COULSON CSN COLUMN ON TRESSEL: "Tattoo U."

[CSN-info]

http://www.collegesportingnews.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=554&cid=18
College Sporting News

Jim Tressel's reputation for covering up the truth didn't start at Ohio State, but also left a trail of trouble at Youngstown State

For all of his success as a football coach, Jim Tressel had always struck me and many others as a shadowy figure.

He managed to lead the Youngstown State program to three Football Championship Subdivision titles in four years from 1991-94 and added another national crown in 1997 as the Penguins reached the title game six times during the 1990s.

But there were always whispers from his peers about how Tressel's teams had reached the top.

One coaching contemporary, whose name I'll keep to myself, referred to Tressel as "the Teflon Don", an elusion to Mafia boss John Gotti and Tressel's ability to walk away from scandal without being scathed.

Well, football's version of this colorful metaphor finally had his Teflon shield completely torn away on Monday when he was forced to resign as the head coach at Ohio State amidst a growing scandal of lies, cover-ups and special benefits. ...

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE... (http://www.collegesportingnews.com/content.php?495-Tattoo-U.)

[DFW HOYA]

It's easy to lay this on the coaches in such situations and they do bear personal responsibility. But the institutions aren't without fault in this. Did Gordon Gee, who has variously been hired as a president at Vanderbilt, Brown, Colorado, and West Virginia, give his Captain Renault impersonation when hearing the news ("I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!") ?

If Jim Tressel is at Duke instead of Ohio State, chances are this stuff isn't going on--not for Duke's football fortunes, but that the school doesn't put up with such nonsense from its coaches or its boosters. The coach works within the system, and where there is no system, or a tacit looking the other way, the coach accepts it as the price of doing business. Was the Jim Valvano who coached at Iona College much different from the coach at NC State? No, but the environment he coached under was and he accepted it.

There are schools where corners are bent, schools were corners are cut, and schools who tore the cover off the rulebook long ago. TOSU isn't going to suddenly become the next Stanford in compliance no matter if they hired an Urban Meyer or a Tim Murphy.

[OL FU]

I agree with your take on the schools. It has long been my impression that the schools should major punishment. That is really the only way you are going to stop it. The school has to be on the hook.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

It's easy to lay this on the coaches in such situations and they do bear personal responsibility. But the institutions aren't without fault in this. Did Gordon Gee, who has variously been hired as a president at Vanderbilt, Brown, Colorado, and West Virginia, give his Captain Renault impersonation when hearing the news ("I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!") ?

Gee certainly had a perfect Renault-ism in this whole affair ("I'm just hoping that the coach doesn't dismiss me!") and it's a quote that will haunt him until the end of his days. And your point on fault lying with the institutions is a good one.

But my concern is that there is so much roadkill on the highway and so much blame to spread around - Delany going to bat for him, Gee's attempt to cover him, the NCAA's inability to see the fire amidst all the smoke around Tressel at YSU and OSU - that the guy in the center of the controversy somehow gets a free pass. That guy is Tressel. Just because OSU is corrupt doesn't excuse Tressel, no more than Tressel's actions mean that OSU is devoid of blame.