H*****r
发帖数: 764 | 1 April 27, 2011
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Still too many unanswered questions from this presser. For more on college
football, go see the FOXSports.com NCAA page.
No one reads a mystery novel by starting in Chapter 9, jumping to Chapter 2,
ahead to Chapter 20, then backward again to Chapter 6.
All context would be lost and the plot would prove impossible to follow.
But that’s exactly how we’ve learned the details of Jim Tressel’s attempt
to conceal NCAA violations by his players, resulting in a troubling
investigation of the head coach and the Ohio State football program.
Facts have been leaked, reported and confirmed in random order, making it
difficult to gauge the depth of Tressel’s deception and process how fully
he engaged in lying to the NCAA and Ohio State to conceal his behavior.
Boil away all the dates and times of emails, telephone calls and press
conferences and we are left with three indisputable facts:
• Tressel lied to the NCAA in September and lied twice to OSU
investigators in December.
• Tressel played quarterback Terrelle Pryor and wide receiver DeVier
Posey the entire 2011 regular season when he knew they were ineligible
because of NCAA rules violations.
• Tressel had innumerable chances to notify OSU and the NCAA of his
players’ wrongdoing and he never admitted to any of it until confronted by
Ohio State on Jan. 23 with damning emails from the tipster who told him
about the violations nine months earlier.
Any of those three transgressions would be enough to result in the immediate
firing of most coaches.
But most coaches don’t win like Tressel, who has averaged 10 wins per
season over his decade at OSU.
No one in power at Ohio State – not president E. Gordon Gee, not athletic
director Gene Smith nor any member of the Board of Trustees – has
demonstrated the fortitude to own the decision to fire Tressel for his
unprecedented wrongdoing and embarrassment of not just the OSU football
program, but the university’s national reputation.
Tressel lied; he cheated, and he engaged in a prolonged cover-up.
That’s quite a hat-trick of misbehavior, one few rogue coaches in the
annals of the NCAA’s worst rule-breakers could match.
Because the details have dribbled out over the past five months, it’s been
easy to miss just how duplicitous Tressel has been.
But we now know that when he signed and dated an NCAA rules compliance form
in September -- certifying he had notified Gee, Smith and other OSU
officials of all NCAA rules violations he knew about – Tressel had:
• Exchanged 12 emails with Columbus attorney Chris Cicero, the tipster
who notified him of Pryor’s and Posey’s wrongdoing in April 2010.
• Spoke at least three times for a total of 36 minutes with Pryor’s
“mentor,” Ted Sarniak, a glass factory owner from the quarterback’s
hometown, who accompanied him on his recruiting trips.
• Exchanged 33 text messages and phone calls with Pryor in April of
2010.
We don’t know how often Tressel communicated with Cicero, Sarniak or Pryor
over the summer, because OSU has not provided that information despite
numerous requests from media organizations.
But consider only the spring communications – the dozen emails with Cicero,
the calls with Sarniak and the more-than-once-a-day contact with Pryor.
Now flash forward to December, when OSU investigators spoke to Tressel after
receiving notification from the U.S. Attorney’s office that several
players’ championship rings and awards were among memorabilia seized in the
drug raid Cicero warned Tressel about in April.
OSU investigators spoke with Tressel on Dec. 9 and again on Dec. 16.
According to the school’s self-report to the NCAA, OSU’s investigators
asked Tressel if he had previously heard anything about the players’
activities with Edward Rife, the tattoo parlor owner that Cicero gave him
repeated detailed information about nine months earlier, including that OSU
players had sold Rife their memorabilia.
Remember, Tressel had exchanged 12 emails with Cicero, spoken with Sarniak
three times for 36 minutes and communicated with Pryor more than once a day.
Given all that knowledge and discussion about the matter OSU investigators
were asking him about, this is how Ohio State said Tressel answered:
“When Coach Tressel was asked if he had been contacted about the matter or
knew anything about it, he replied that while he had received a tip about
general rumors pertaining to certain of his players, that information had
not been specific, and it pertained to their off-field choices.
“He implied that the tip related to the social decisions/choices being made
by certain student-athletes. He added that he did not recall from whom he
received the tip. He also stated that he did not know that any items had
been seized.”
The “general rumors” Tressel spoke of, the ones that “had not been
specific?” The truth is, Cicero’s initial email named specific players and
gave an inventory of the rings and memorabilia they had sold to Rife in
violation of NCAA rules.
The “social decisions” smokescreen Tressel tried to distract OSU
investigators with? The truth is, Cicero’s first email accuses Rife of
being a felon, a former witness in a capital murder case and a drug
trafficker. Cicero even gave Tressel court case numbers to support those
claims.
Cicero’s second email, sent to Tressel after Cicero met for 90 minutes with
Rife, said, “He really is a drug dealer.”
And what of Tressel’s assertions to OSU investigators that, “he did not
recall from whom he received the tip,” and that “he did not know any of
the items had been seized?”
Those are laughably untrue based upon Tressel’s correspondence with Cicero
and the knowledge he gained from their repeated email exchanges.
For Tressel’s claims to OSU investigators to be genuine, we must believe
that after exchanging 12 emails with Cicero, Tressel didn’t remember who
Cicero was? That’s odd, because in an email to Sarniak in April, Tressel
described Cicero as “a criminal lawyer in town. He played here when I was
an assistant coach in the early 1980s. He has always looked out for us.”
For Tressel’s claims to OSU investigators to be true, that he didn’t know
any memorabilia from his players had been seized by federal agents, we must
believe that Tressel forgot that in Cicero’s first email the attorney
notified Tressel that “the Federal Government raided (Rife’s) house
yesterday; they seized $70,000 in cash and a lot of Ohio State Memorabilia,
including championship rings.” In that same email, Cicero told Tressel
players sold Rife “a lot of Ohio State memorabilia, including championship
rings…shirts/jerseys/footballs.”
Cicero’s second email to Tressel, sent after Cicero had a 90-minute
conversation with Rife, told Tressel that Rife “has about 15 pairs of
cleats (with signatures), 4-5 jerseys – all signed by players…about 9
rings Big Ten Championships…(and a) National Championship ring).”
But Tressel apparently forgot all that, too, when he spoke with OSU
investigators in December and made the claim that “he did not know that any
items had been seized.”
Piecing together the details of Tressel’s actions and placing them in
context next to OSU’s own version of the tale he spun in December paints a
picture of deception that defies the coach’s well-crafted reputation for
integrity and honesty.
Ohio State’s administration seems willing to wait for the NCAA
investigation to run its course.
Perhaps Gee, Smith and the school’s Board of Trustees don’t believe that a
firing is merited for the lying, cheating and cover-up Tressel engaged in.
Or perhaps they are hoping for NCAA sanctions so severe it will force
Tressel’s resignation, thus sparing weak-kneed school officials the wrath
of some fans wholly committed to Tressel’s Teflon image in spite of his
actions. |
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