Brian - This is somehow very on point, though I haven't figured out how. But here's my question for you - to which I don't know the answer - and I think it is the only fair, pertinent question when examining whether Clark should have been kicked off the team right now: would a UM student merely charged with the same crimes (by saying "merely", I mean as opposed to having been convicted) have been booted out of school today?
Schlissel needs to follow up on this solid press conference - 'If UM President Schlissel Sits in Student Section at Tomorrow's Indiana Game, He Becomes a National Folk Hero' http://wp.me/p15xE1-wC
This is an excellent post, and is catharctic to read, because I've been feeling guilty at my visceral reaction to most all of these Paterno obits: they all taste like cotton candy and fried dough at the carnival -- phony, sugary, and bad for you.
I work off the premise that very few people are all bad; most are "layered." Joe certainly had faults, we know now. But I have several major problems: 1) his actions didn't show just one fault. He didn't "fail to act" just once. He failed for at least ten years. And every day, every year, was one failure to act. Ten years of daily failures to act is alot of failure.; 2) the overwhleming evidence shows it was a deliberate decision by him to hide and coverup; 3) He is just plain Full of S___ when he told Sally Jenkins that "he didn't know about rape of a boy by a man." It's just a lie, and a very amateurish one; so rinky dink that it stains every other part of his stack of excuses, which are all, in that light, just lame.
Why do I say he's FOS?: Look at when the Boston Globe pedophile priest scandal blew up: Jan 2, Jan 7, Jan 31, all of February, and March of 2002. And those stories were ALL over the national press. Newsweek had Cardinal Law on its' cover on Marc 7, 2002, with a headline about 80 victims of pedophile priests. AND, McQueary went to Joe with his bombshell eyewitness account of Sandusky in the shower with a ten year old on MARCH 2, 2002!!! And the Globe published 900 articles on priest pedophiles over hte following 13 months. That news was EVERYWHERE. There is NO WAY that Joe couldn't have understood pedophilia. (C'mon, anyways, a kid from the streets of tough Brooklyn in the '40's?)
Many, many deliberate failures and then a big cheesy lie. But one other point needs to be made, and it's one which leads to Bo Schembechler. Both Tressel and Jo Pa lied through their teeth to cover up. And both used similar pathetic excuses: I didn't know what to do; II' didn't want to screw up procedures; I was scared. All excuses, I will contend, of cowards, not leaders.
Sorry, I think if McQueary had been reporting to Bo on March 2, 2002, Bo would've blown a gasket, been out of his mind, and on the phone to the Univ President and the cops in SECONDS, with no b.s. from anyone. That's a leader who ought to have a 7-foot statue. Not Jo Pa..
This is an excellent post, and is catharctic to read, because I've been feeling guilty at my visceral reaction to most all of these Paterno obits: they all taste like cotton candy and fried dough at the carnival -- phony, sugary, and bad for you.
I work off the premise that very few people are all bad; most are "layered." Joe certainly had faults, we know now. But I have several major problems: 1) his actions didn't show just one fault. He didn't "fail to act" just once. He failed for at least ten years. And every day, every year, was one failure to act. Ten years of daily failures to act is alot of failure.; 2) the overwhleming evidence shows it was a deliberate decision by him to hide and coverup; 3) He is just plain Full of S___ when he told Sally Jenkins that "he didn't know about rape of a boy by a man." It's just a lie, and a very amateurish one; so rinky dink that it stains every other part of his stack of excuses, which are all, in that light, just lame.
Why do I say he's FOS?: Look at when the Boston Globe pedophile priest scandal blew up: Jan 2, Jan 7, Jan 31, all of February, and March of 2002. And those stories were ALL over the national press. Newsweek had Cardinal Law on its' cover on Marc 7, 2002, with a headline about 80 victims of pedophile priests. AND, McQueary went to Joe with his bombshell eyewitness account of Sandusky in the shower with a ten year old on MARCH 2, 2002!!! And the Globe published 900 articles on priest pedophiles over hte following 13 months. That news was EVERYWHERE. There is NO WAY that Joe couldn't have understood pedophilia. (C'mon, anyways, a kid from the streets of tough Brooklyn in the '40's?)
