Eleven Warriors piece on Tressel
http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2011/05/the-man-who-wasnt-there#more
It paints a picture of Tressel being a very sympathetic figure. Here's my problem with it though. All the good things you do, don't change the rules you decided knowingly to ignore. If Jim Tressel is a truly good person (and I don't suspect that he's an "evil" person) then he can continue these types of things without actually being the head coach. The two things aren't exclusive to each other.
To me this whole fiasco has revealed Tressel to be the worst kind of public figure that we produce with alarming regularity in America. He's a God and Country loving, values-espousing good guy who lets those exterior facets hide his pure, cold ruthlessness. He is hardwired into both of America's shiny, moral certitude and its metallic capitalist urge to compete and dominate.
Honestly, someone should make a movie about the guy.
NARCISSIST
That 11W finally put all of the Buckeye wailing and gnashing of teeth over the top - way over the top. If I hear or read one more Tressel apologist try to excuse what the coach did in the name of sick kids, or troops over seas, or washing up before dinner, or helping old ladies across the street, I just may flip my sh-t.
The irony of ironies is that writer after writer has been quoting Tressel's line, "Discipline is what you do when no one is looking." Actually, Jimbo, (can I call you Jimbo?) the line is from Hugh B. Brown, and it goes, "Character is what you do when no one is looking." Yours - at long last - has been exposed for what it is: conflicted, at best.
Let's take the extreme example (hypothetical) and say Tressel pays (from his own pocket) his starters $1000 each month. Now, he is a good guy in the sense that he is helping out others (legally) and yet he knowingly violates the rules to gain a competitive advantage and profit from that advantage. Do these OSU posters think that would be OK?
Because it's not that far removed from what was actually happening.
I understand that this "looking away" from improper benefits for players likely goes on at a number of places but that does not mean it's OK.
And all I been hearing is that this was his only mistake and he shouldn't pay the price for this mistake. They are throwing the SI aritcle out as fiction and painting Braxton Miller as their messiah and Pryor as judas. The lunacy and denial down here is sicking...
and is disingenious. He attempts to distract the reader from the facts of Tressel's violations by telling you what an amazing human being he is. This is some street magician like sleight of hand he is trying to pull off on the reader. He cheated and Tressel knows the rules of the game, if anyone in your organization runs afoul of the rules it's your ass, as you are the boss and responsible for the program at the end of the day.
In closing, Ramzy makes it seem like no other coaches or players take visits to the hospitals/children's wards in their communities. This is a complete falsehood, as it is actually standard operating procedure for the position and I dare Ramzy to find even one head coach (along with their players) who doesn't make these type of good will visits.
I agree- I actually like 11W and think it is a well-done blog, but Ramzy is such a Tressel-Apologist it is nauseating. He wrote a whole piece trying rashionalize the car scandal by saying it "isn't cost-effective" for auto dealers to give good deals to players, so therefore it must not be happening in Columbus... as if it has never happened anywhere else.
And here he pulls a similar move by making it seem as though the idea of players visiting hospitals is proof that their coach is one of the most tremendous human beings who ever lived. Fine, he made his players visit hospitals, just like every coach in America. In fact, I seem to remember seeing footage of Alabama players visiting sick kids in a hospital. So I guess that means Saban is a wonderful human being too.
is really kind of pathetic. Sick children are heart-wrenching, Troy Smith should be commended for visiting them and bringing light to their otherwise dark world. But it has nothing to do with Jim Tressel and the charges against him. Of course nobody can say anything bad about atheles using their time for such causes, but this peice attaches such endeavors directly with the integrity of a coach when the two things have nothing to do with each other. I don't know the person that wrote the piece and rarely happen upon eleven warriors, but that thread is really kind of exploitive. Come on man, your talking about toddlers with terminal blood disorders and your somehow attaching it to a football coach resigning under investigation. The two have nothing to do with one another, period. I don't care if Troy Smith went to that hospital specifically at Jim Tressel's direction, it simply does not matter.
I bet you not even Jim Tressel would show the lack of integrity shown in that piece.
to what Paul Daugherty of the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110530/COL03/305300087/Doc-Tressel-sold-image-he-wasn-t
Smart man this Mr. Daugherty.
...his shot at last season's BCS title.
He knew he had a top 5 team returning. This had nothing to do with looking out for his players, it was just what it appears to be: Win at all costs. It's the same approach Tressel always has taken. He made a career of cheating because he knows fans will focus on the record and ignore the fact that he was, no matter how they spin it, fielding a team that was no longer comprised of amateur athletes.
It was all about getting the players, and recruiting gets a lot easier when you offer them cars, housing deals, and the common knowledge that the coaches will look the other way as you flaunt your celebrity lifestyle and smoke some weed at a local tatto parlor hangout where they cater to your every need.
For Musburger and Company to be accurate, they just need a slight revision: "Tressel was protecting his BEST players." Guys on the scout team would not have gotten the same treatment.
This Eleven Warriors article trying to shift the narrative to a children's hospital is beyond pathetic and transparently desperate. Too many college teams to list make those visits.
Tressel did not resign because of the pending SI article. He got out as an attempt to stop people from digging for more, because there is more to be found. Nailing him on tattoo-gate is like getting Al Capone on tax evasion. You do what you need to do to nail the corrupt, even though we all know there's more there. The Department of Justice trips up six players in an unrelated investigation and so that's all the school admitted to. But in a short time on campus, Sports Illustrated easily finds scores more involved. Do we really think that's it? Magazines don't even have subpoena power.
Tressel knows that if they keep looking, they'll keep finding. And he knows of other stuff that's a lot worse, so he got out now hoping to end the need for more investigations. This is hardly a new play by a guy who is seeing it all unravel.
It really is a different mindset down there. How can the Bucknuts not be pissed at a guy who is going to leave the program that they profess to love in shambles? I never got a strong beat on USC fans reactions to their NCAA troubles but don't they pretty much universally despise Carroll? How can delusion run so much deeper in Columbus than any other sports mad locale?
The next stage is anger, which should come to full-fruition around the time that the NCAA sets the parameters of their nuclear winter.
"Toxic, lost causes like Ray Small, whom Tressel repeatedly tried for years to wake up and change for the better even though he contributed virtually nothing to Ohio State's gaudy win total during his four years in Columbus.
Small, a championship simpleton, still does not seem to realize that Tressel was out to help him for all of those years. If Small hadn't been sleeping at study tables of flunking out of survey courses at Ohio State while he pretended to be a college student he would have been decapitating rabbits behind a barn in a Steinbeck novel. He was beyond help. Tressel did not care. He probably still thinks he can help him."
This is the sick stuff that reminds me how dillusional people are! Yeah, Ray Small is a screw up, no one denies that. I can remember anytime before Maurice Clarrett went to jail, no one thought he'd ever change. And as of right now, I'd say he's making strides toward a productive life. Regardless, Tressel took a chance on Small. But it wasn't just small. Other teammates of his were doing it as well. Small just reported it.
It's like doing a character assasination on Jose Canseco, which everyone did. But you know what, the man has been pretty much spot on.
Tressel cared about winning more than helping these young men. By selectively inforcing the rules, he only continued to fuel the sense of entitlement college football players have. That trait will harm those players after their playing days are done, not help them.