Tressel knew of violations 8 months pryor?
Per Yahoo! Sports
Ohio State coach Jim Tressel was informed that several Buckeyes players were selling memorabilia more than eight months before the school claims it was made aware of the scheme, a two-month Yahoo! Sports investigation has found.
Tressel received information that players were selling items to Edward Rife – the owner of Fine Line Ink Tattoos in Columbus – as early as April 2010, according to a source. However, neither Ohio State nor the NCAA investigated the transactions or the players’ relationship with Rife until December 2010, when the school claims it was informed of the situation by the local United States Attorney’s office.
THAT is rich. A guy in the athletic department gives a kid some money and use of a car and that's Tressel's fault. Great support for your nonsensical stance that Tressel is a "bad" guy.
Thanks! I needed a good laugh!
"A guy in the Athletic Department" was the chairperson of the University's Board of Trustees.
"Some money" was $10,000 (and this was at a Div 1-AA school).
"Youngstown State failed to provide appropriate institutional control in its football program by not thoroughly investigating possible violations of NCAA legislation after receiving information concerning possible violations in January 1994. " So, in other words, Tressell heard about it but didn't investigate. Sound familiar?
This came out years after the fact in a criminal trial. Do you think this was an isolated incident?
You might want to revisit your stance in this thread now that your homey isn't quite as squeaky clean as you thought he was.
You keep saying this "don't believe writers who won't name sources," and so I'll do my part: Bob Woodward. Carl Bernstein. Watergate. Richard Nixon. "All the President's Men." The leader of the free world.
All based on an annonymous source. Deep Throat.
Please, please stop using this "omg anonymous source!" trope. It's asinine. There may be many reasons not to believe this article, but harping on the "annonymous source" thing is really a red herring.
Hell yes I believe it.
Back when the OSU "golden pants" story broke, I wrote about half of a diary entry explaining my conspiracy theory about this incident. Something called Hoke distracted me and I lost focus.
Let me dredge up a couple tidbits from news reports around that time:
1. There was no relevant rules education on selling memorabilia from AT LEAST when Pryor enrolled in Fall of 2007 until November 2009. 2009 also happens to be the year that the first memorabilia violations occurred. In other words, the specific rules in question were not explained to the players until around the time the violations happened.
CONSPIRACY THEORY SAYS: OSU found out about the violations and then educated the players on the rules, but failed to self-report.
2. OSU received an anonymous letter in July 2010 that players were selling memorabilia for value. They apparently investigated the incident but did not self-report violations. The implilcation is that OSU is claiming no violations occurred.
CONSPIRACY THEORY SAYS: OSU swept it under the rug.
This new investigative report (another great story from Yahoo Sports, which is one of the better sources of investigative sports journalism) is perfectly in line with my paranoid delusions. I'm all in for Yahoo Sports.
And if you add it all up, it seems even worse. If you're a coach who received independent tips in April and July of 2010 that the same obscure NCAA rule was being broken, and you failed to report violations that were indeed happening under your watch, then you can't help but infer improper motives by Tressel.
and i would bet there is probably more.
if it were just one player, i could see it going unnoticed. but when there are several players involved over the course of an extended period of time, how the hell do the coaches not get wind of it unless they are sticking their heads in the sand.
to me, that by definition, is not providing an adequate atmosphere of compliance.
and then there are the multiple pryor car infractions...
I'll take the bait.
1. Terrelle enrolled in 2008, not 2007. OSU does a series of classes on NCAA compliance; they don't go over everything at orientation, probably because no one would be able ot stay awake for the whole thing. The classes start with the most obvious/common infractions, then cover other issues. OSU probably didn't warn freshmen about selling Gold Pants because who the Hell would ever expect players to sell Gold Pants and Big Ten Championship rings? At the end of each class, players are given "amnesty" and asked if they had violated any of the rules. TP et al lied when asked. What is the university supposed to do? Waterboard them?
2. OSU did receive a letter. It did not refer to the tattoo parlor. It referred to a car dealership, and OSU investigated. The investigation determined that there was no violation in regards to the car dealership.
With regards to Yahoo, they are basing this on a single anonymous source and no documentation or independent verification. They claim to have a two month investigation that produced...one anonymous source. Not really that impressive. Remember when Tress was going to retire after the Sugar Bowl?
basing all this off of one anonymous source. Weak sauce.
<br>Caveat:too tired to actually read the story.
When their one source likely is the guy who went and warned Tressel about what was going on... I'd say that's a good single source
Obviously you are correct on the date of enrollment. Mea culpa.
Also, to your point, I seem to remember something about the memorabilia rule being new, or at least a new application of an older rule, or something to that effect... meaning that it may have been perfectly understandable that players thought the gear was "theirs" to sell and the rules education on that specific violation hadn't been updated.
Listen, conspiracy theories aren't perfect, okay! They have their holes. But they also have their allure...
I still can't get my head around the car dealership thing. Didn't those dealerships have signed memorabilia hanging in their showrooms ? Even if there was an investigation, I imagine it went something like this:
Tressel: Terelle, you didn't sell your gold pants to drive cars all over town, did you? I mean, that would be really bad if you did.
Pryor: No.