Many, many deliberate failures and then a big cheesy lie. But one other point needs to be made, and it's one which leads to Bo Schembechler. Both Tressel and Jo Pa lied through their teeth to cover up. And both used similar pathetic excuses: I didn't know what to do; II' didn't want to screw up procedures; I was scared. All excuses, I will contend, of cowards, not leaders.
Sorry, I think if McQueary had been reporting to Bo on March 2, 2002, Bo would've blown a gasket, been out of his mind, and on the phone to the Univ President and the cops in SECONDS, with no b.s. from anyone. That's a leader who ought to have a 7-foot statue. Not Jo Pa..
This post above is outstanding and accurate -- and no one else has made that kind of observation. Not just a view "from 40,000 feet", but from the moon -- and spot-on. What a wild wacky road it's been -- the only constants are oxygen, change and human stupidity
Very good stuff, though I must admit some of it seemed a little over my head, but the purity of Denard is a concept I hadn't really thought through, and it rings right. I'd be interested to see a post sometime of something you refferred to quickly here, which is the parts of the Stadium experience now that you hate yourself for hating (I think I got that right.) Also, am still unclear as to why you label the ND experience, or at least fandom, as "rational" -- I'm not saying I disagree, I just am not sure what leads you to that conclusion. All in all, great post
Myth #1 - That he "didn't understand" CARA and coach-number rules. Anyone who concludes this hasn't read the whole public record. It's IMPOSSIBLE to conclude he didn't know. (And if you read WVU charges, there is an explicit statement by a Compliance person there that RR was TOLD about coach-number problems of his there.
Myth #2: That RR told the truth to the NCAA. His interview, and his statements, are laughable excuses which didn't pass the straight face test. It needs to be described for what it is: RR LIED THROUGH HIS TEETH. All this talk about him "not being a M Man?" -- I agree with that -- and this lying is far and away the main reason for his "not being a M Man." It was embarrassing, and I also think he lost ALOT of credibilty and respect when he executed on his plan to try to lie and coverup. This was his NUMBER ONE defect.
Myth #3: That RR was a great coach. He was a one-trick pony (and what a pony he had - Denard.)
Myth #4: That RR's NCAA violations were started by him: Not entirely true. The practice-time absence of records preceded him. This is BILL MARTIN's legacy, and he never got properly blamed for that side of it.
Myth #5: That RR dragging his 12 yr old boy around with him is evidence that he's a great guy. A good bit of that display was painful, and shameless PR-manipulation by RR - you wanted to call RR up and say, PUL_EEZE will you spare your kid all this limelight? He even arranged a late Oct video down at Saline High or whatever, with RR and wife in stands, and it was posted on MGoBlue. Shameless.
Myth #6: That RR is a great and decent person. I'm guessing a little more here, but it's worth noting. UM's strength for 100 years has been the men of really superb character who have been Head Coaches, with perhaps the exception of Kipke. RR was a foul-mouth, abusive coach who engendered a whole lot of enmity from many people he dealt with. I just don't think he met that UM standard.
Myth #6: [This may be the biggest myth of all]: That anyone can make a believable estimate as to some "tiny number of minutes' by which RR's practice time exceeded NCAA regs. [Brandon emphasized this.] THERE WERE NO CONTEMPORANEOUS RECORDS. None. Zippo. This myth is created out of thin air.
Myth #7: That Rosenberg is responsible for all the NCAA fuss, & it was completely overblown. If #6 is a myth (and it IS), then the violations were likely substantial. Just between us girls, I assume almost everything Rosy reported was true, as I assume most everything SI printed last May about the MANY more players involved in OSU's tatt-gate was true: College FB Athletic Depts are masters at "killing" and burying evidence, & using their power to "encourage" participants to shut their mouth. ALOT of that went down, and everyone knew what they were supposedd to say when NCAA came to town. To contend that repeated practice-time and coach-number violations generated no "competitive disadvantage" is difficult. And it is by no means a given that that long-term double violation necessarily is outweighted, say, by cash payments to one player -- in terms of competitive advantage.
Myth #8: That there is no difference between major college FB above -- then below - the Mason Dixon line. There is a HUGE difference, and below that line it's really just professional football in so many ways. And RR could be be a good coach and successful coach somewhere down there.
Myth #9: That RR is all bad. He's not. People are "layered", as John Updike used to say, and he has a number of strengths. Despite some of his flaws above, I found him (when I could see what I thought were non-PR glimpses) to be a very interesting, bright, and sometimes likeable guy, who might be a great guy to have a beer with.
These guys are morons. If enforcing "tiny" rules consumes too much time and manpower (query how that could be, on a ten-year perspective, where the NCAA is drowning in cash, but whatever), then you don't just abandon them. Nor do you increase penalties on "big rule violations."
This is not an uncommon issue. Example: your taxes. IRS doesn't audit everyone; does "random" audits, where: 1) its your burden to have records showing compliance, and 2) If they find a violation, burdensome penalties. VERY common structure. It's Admin Law 101.
So, if NCAA wants to decrease burden, then INCREASE penalties on the TINY rule violations!!!! I.e: we're not gonna monitor you as close, we'll do random audits on the issue, but if we come in and find you don't havae records, and/or you've been doing illegal stuff, we'll HAMMER you. Morons in the NCAA
BTW, OSU (that model of propriety) did it again: just yanked off their web page a copy of their OWN March 8 "Self Report to NCCA", a day after I disclosed the false statements made there and in their July 7 NCAA Response. see brewonsouthu.wordpress.com (See also how Gee and Smith have their own, personal Rule 10.1 Bylaw ethical violations
Everyone is overlooking OSU's biggest fear here, which those of us who have been around know is what most likely happened at the Tat Parlor. First the background: Tat Parlor owner pleads guilty to money laundering and selling drugs. By pleading, he's spared a trial - AND SO IS OSU. A trial could have involved testimony by players. About what exactly was given the players IN RETURN for memorabilia. Naturally, right now, everyone has their hair combed and their shirt tucked in, and are hemming and hawing , and saying "Oh all I ever got for the Gold Pants was some cash, or maybe one or two tattoos." Does anyone else raise any eyebrow at those kinds of demure statement? Here's what went down: They were (I am guessing) getting pot (or whatever) from the Tat guy in exchange for memorabilia. And OSU is scared to death of that. And so was Tressel.
What Tressel did, when he took Cicero's (unethical, by bar standards) "tips" by email, was very cagey, very planned, very deliberate. That deliberate decision, reached in the dark of night by JT was: 1) Don't report this to OSU or NCAA -- this was a KNOWING decisioon, he didn't forget. ; 2) Email Pryor's "mentor" repeatedly, and call him, to tip him off to get Pryor and others to "behave." What exactly he said in those phone calls, we don't know. But he was working hard. and he was brazenly tipping off , indirectly, a fact witness (Terrelle Pryor) concerning a federal drug and money laundering investigation. VERY VERY dicey stuff.
And OSU's lawyers know that they very desperately need this Tat Parlor federal investigation NOT to rear its' ugly head, by discovering that there was a much broader number of OSU players who were doing ANY kind of Tat Parlor deals. Which is why all they do to investigate that issue is send out some zany written questionaire to all FB players, effectively inviting them to lie and give them back the canned answers that OSU wants (ie, Oh, NO of course I NEVER sold anything to Tat Parlor guy.)
So OSU is STILL taking a big gamble; the Tat Parlor thing could still blow up on them.
One final point: OSU's defense of JT's "character" is indefensible, unconscionable. He did what he did; character is defined by performance under stress, when no one is looking. It appears to be a posiition based on poor judgment, til one recalls: admitting that JT was corrupt for years would INVITE the NCAA to find "lack of institutional control." It's all they could say. JT led them all down a primrose path, and did a Faustian deal with the devil. See my post on this, and other OSU matters (and Mich) at brewonsouthu.wordpress.com W Wilson
Here's Gene Smith 3 weeks ago mentioning that he intends to assign private investigators to start following his FB players around. Then look at their filing here: with a straight face, they actually tell the NCAA that they have determined that "no other players" were selling memorabilia. And here's their (absurd) supporting evidence: THEY SENT OUT A QUESTIONAIRE TO ALL FB PLAYERS IN FEB '11. This is ridiculous! A written questionaire gives each player plenty of time to think VERY carefully about this spreading scandal which makes EVERY single person at OSU nervous. What that Questionnaire is guaranteed to get is almost all self-defensive, self-protective lies. It was at this junction, in Feb '11, that Gene Smith should have hired investigators, even lawyers or whoever, to go out and interview one on one each player, and also each non player who might give background. THAT's how you get to the truth of the matter. OSU didn't want to, and hasn't. Smith is a buffoon, and so is Gee -- no, I take that back, they're not buffoons, they are craven cowards who are self-interested and desperate to save their own jobs and a system at OSU which is out of control.
