Pugh: Northwestern "has everything Ohio State has, plus more"

[klemman]

For the rest of NU fans, sometimes it sounds like I'm demeaning your program when I respond to certain people, but that's not the intent. I like and have respect for your coach and team. If you have issue with big time college football there are legitimate complaints. It does put schools like NU at an athletic disadvantage. There are really only three solutions and bitching about things on message boards while fun, doesn't change anything.

Solution 1. