade agreements and everybody who trademarks anything worldwide (minus China, of course) is protected by these laws.
Pryor's a glorious turd.
Well all those tats he had would have cost thousands of dollars so why didn't he take all that legit cash he spent on legit tats and pay those bills legitimately?
Well to be fair to Tyrelle we DID play for Jim Tressell and down here in Ohio anybody who can beat Michigan as frequently as he did (fairly or not) is considered at least a minor deity.
His book will be right up there with Kwames and RKellys on my shelf. Cant Wait!
/s
Wait, didn't he justify owning so many cars because he said his mom bought them for him? If he's paying her heat and water bills how the heck is she buying him cars?
Obviously I know he's been lying the entire time but how on earth did the NCAA just let this go?
according to a later statement by TP, so I guess that is how he justifies his family contribution (by getting Sarniak to pay). But I still do not understand why the NCAA did not use this revelation to reopen the question about "car benefits" to OSU players---a question OSU tried to put to rest through a superficial DMV investigation by OSU alums in charge of the DMV.
I'm sensing an unlimited amount of material coming our way.
He needs to do something. His already shaky QB future got shakier when the Raiders picked up Leinart last week. Pryor seems like the guy that gets harder and harder to hate as his life gets more and more pathetic (think TO, but TO actually accomplished something in his career). I think he was a tool (double meaning intended) and was used (unsuccessfully) by Tress to further his legend. I still think that Tressel would have thrown him under the bus like MC if TP had won him another NC.
I am having no trouble continuing to view Pryor with the same contempt and disdain I had for him back in the "everybody kills people, murders people" days. If anything, every new lie makes it easier. As someone above pointed out, the defense to the Nissan Z car was that his mom bought it for him. A lie then, compounded by the new lie that she had no money for utility bills.
I'm looking down the road twenty years when he's conducting autograph sessions with Pete Rose at the local Wal-Mart. I know he lies and continues to lie to cover up those lies but I'm starting to get the idea that he believes himself, which is where the patheticness (probably not a word) comes in for me. I hate Ohio more than the next guy so I'm not saying to stop laughing at him, I just see this going to a bad place for him in the near future.
Maurice Clarrett = Jose Canseco
Terrelle Pryor = Sammy Sosa
I keep running into Clarrett at the gym here in Omaha, about the last 5-6 times I have been there. He actually is a really quiet guy and polite guy from what I have seen of him, keeps to himself and does his workouts.
Smith was here last year as well with the Nighhawks, if this league manages to keep it's head above water, maybe I will be able to update on Pryor in the near future as well.
Using religion to deflect blame seems to generally be a tacit admission of guilt - rationalizing an excuse.
"I shouldn't have sold the stuff and taken $3,000. But I was kind of in a place where I didn't understand why this is happening to me -- especially for the reason that I did it." - Terrelle Pryor, in the article
Perhaps it was at this time that Pryor should have mentioned to the NCAA that he was in the employ of a higher power and therefore his actions were justified in that context. I guess the only problem here then is who gets slapped with "failure to monitor" in this case....it's a philosophical question now.
Remember when God told Urban Meyer that Shariff Floyd needed to attend the University of Florida? Yeah, this seems kind of like that, a little bit too convenient.
Even liars, cheaters, and murderers seem to know the will of God.
I'm wondering if little 6lb. 10oz. baby Jesus had any say in this whole thing . . .
It's hard to imagine this guy not ending up in jail or prison.
But he had plenty of money to look at cars that he was test driving back and forth to PA, trying to decide whether or not he was going to buy it????
I honestly think TP should be studied, I don't think this kind of mind numbing stupidity has been discovered by man. Vest should seriously receive some sort of medal for keeping this kid eligible for 3 years.
You need to pay your mom's bills, SELL THE NISSAN Z YOU WERE DRIVING AROUND IN!!
When TP left Ohio, I thought for a moment that we wouldn't hear any more pearls of wisdom a la "everybody murders." I'm glad to see that I was mistaken.
I like how he he pawned his gold pants to pay for his moms bills and then his mom buy him that Charger Or the Nissan right before he left Ohio lol
Pryor is a douchebag. I love how people get caught lying, cheating, stealing, and they throw God into the mix and expect everybody to lift up their hands and say, "OH!! Well why didn't you say so? Now I completely understand."
If Pryor took money for memorabilia since he was a Freshman, he should have been ineligible PRIOR to the OSU penalties in his Junior year.. Leaving aside the rhetorical question as to whether any of his coaches knowlingly played an ineligible Fresh and soph, my question is this. Why has Ohio not vacated their records during his first two years? Did Pryor tell the NCAA about his payoffs as a Freshman? If not, should the NCAA now revisit the OSU case and apply the necessary penalties?
.....Wir muessen diesen koestlichen Schadenfreude durchaus geniessen!
I cannot wait for more of these "comeback" remarks from other former players later on as they get further detached and feel more free to express their jiltedness.
"God's work" indeed. Doesn't Creflo Dollar have a trademark registration on that slogan? If so, watch it Terrelle.
2 of God's most devoted disciples.
Jesus sought out and befriended liars and thiefs. So they got that going for them..........which is nice.
reminds me of a line from the movie about the crooked preacher Elmer Gantry:
Jim Lefferts: You look like a man who could use a drink.
Elmer Gantry: You know somethin', Jim? There oughta be a law against drinkin'.
Jim Lefferts: There is. Prohibition.
Elmer Gantry: That's against sellin', not drinkin'.
Jim Lefferts: Amen.
Jim Tressel is a liar and a sanctimonious hypocrite, who expanded and enhanced the corruption endemic in college sports.
We fans plunked down our money and kept the machine running. Ohio fans, in particular, denied and continue to deny what was obvious on its face.
Pryor participated in a corrupt enterprise that he didn't build. It's entirely possible that at Michigan (or Stanford or Iowa) he would have developed into someone we could respect, even admire. But the choice he made--to attend tOSU, probably for pay--foreclosed that possibility. I wish him well--that is, I hope he comes to understand what happened and does what he can to make amends. And if he did help his mother with the money, well there are worse crimes.
The people who should burn in hell are the grown-ups. Pryor's got a ways to go before he belongs in that category.
You're probably right, but Pryor is definitely on the Hell Express. (Anyone catch this reference to Eddie Murphy Raw? Now that is old school!)