But the NCAA is just an old boy Inter Frat Council investigating one of its (very lucrative) members. This phony Questionaaire is just the kind of stuff that that phony member run NCAA, and million dollar a year NCAA Chair Emmert, loves. It gives them cover in propping up a system which is now fueled by a tsunami of money and no morality.
The response to just about everything the NCAA does should be that old movie line: "Hey, don't kid a kidder." And the entire system, built as it is on a monopoly in restraint of trade which has, within the last 15 years, become a major economic, social, and athletic industry in the US, where profits inure not the the benefit of the "talent', but of the administrators and the schools, the NCAA's implicit message is "if we can help it, we just don't want to know." And, as a part of this "desperate to maintain this tsunami of cash flow to schools, coaches, and athletic departments" implicit philosophy, the NCAA effectively applies a "criminal justice" standard of decision-making: "innocent til proven guilty", with the standard being "beyond a reasonable doubt." Use of this standard makes sense where a defendant is subject to being jailed; it's bizarre that it is the de facto standard in NCAA litigation. It ought be whether the preponderance of the evidence shows violation of a by law, just as that is the standard in non-criminal, civil and administrative proceedings.
But here's why OSU is sunk: because part of their investigation follows AFTER, and in parallel with, to an extent, the one done by the Feds. So the NCAA is scared to death, because the Feds can - if the NCAA does its' usual fake-out slap on wrist, Inter Frat Council investigation and punishment, the Feds work can expose their sham. Which is why OSU is so worried, and why OSU's Pres "Pee Wee" Gee and AD Smith are goners. it's because the Feds are keeping the NCAA honest.
Finally, all this parsing of auto dealers stickers/profits etc is alot of "angels on the head of a pin" stuff; you know and I know that a whole lot of funny business goes on, and that it's all in violation of NCAA (sham) regulations.
Recent Comments
Brian - This is somehow very on point, though I haven't figured out how. But here's my question for you - to which I don't know the answer - and I think it is the only fair, pertinent question when examining whether Clark should have been kicked off the team right now: would a UM student merely charged with the same crimes (by saying "merely", I mean as opposed to having been convicted) have been booted out of school today?
UM President Schlissel: New Michigan AD Should be Secy of Education Arne Duncan http://wp.me/p15xE1-wD
Schlissel needs to follow up on this solid press conference - 'If UM President Schlissel Sits in Student Section at Tomorrow's Indiana Game, He Becomes a National Folk Hero' http://wp.me/p15xE1-wC
This is an excellent post, and is catharctic to read, because I've been feeling guilty at my visceral reaction to most all of these Paterno obits: they all taste like cotton candy and fried dough at the carnival -- phony, sugary, and bad for you.
I work off the premise that very few people are all bad; most are "layered." Joe certainly had faults, we know now. But I have several major problems: 1) his actions didn't show just one fault. He didn't "fail to act" just once. He failed for at least ten years. And every day, every year, was one failure to act. Ten years of daily failures to act is alot of failure.; 2) the overwhleming evidence shows it was a deliberate decision by him to hide and coverup; 3) He is just plain Full of S___ when he told Sally Jenkins that "he didn't know about rape of a boy by a man." It's just a lie, and a very amateurish one; so rinky dink that it stains every other part of his stack of excuses, which are all, in that light, just lame.
Why do I say he's FOS?: Look at when the Boston Globe pedophile priest scandal blew up: Jan 2, Jan 7, Jan 31, all of February, and March of 2002. And those stories were ALL over the national press. Newsweek had Cardinal Law on its' cover on Marc 7, 2002, with a headline about 80 victims of pedophile priests. AND, McQueary went to Joe with his bombshell eyewitness account of Sandusky in the shower with a ten year old on MARCH 2, 2002!!! And the Globe published 900 articles on priest pedophiles over hte following 13 months. That news was EVERYWHERE. There is NO WAY that Joe couldn't have understood pedophilia. (C'mon, anyways, a kid from the streets of tough Brooklyn in the '40's?)
