Reaction To Jim Tressel's Resignation

Well using that logic Pablo Escobar is a good guy because he cared for the poor people in his native Columbia. These tOSU fans are making this whole situation even more humorous than it was already.

Oh BTW thought you would like this pic.

at best tressel was a good guy who sold his soul to get wins. at worst he was a two faced liar who cheated and tried to hide the truth. all this “he did it to help the kids because he loved them” is a giant load of bs.

Laughable or repugnant as they may be to fans of Penn State. And a few of them are probably right in that Jim Tressel is not a person who can be accurately painted with a single brush. But if you’re looking for someone who can cover a little more ground in with a fair depiction, and from a less emotionally-invested place, you could take in Spencer’s take:

And this is an important delineation. Tressel is not a grand villain, he was what everyone wanted all along: a slightly corrupt high school principal, a three-percent cheater, a friendly, local, and tolerable kind of corruption. Tressel did a lot of things off the field he’ll never be given enough credit for, including embracing gay athletes in concept, something that would flip wigs almost anywhere else in college football. He’s a complex character and deserves that treatment. Jim Tressel is the guy who owned Michigan for the better part of a decade, who dismantled Oregon’s touchdown orgy in 2009, and who legitimately helped a lot of people in the Columbus area. He’s also the man who lied to the NCAA, lost to USC and Florida, and who willfully ignored the nutrient-rich bath of benefits athletes marinated in while playing for Ohio State in Columbus. Same dude in all instances, and certainly not alone in any of it.

I’m impressed, frankly.

They will always rationalize every bad thing the school does. This is textbook psychology.

I thought this bleacher report article was the most interesting reaction.

I don’t mean to interrupt the national barbecuing of Jim Tressel, which I’m enjoying as much as the next guy, but there are three kinds of hypocrisy in play here, and at this point it’s hard not to see Tressel’s as the least of the bunch.

The SI story is really a story about the NCAA’s essential hypocrisy. It’s about black market economies and bad incentives and how the NCAA’s quaint ideal of amateurism creates both, impelling people like Tressel and his players to the sort of commonplace deceit that the Joe Fridays in the press never tire of exposing.

The fact is that, with rare exception of places like Penn State, what happened at OSU happens everywhere in major college football. And treating the symptom — Tressel — while important and fun, won’t stop the disease — the inequity with which players are treated in the system.

I really can understand the desire to circle the wagons right now. This is a huge national pile on, way worse than we got after the OTL segment.

It’s a shame it happened to a B10 school, but that’s about it. I guess I’m reminded of all the hooting and hollaring we had going on after Michigan lost to Appalacian State. We had this great couple of days as we laughed and pointed. Then a few weeks later they beat us anyway. They went on to beat Timmy Tebow and Urban Meyer, and suddenly that loss didn’t really matter as much.

I guess my point is, all this gloating makes me uncomfortable. They’re still a good team with a top notch staff loaded with talent. But all the fun people are having with this situation now won’t matter much on November 19th.

doesn’t believe that compliance is a coach’s responsibility, it turns out that he’s wrong.

In most institutions, especially those with large and varied athletics programs, such delegations
are made to a number of individuals who are expected to exercise control over compliance with
regard to specific aspects of the program. The specific obligations of such individuals should be
in writing, and not merely an understanding among the senior officials of the university and the
athletics department. Not only the director of athletics, but other officials in the athletics
department, the faculty athletics representative, the head coaches and the other institutional
administrators outside of the athletics department responsible for such matters as the certification
of athletes for financial aid, practice and competition, are expected to assume a primary role in
ensuring compliance.

C. ACTS THAT ARE LIKELY TO DEMONSTRATE A LACK OF INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL

. . .

8. A head coach fails to create and maintain an atmosphere for compliance within
the program the coach supervises or fails to monitor the activities of assistant
coaches regarding compliance.

A head coach has special obligation to establish a spirit of compliance among the entire
team, including assistant coaches, other staff and student-athletes. The head coach
must generally observe the activities of assistant coaches and staff to determine if they
are acting in compliance with NCAA rules. Too often, when assistant coaches are
involved in a web of serious violations, head coaches profess ignorance, saying that they
were too busy to know what was occurring and that they trusted their assistants. Such a
failure by head coaches to control their teams, alone or with the assistance of a staff
member with compliance responsibilities, is a lack of institutional control.

But hey, why look something up when you just have an opinion on it?