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JIM TRESSEL Tressel has a quiet persona that is the opposite of Woody Hayes' belligerence. He has the ability to not choke away games, unlike John Cooper. He can beat Michigan. He wears a cute little sweatervest. He partakes in superficialities like arranging the team to sing Ohio State's alma mater after games, None of this matters one iota to whether Tressel runs a clean program or tolerates thugs on Ohio State. He does.
Thug U According to a list compiled by The Associated Press, 20 Ohio State players were arrested or faced disciplinary action for rules violations between Tressel’s hiring in 2001 and 2005. A number of the arrests were alcohol-related, but one player pleaded guilty to robbery, and another pleaded guilty to felony charges related to drug and gun possession. Two others were suspended after being charged with marijuana trafficking and passing fake in-house currency at a strip club. Tressel may wear a sweatervest, but that doesn't mean he tolerates such thuggery. Quarterback Troy Smith, who this season brought Ohio State its seventh Heisman Trophy, was convicted of misdemeanor disorderly conduct after a 2003 fight in a campus parking lot, where, a woman reported, her jaw had been broken.
Early in 2005, an editorial in The Dayton Daily News said the booster incident, following other player misconduct, made Ohio State “look like a second-rate, generic state school, that has no reputation beyond sports and parties — and seeks none.” Bill Livingston of The Cleveland Plain Dealer, one of Ohio’s most influential sports columnists, said of Tressel in an interview, “I’m a great admirer of him as a game-day coach, but the public image of the man doesn’t measure up in all aspects.” The most notorious scandal of the Tressel era at Ohio State involved Clarett, the freshman star during the 2002 championship season whose career soon imploded. He was suspended in 2003 for N.C.A.A. rules violations, and would not play again, his early success corroded by questions of preferential treatment in the classroom; falsification of a police report involving stolen items from a car borrowed from a local auto dealer; and Clarett’s accusations that he was provided with cash and a no-show job. Ohio State denied any wrongdoing and Clarett’s most explosive charges were never verified. Clarett is now in prison in Toledo, serving at least three and a half years on charges of aggravated robbery and carrying a concealed weapon. The Clarett and Troy Smith episodes bore some resemblance to an incident that occurred during Tressel’s tenure as coach at Youngstown State. The university was cited by the N.C.A.A. for lack of institutional control after Ray Isaac, who quarterbacked the 1991 team to a Division I-AA championship, was later found to have accepted $10,000 and access to cars provided by the former chairman of Youngstown State’s board of trustees. (more)
While not as bad as John Cooper, Tressel's results as an educator remain embarrassing. Improvements in Ohio State's graduation rates are almost guaranteed, as Cooper left them no place to go but up. Among the 64 bowl teams, only Georgia (24 percent) had a lower graduation rate of black players than Ohio State (32 percent). The study also showed that Ohio State scored 925 — a minimal level of acceptance — on the so-called Academic Progress Rating, which tracks athletes’ advancement toward graduation and can result in a reduction of scholarships for noncompliance.
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