Many, many deliberate failures and then a big cheesy lie. But one other point needs to be made, and it's one which leads to Bo Schembechler. Both Tressel and Jo Pa lied through their teeth to cover up. And both used similar pathetic excuses: I didn't know what to do; II' didn't want to screw up procedures; I was scared. All excuses, I will contend, of cowards, not leaders.
Sorry, I think if McQueary had been reporting to Bo on March 2, 2002, Bo would've blown a gasket, been out of his mind, and on the phone to the Univ President and the cops in SECONDS, with no b.s. from anyone. That's a leader who ought to have a 7-foot statue. Not Jo Pa..
This is an excellent post, and is catharctic to read, because I've been feeling guilty at my visceral reaction to most all of these Paterno obits: they all taste like cotton candy and fried dough at the carnival -- phony, sugary, and bad for you.
I work off the premise that very few people are all bad; most are "layered." Joe certainly had faults, we know now. But I have several major problems: 1) his actions didn't show just one fault. He didn't "fail to act" just once. He failed for at least ten years. And every day, every year, was one failure to act. Ten years of daily failures to act is alot of failure.; 2) the overwhleming evidence shows it was a deliberate decision by him to hide and coverup; 3) He is just plain Full of S___ when he told Sally Jenkins that "he didn't know about rape of a boy by a man." It's just a lie, and a very amateurish one; so rinky dink that it stains every other part of his stack of excuses, which are all, in that light, just lame.
Why do I say he's FOS?: Look at when the Boston Globe pedophile priest scandal blew up: Jan 2, Jan 7, Jan 31, all of February, and March of 2002. And those stories were ALL over the national press. Newsweek had Cardinal Law on its' cover on Marc 7, 2002, with a headline about 80 victims of pedophile priests. AND, McQueary went to Joe with his bombshell eyewitness account of Sandusky in the shower with a ten year old on MARCH 2, 2002!!! And the Globe published 900 articles on priest pedophiles over hte following 13 months. That news was EVERYWHERE. There is NO WAY that Joe couldn't have understood pedophilia. (C'mon, anyways, a kid from the streets of tough Brooklyn in the '40's?)
Many, many deliberate failures and then a big cheesy lie. But one other point needs to be made, and it's one which leads to Bo Schembechler. Both Tressel and Jo Pa lied through their teeth to cover up. And both used similar pathetic excuses: I didn't know what to do; II' didn't want to screw up procedures; I was scared. All excuses, I will contend, of cowards, not leaders.
Sorry, I think if McQueary had been reporting to Bo on March 2, 2002, Bo would've blown a gasket, been out of his mind, and on the phone to the Univ President and the cops in SECONDS, with no b.s. from anyone. That's a leader who ought to have a 7-foot statue. Not Jo Pa..
This post above is outstanding and accurate -- and no one else has made that kind of observation. Not just a view "from 40,000 feet", but from the moon -- and spot-on. What a wild wacky road it's been -- the only constants are oxygen, change and human stupidity
Very good stuff, though I must admit some of it seemed a little over my head, but the purity of Denard is a concept I hadn't really thought through, and it rings right. I'd be interested to see a post sometime of something you refferred to quickly here, which is the parts of the Stadium experience now that you hate yourself for hating (I think I got that right.) Also, am still unclear as to why you label the ND experience, or at least fandom, as "rational" -- I'm not saying I disagree, I just am not sure what leads you to that conclusion. All in all, great post
Myth #1 - That he "didn't understand" CARA and coach-number rules. Anyone who concludes this hasn't read the whole public record. It's IMPOSSIBLE to conclude he didn't know. (And if you read WVU charges, there is an explicit statement by a Compliance person there that RR was TOLD about coach-number problems of his there.
Myth #2: That RR told the truth to the NCAA. His interview, and his statements, are laughable excuses which didn't pass the straight face test. It needs to be described for what it is: RR LIED THROUGH HIS TEETH. All this talk about him "not being a M Man?" -- I agree with that -- and this lying is far and away the main reason for his "not being a M Man." It was embarrassing, and I also think he lost ALOT of credibilty and respect when he executed on his plan to try to lie and coverup. This was his NUMBER ONE defect.
Myth #3: That RR was a great coach. He was a one-trick pony (and what a pony he had - Denard.)
Myth #4: That RR's NCAA violations were started by him: Not entirely true. The practice-time absence of records preceded him. This is BILL MARTIN's legacy, and he never got properly blamed for that side of it.
