OT: Guy pretends to be All American for Ohio...gets busted

Submitted by UMxWolverines on

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/man-claimed-years-ohio-…

Giovanni Strassini (at least that's what he has been going by) has pretended to be an All American TE at Ohio as well as a 3rd baseman on the baseball team from 1973-77 at Charlotte-based osu functions. My question, how did these idiots not realize this sooner?

He was finally busted starting about three days ago with a thread started on buckeyeplanet.com. Here's the thread:

http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/buckeye-football/631234-giovanni-str…

evenyoubrutus

May 20th, 2013 at 5:14 PM ^

That's about as creepy as a hundred middle aged men paying thuosands of dollars to fantasize about being college football players and run around in a jersey and pads pretending to be one for a day.

Don

May 20th, 2013 at 5:14 PM ^

and I knew immediately there was no OSU All-American TE with that name.

He should have tried it with "Bob Smith."

State Street

May 20th, 2013 at 5:21 PM ^

This is the best part of that thread.  Holy shit, this guy had a lot of time on his hands:

"Another result is to a sporcle quiz about Ohio State All Americans since 1968. Somehow, 62.9% of people doing the quiz got Mr. Strassini, but only 39.4% got Troy, and he had the second highest percentage."

 

JClay

May 21st, 2013 at 10:56 AM ^

To be fair, he clearly took the quiz himself multiple times daily and only got himself correct, thereby inflating his numbers and lowering everyone else's precentage. Joke aside, its pretty incredulous to believe <40% of OSU fans couldn't get Troy Smith and Archie Griffin.

snarling wolverine

May 20th, 2013 at 6:11 PM ^

That is hilarious.  I love that he actually would pose for pictures and sign autographs for years.  How much is a Strassini signed jersey going to be worth?

BTW, as much as they claim to hate being called "Ohio," take a look at this ring:

True Blue Grit

May 20th, 2013 at 6:22 PM ^

It's just more of the "anything is fine as long as you don't get caught" mentality among their supporters.  I was just down in Ohio on Saturday and had the unfortunate experience of going into a roadside bar/restaurant that was run by Buckeye fans.  There on the wall among a bunch of other ugly scarlet and grey crap was a big framed picture of Terrelle Pryor.  Enough said.

stephenrjking

May 20th, 2013 at 6:25 PM ^

The thread is very much worth viewing. I made it through about 10 pages. So far, it features one sharp guy uncovering records of the divorce and felony fraud convictions of someone who is probably the same guy, lots of handwringing about how dumb the Charlotte Buckeye chapter must be, and a mysterious appearance by a brand new user--"coincidently" from a Charlotte IP--named "alwaysthere" trying to quash the controversy with hilariously disastrous results.



Classic. Even for the rival team I admire a couple of the posters there.

Perkis-Size Me

May 20th, 2013 at 6:35 PM ^

I'm not about to berate this guy. Quite frankly, I think its pretty damn hilarious that he was able to keep this persona up for so long and none of the alumni could pick up on it. At the very least, how do none of them look back and remember that there was no such man who scored a TD in the Rose Bowl? If you're a real fan, that's not something you tend to forget. Some of them had to be Ohio fans back in the 70s.



I'll make fun of these idiot alums before I make fun of the impersonator. People who have no minds of their own deserve to look like idiots.





Tater

May 20th, 2013 at 7:45 PM ^

How long does anyone here think anyone could get away with a hoax like this at any Michigan function?  My guess is that BS detectors would go off immedately, followed by Googling on smartphones, and that he wouldn't even have time to finish that first free drink unless it was a shot.

Dude Lebowski

May 20th, 2013 at 7:54 PM ^

One quick trip to the NFL website would have debunked this fraud based on his claim as being the 162nd pick of the 1977 Draft.

162 New Orleans Saints Tom Schick Guard Maryland

Stupid is as stupid does and Ohio fans continually prove it..

Feat of Clay

May 21st, 2013 at 10:19 AM ^

But the thing is, the more specific and easily-disproven something like that is, the more likely it is to lull people into assuming he is legit.  I confess, I'd think "well, the dude isn't going to lie about something so easily verified" and wouldn't google it.

I like poking fun of buckeye fans as much as the next guy, but this isn't necesarily evidence of gullibility, to me.  I can't blame them for assuming no one would be so ballsy & creepy as to falsely put himself out there like this.

It reminds me of those creeps who pass themselves off as decorated veterans.  They get away with it because people don't run to check military records every time a vet stands up at an event to be applauded.  They get busted when they are unlucky enough to mention their supposed unit within earshot of an actual vet who served in it.  

Vader

May 20th, 2013 at 10:23 PM ^

Just so i don't ever have to wake up to what this guy did I can provide midichlorian counts and character references of me being a huge asshole to confirm that I am indeed Darth Vader

Daniel

May 21st, 2013 at 1:15 PM ^

They systematically followed up on every single lie. It helps that the perpetrator/new-forum-member-"alwaysthere" appears to be clinically delusional, too. Nice work, buckeyeplanet.