Tressel: Okay, case closed. No violation. Now let's get down to business. Somebody pull the tape from Michigan's latest practice.
Or something like that. In reality, it's more likely that a coach with his season on the line did JUST enough to check the boxes and fulfill his duty of investigating the incidents.
The conspiracy theory, though, is so much sexier. I really want to believe that Tressel's "straight-laced" persona is just that: a public image. That it's just a schtick. That he's just like every other coach out there scratching and clawing to get a ring, sweatervest or not.
Sorry to hijack your theory, but someone had to post this once conspiracy theories started getting discussed.
makes a good point as well when he mentions that these guys at yahoo sports have a pretty impeccable track record when it comes to sources.
went out of his way to indicate his doubts about the media witchhunt being unleashed on Rich Rodriguez.
I am going to give Jim Tressel the benefit of the doubt, and as of right now there is a hell of a lot of doubt.
i'm sure
but even at the time, I realized that Tressel had far too many potential selfish motives for supporting Rodriguez to be convinced he was genuine.
are some tattoo's of his own. He atleast has a tramp stamp.
i hate the bucks, but mich doesnt exactly have the cleanest record with the fab five and under rich fruad...but i can now point out the hypocracy when they try to talk smack about violations and cheating muhahahahah. go blue!!
One of my favorite things ever is Cadbury Creme Eggs. Those lucky j-holes overseas get those things ALL YEAR LONG and sometimes in vending machines.
<br>Taste like love.
Uh, right:
There is NO WAY Tressel would EVER ignore proof that his starting QB is selling memorabilia, even when he knows he has no decent backup.
There is NO WAY that Tressel would look the other way while TP gets membership into the double-secret Escalade of the Month Club.
There is NO WAY Tressel would allow "tutors" to do Maruice Clarett's classwork for him to keep him eligible.
There is NO WAY Tressel would allow "escorts" to keep his players (such as the aforementioned Clarett) "out of trouble."
There is NO WAY Tressel knew anything about the violations that happened while he was at Youngstown State.
There is NO WAY Tressel would ever allow alums or "hostesses" to influence recruits.
Just like there is NO WAY that Earle Bruce was seen numerous times at the racetrack with Art Schlichter.
Jim Tressel: cleanest coach in college football.
OSU: cleanest program in college football.
This message was sponsored by the OSU sycophant foundation.
I don't believe it. He wears a sweater vest and looks like a nice stereotypical anglo American...no way he would do anything unethical.
Lying and cheating are reserved for the likes of the guys named Rodriguez.
Just like the Clarrett allegations were overblown (he ended up in jail simply by his own doing), and the Troy Smith stuff, and now the T. Pryor and co. stuff, etc, etc, etc...this does not at all indicate a trend. The vest just looks so honest...he must be pious.
Whereas that dirty Dick Rod must have cheated...I mean they practiced too much and his last name is Mexican.
OSU and Tressel is found guilty of failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance. Pryor and his cohorts are declared ineligible for the 2010 season and OSU vacates all victories. MSU now wins Big 10 Rose Bowl tiebreaker over Wisconsin (we know this because of all the billboards...*sigh*....always with the billboards, Sparty) and NCAA dictates the game be replayed with TCU squaring off against MSU. TCU destroys Sparty by 30 points. A humiliated Dantonio goes on a post game rant declaring the sanctions against OSU "bullshit" and accuses Michigan of framing Tressel, egging Tom Izzo's house, and assassinating Kennedy.
the Yahoo Sports reporter in question is an MSU grad with a journalism degree.
For the record I do not want OSU getting the hammer due to the hit it would take on the rivalry. Off the top of my head.
S. Holmes Tweet that he took down about not paying for his tattoos at tOSU.
A.J. Hawk had some smoke around him about cash at OSU
A. Katzenmoyer eligibility
T. Smith spaghetti dinners
Add Tater's list w/ Clarett and Tressel past at YSU and the list goes on and on.There's plenty more I could dig up but you/we get the point.
This is the culture of the tOSU, business as usual, If they get taken down for this I would be shocked due to the fact that doesn't OSU have the largest compliance department in college athletics? Doesn't OSU report the most secondary violations in the country? I tease my OSU friends that they have a secret office in Cbus where there are compliance people who wait by the phone for Buckeyes in need and they send out they OSU "Mystery Machine" to clean up the messes before it gets out of hand. Again this is how "they" do business in Ohio and I do not want them getting taken for the same reason BLAZEFIRE said (post#105ish).
Smoke has been billowing out of the OSU football program for a long, long time. It's just a matter of time before there's at least a slap on the wrist to come out of it.
Approaching a full day since this news broke, yet no repsonse from Tressel or the OSU AD. I know if I were wrongly accused of something, I would have an immediate response.
Maybe the vest will do his best rafael palmeiro impersonation for this one.
We didn't have an immediate response; at least nothing other than a perfunctory "We at Michigan comply with the rules." Because the Free Press never gave us enough time. They dropped their bomb on Bruce Madej on a Friday afternoon, and told Bruce that they'd like a response, but would be going to press that weekend. And, it was one week before the start of the 2009 season. Thanks, Mike Rosenberg. Thanks, Mark Snyder. Have a nice weekend and Go Blue, eh?