Myth #5: That RR dragging his 12 yr old boy around with him is evidence that he's a great guy. A good bit of that display was painful, and shameless PR-manipulation by RR - you wanted to call RR up and say, PUL_EEZE will you spare your kid all this limelight? He even arranged a late Oct video down at Saline High or whatever, with RR and wife in stands, and it was posted on MGoBlue. Shameless.
Myth #6: That RR is a great and decent person. I'm guessing a little more here, but it's worth noting. UM's strength for 100 years has been the men of really superb character who have been Head Coaches, with perhaps the exception of Kipke. RR was a foul-mouth, abusive coach who engendered a whole lot of enmity from many people he dealt with. I just don't think he met that UM standard.
Myth #6: [This may be the biggest myth of all]: That anyone can make a believable estimate as to some "tiny number of minutes' by which RR's practice time exceeded NCAA regs. [Brandon emphasized this.] THERE WERE NO CONTEMPORANEOUS RECORDS. None. Zippo. This myth is created out of thin air.
Myth #7: That Rosenberg is responsible for all the NCAA fuss, & it was completely overblown. If #6 is a myth (and it IS), then the violations were likely substantial. Just between us girls, I assume almost everything Rosy reported was true, as I assume most everything SI printed last May about the MANY more players involved in OSU's tatt-gate was true: College FB Athletic Depts are masters at "killing" and burying evidence, & using their power to "encourage" participants to shut their mouth. ALOT of that went down, and everyone knew what they were supposedd to say when NCAA came to town. To contend that repeated practice-time and coach-number violations generated no "competitive disadvantage" is difficult. And it is by no means a given that that long-term double violation necessarily is outweighted, say, by cash payments to one player -- in terms of competitive advantage.
Myth #8: That there is no difference between major college FB above -- then below - the Mason Dixon line. There is a HUGE difference, and below that line it's really just professional football in so many ways. And RR could be be a good coach and successful coach somewhere down there.
Myth #9: That RR is all bad. He's not. People are "layered", as John Updike used to say, and he has a number of strengths. Despite some of his flaws above, I found him (when I could see what I thought were non-PR glimpses) to be a very interesting, bright, and sometimes likeable guy, who might be a great guy to have a beer with.
These guys are morons. If enforcing "tiny" rules consumes too much time and manpower (query how that could be, on a ten-year perspective, where the NCAA is drowning in cash, but whatever), then you don't just abandon them. Nor do you increase penalties on "big rule violations."
This is not an uncommon issue. Example: your taxes. IRS doesn't audit everyone; does "random" audits, where: 1) its your burden to have records showing compliance, and 2) If they find a violation, burdensome penalties. VERY common structure. It's Admin Law 101.
So, if NCAA wants to decrease burden, then INCREASE penalties on the TINY rule violations!!!! I.e: we're not gonna monitor you as close, we'll do random audits on the issue, but if we come in and find you don't havae records, and/or you've been doing illegal stuff, we'll HAMMER you. Morons in the NCAA
BTW, OSU (that model of propriety) did it again: just yanked off their web page a copy of their OWN March 8 "Self Report to NCCA", a day after I disclosed the false statements made there and in their July 7 NCAA Response. see brewonsouthu.wordpress.com (See also how Gee and Smith have their own, personal Rule 10.1 Bylaw ethical violations
Everyone is overlooking OSU's biggest fear here, which those of us who have been around know is what most likely happened at the Tat Parlor. First the background: Tat Parlor owner pleads guilty to money laundering and selling drugs. By pleading, he's spared a trial - AND SO IS OSU. A trial could have involved testimony by players. About what exactly was given the players IN RETURN for memorabilia. Naturally, right now, everyone has their hair combed and their shirt tucked in, and are hemming and hawing , and saying "Oh all I ever got for the Gold Pants was some cash, or maybe one or two tattoos." Does anyone else raise any eyebrow at those kinds of demure statement? Here's what went down: They were (I am guessing) getting pot (or whatever) from the Tat guy in exchange for memorabilia. And OSU is scared to death of that. And so was Tressel.
