The Front Row

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TressRocks said...

This seems to be a predominant topic in the national media and on the Bucknuts board as well – that Tressel lied to the NCAA and 10 of 11 coaches that broke that rule either resigned or were fired blah blah blah…so therefore he needs to go to.

Well, you know, to me, one has to look at what kind of lie was it? Was it a full throttle lie: like I murdered somebody and buried the body in my basement and lied when the cops came to my house and asked me about it, or was it a white lie like I lied that my wife’s a$$ didn’t look big when she asked me?

People are treating all lies the same, and they aren’t, and they shouldn’t be treated as such.

I would submit that Tress’s lie is much more benign than the majority of these cases. For several reasons:
1) First off, I would challenge the fact that it was TRULY a lie!! What did Tressel have to sign?: I believe it was a statement that said he could attest to the fact that he did not know if his players were guilty of an NCAA infraction. Well he didn’t know anything for certain! He knew that he got an external random email that rumored some stuff in non-specific fashion, but he didn’t know anything definitively or absolutely, so how can he sign something that he knew FOR SURE that they were ineligible??!! So right off the bat I would contest the premise that he lied about it.
2) It has been documented that in the timeframe when these selling of gold pants etc occurred, that OSU did not clearly and explicitly counsel the players regarding the rules in this area. So if OSU was not counseling the players clearly in this area, then maybe Coach Tress himself was not totally versant on this subject (is he expected to know all 1000 or so pages of the NCAA rulebook?). Even if he was, he had sympathy for the players breaking a rule that they had not been clearly told was a rule. Secondly, the rule is in many people’s opinion, one of those rules that are rules in the NCAA’s mind, but are somewhat unreasonable and ludicrous: a player is awarded something and isn’t allowed to sell it himself, even though he could give it to a parent and they could sell it and it would be perfectly fine. Thirdly, the email said something about selling these trinkets “for not very much money.” So this was small potatoes kind of a violation...not a big frigging deal. Thus...these contributing factors combined diminished the level of wrongdoing on the part of the players in Tress’s mind...and therefore putting it in a “white lie” category for him. And I would say, justifiably so.
3) Most of these other eleven stated cases where a coach lied and lost his job, was where the coach himself committed a violation… whether it was making extra phone calls, tried to get a recruiting advantage, etc. Tress’s case was not that. He was not trying to cover up for his OWN wrongdoing. He was unselfishly “lying” to the NCAA about something bogus and relatively small that involved his players…because he was more concerned about the bigger picture issue that his kids had some kind of relationship with a drug dealer being investigated by the Feds. That is the issue he was working with the players and concerned about…as a concerned father figure would be.
So I would sum up that in totality, when one looks at this in the grand scheme of things, this “lying to the NCAA” claims that are repeated over and over really need to be tamped down, and some perspective and shade put on this situation. When all is considered, I would say the evidence more points to the fact that this falls much closer to the “white lie” category than anything else.

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TressRocks said...

I disagree profoundly

where YOU miss the point is that getting a random email that generally describes a scenario does not equate to "receiving allegations that two players were violating NCAA rules."

Do you know how many emails Tressel gets? His email address is open to all and he probably gets thousands daily. Is he supposed to put his hand up and go running over to Gene Smith;s office for every single stupid email from every Tom, Dick, or Harry that he gets that even sniffs of a problem !! That is not reasonable.

Fired, huh? What is your profession? I hope you have had the stellar record of Tressel in your career, and never make a mistake or have to tell a small lie for the greater good. I know from my business that we all do that, every single week. So don't come back with this holier than thou attitude that he should be fired.