Update: suspended OSU players took cold hard cash

Submitted by MGoRob on

So here I am beating a dead horse.  But why not, it's late.

According to this ESPN article, the OSU Ohio players suspended for the first game were banished for taking cash at a charity event.  Previously, especially those cooler poopers at Eleven Warriors defended these players by assuming they took a gift basket or the like.  Well, in fact, it wasn't.  It was cold hard cash.  And the worst part, they don't seem to come to a concensus why they were given this cash.

The records released Thursday night indicate the athletes gave varying accounts for why they received the money and who they received it from.

Two of the athletes said they believed the money was for working at the event while a third said he believed he was receiving money from a teammate. They were invited to attend the charity event by a former Buckeyes player.

The article further goes on to say that this wasn't an Ohio sponsored event, yet in previous year it had.

All three believed that Ohio State had approved attending the event, even though it had not. Ohio State had permitted athletes to attend the event in 2007 and 2010, however, Ohio State's NCAA compliance department requires that athletes ask for and receive written permission to attend promotional or charitable events.

I'm sorry.  Your coach was fired resigned.  Your program is under intense scrutiny.  And your players are STILL accepting money at sponsored non-sponsored events.

Tater

September 9th, 2011 at 1:11 AM ^

Failure to monitor is out of the question until the Mark Emmert/Gordon Gee conflict of interest situation is resolved.

They are getting away with whatever the fuck they want to do in Columbus.  Their motto should be as follows:

"The Ohio State University, where we cheat with utter inpunity because we have utter inpunity." 

Fuck Ohio.  And fuck Mark Emmert.

Bill in Birmingham

September 9th, 2011 at 7:29 AM ^

This seems to me to be the definitive issue in the whole process. For years, I have laughed at my SEC friends who say the NCAA was biased. "Don't cheat and you won't get probation." I was naive. If Alabama or USC had admitted to what OSU had admitted, they would be neg bombed to Bolivia scholarship-wise. The only logical reason for this is Emmert's relationship with his beloved bow-tied hypocrtical mentor. It is sleazy. When it makes me think Paul Finebaum is making sense, something is seriously wrong.

Bobby Boucher

September 8th, 2011 at 11:29 PM ^

Since when do people get paid for charity work?  And why aren't these guys being coached by Ohio's reserve of tricky NCAA lawyers before they do and say stupid things to the media?????

BRCE

September 8th, 2011 at 11:56 PM ^

These OSU threads are so embarrassing, and not just because people are trying to rip off Hoke's "Ohio." Making it sound oh so malevolent with dark terminology like "cold hard cash." Calls to "kill the program."

This crap is every bit as biased as threads about UM are in MSU and OSU forums. Maybe even more so.

Seriously, some kids got a few hundred bucks, it was discovered, they got a little suspension. You being butthurt by all the losses in the last seven years does not make it reasonable to frame this as an Enron-like scandal.

sULLY

September 9th, 2011 at 12:04 AM ^

I believe the point he is making is that it is amazing the NCAA maintains that there is no failure to monitor or lack of institutional control with all that has happened, meanwhile players are still taking cash at events in the midst of an NCAA investigation. 

 

 

STW P. Brabbs

September 9th, 2011 at 8:12 AM ^

You were one of the guys who used to go into this same schtick when people said Tressel was dirty, right?  Like, "you guys are just saying Tressel cheats because you're butthurt that he's been beating you."

You're so rational and level-headed it just gives me a big fat boner. I don't know how you even read the posts these hysterical plebes throw up here.

BigRedWolverine

September 9th, 2011 at 12:01 AM ^

It is OHIO STATE. Not Ohio.  Hoke does it as an act to please big blue (not a shot I love the Hokester). But fans do it becasue theyre mindless lemmings. please stop.

Feat of Clay

September 9th, 2011 at 12:38 AM ^

I hate that stinking dirty school with all my heart, but this is hardly a blip for me given the other stuff that went on down there.  It feels a whole lot less dirty to me if players took modest compensation for appearing at a charity event over an hour away from campus, particularly one that they (or other players) had been given formal permission to attend in prior years.

Yes, it's a violation; obviously they shouldn't have gone without permission, and they shouldn't have accepted the money.  Not excusing it.   But it seems far less sleazy than boosting athletic gear from the locker room and swaggering on over to a drug dealer's tattoo parlor trade it for cash or free ink.

If NCAA throws the book at them, I presume it will be for the ugly stuff, not this.

Hannibal.

September 9th, 2011 at 8:28 AM ^

This is potentially some really sleazy stuff right here.  Funneling cash to players with false fronts is a way for boosters to keep them paid, and you better believe that high school recruits know where they can go to get paid.  You're not allowed to make money off of your status as a college football player.  You can't go to a "charity" event and accept an envelope filled with cash.  Everyone knows this, which is why Columbus is the only Big Ten school that is constantly getting busted..

R.I.P. Bo

September 9th, 2011 at 2:24 AM ^

Crazy stuff. Each has a different story as to where the money came from as well as why they were paid. If someone handed me an envelope containing $200 I would at least ask where it came from. This leads me to believe that this happens all the time down there. No big deal. 

LSAClassOf2000

September 9th, 2011 at 6:01 AM ^

You would first need to have a compliance department and staff  to monitor these things. It seems more and more as if Columbus Community College has made a terrible omission in  the administrative structure of its athletic department. 

74polSKA

September 9th, 2011 at 7:43 AM ^

I can't wait to hear the excuses on local radio now that the details are out.  Last week it was - these guys are out trying to help the community, why can't the NCAA just leave them alone.  Now these guys probably needed the money to send to their poor families that can't afford rent. 

I hold on to hope that one of these programs that is under NCAA investigation gets hammered, not because I have some inner hatred for the schools, but because there needs to be some harsher deterrent to keep these violations from happening in the first place.  It would be nice to get back to focusing on the games on the field instead of the games in NCAA hearings.

74polSKA

September 9th, 2011 at 9:45 AM ^

I lied a little in my earlier post.  I do want the hammer dropped on tosu because I can't stand that fanbase.  I hope that one of the "redacted" names in the report is Ted Sarniak.  One of the three players, Jordan Hall, was a high school teammate of TP.  I would love if ESPN or Yahoo!Sports could tie Sarniak to Hall in some way.  I've pretty much given up on the NCAA doing anything severe unless they are forced by the media.

ohio

September 9th, 2011 at 9:19 AM ^

Failure to monitor may not be relevant since the players can't have their hands held everywhere they go, but a one game suspension for players on a team immersed in a scandal of this magnitude is hardly just punishment.

On 2nd thought. If Luke Fickell thinks it is sufficient punishment, then he is bound to repeat the mistakes of his mentor and the show will go on...

How bout them Cowboys'???

MGoPietrowski

September 9th, 2011 at 10:05 AM ^

It will forever blow my mind just how quickly the NCAA acted and was able to punish UM for practicing a little too much. But in the U, OSU and USC cases, when vital information came out, it seemed like they were scrambling. I know there is due process for these kinds of actions/reactions. But dammit if it doesn't seem like the NCAA tries to hold off on these major cases in order to get them out of the spotlight, almost like they are trying to run out the clock.

74polSKA

September 9th, 2011 at 10:13 AM ^

Or it could be that Michigan was JUST practicing too much, cut and dry.  Seems like in these other cases, the NCAA starts looking into one violation and finds another, then another.  By the time it's over they think "Damn, we'd better try to cover this up or we'll have to nail one of our big money makers".  Commence 2 month gaps between hearings, stalling and media shenanigans.