What Tressel did, when he took Cicero's (unethical, by bar standards) "tips" by email, was very cagey, very planned, very deliberate. That deliberate decision, reached in the dark of night by JT was: 1) Don't report this to OSU or NCAA -- this was a KNOWING decisioon, he didn't forget. ; 2) Email Pryor's "mentor" repeatedly, and call him, to tip him off to get Pryor and others to "behave." What exactly he said in those phone calls, we don't know. But he was working hard. and he was brazenly tipping off , indirectly, a fact witness (Terrelle Pryor) concerning a federal drug and money laundering investigation. VERY VERY dicey stuff.
And OSU's lawyers know that they very desperately need this Tat Parlor federal investigation NOT to rear its' ugly head, by discovering that there was a much broader number of OSU players who were doing ANY kind of Tat Parlor deals. Which is why all they do to investigate that issue is send out some zany written questionaire to all FB players, effectively inviting them to lie and give them back the canned answers that OSU wants (ie, Oh, NO of course I NEVER sold anything to Tat Parlor guy.)
So OSU is STILL taking a big gamble; the Tat Parlor thing could still blow up on them.
One final point: OSU's defense of JT's "character" is indefensible, unconscionable. He did what he did; character is defined by performance under stress, when no one is looking. It appears to be a posiition based on poor judgment, til one recalls: admitting that JT was corrupt for years would INVITE the NCAA to find "lack of institutional control." It's all they could say. JT led them all down a primrose path, and did a Faustian deal with the devil. See my post on this, and other OSU matters (and Mich) at brewonsouthu.wordpress.com W Wilson
Here's Gene Smith 3 weeks ago mentioning that he intends to assign private investigators to start following his FB players around. Then look at their filing here: with a straight face, they actually tell the NCAA that they have determined that "no other players" were selling memorabilia. And here's their (absurd) supporting evidence: THEY SENT OUT A QUESTIONAIRE TO ALL FB PLAYERS IN FEB '11. This is ridiculous! A written questionaire gives each player plenty of time to think VERY carefully about this spreading scandal which makes EVERY single person at OSU nervous. What that Questionnaire is guaranteed to get is almost all self-defensive, self-protective lies. It was at this junction, in Feb '11, that Gene Smith should have hired investigators, even lawyers or whoever, to go out and interview one on one each player, and also each non player who might give background. THAT's how you get to the truth of the matter. OSU didn't want to, and hasn't. Smith is a buffoon, and so is Gee -- no, I take that back, they're not buffoons, they are craven cowards who are self-interested and desperate to save their own jobs and a system at OSU which is out of control.
But the NCAA is just an old boy Inter Frat Council investigating one of its (very lucrative) members. This phony Questionaaire is just the kind of stuff that that phony member run NCAA, and million dollar a year NCAA Chair Emmert, loves. It gives them cover in propping up a system which is now fueled by a tsunami of money and no morality.
Also, see my comments on this and other NCAA shams at brewonsouthu.wordpress.com.
The response to just about everything the NCAA does should be that old movie line: "Hey, don't kid a kidder." And the entire system, built as it is on a monopoly in restraint of trade which has, within the last 15 years, become a major economic, social, and athletic industry in the US, where profits inure not the the benefit of the "talent', but of the administrators and the schools, the NCAA's implicit message is "if we can help it, we just don't want to know." And, as a part of this "desperate to maintain this tsunami of cash flow to schools, coaches, and athletic departments" implicit philosophy, the NCAA effectively applies a "criminal justice" standard of decision-making: "innocent til proven guilty", with the standard being "beyond a reasonable doubt." Use of this standard makes sense where a defendant is subject to being jailed; it's bizarre that it is the de facto standard in NCAA litigation. It ought be whether the preponderance of the evidence shows violation of a by law, just as that is the standard in non-criminal, civil and administrative proceedings.
But here's why OSU is sunk: because part of their investigation follows AFTER, and in parallel with, to an extent, the one done by the Feds. So the NCAA is scared to death, because the Feds can - if the NCAA does its' usual fake-out slap on wrist, Inter Frat Council investigation and punishment, the Feds work can expose their sham. Which is why OSU is so worried, and why OSU's Pres "Pee Wee" Gee and AD Smith are goners. it's because the Feds are keeping the NCAA honest.
Finally, all this parsing of auto dealers stickers/profits etc is alot of "angels on the head of a pin" stuff; you know and I know that a whole lot of funny business goes on, and that it's all in violation of NCAA (sham) regulations.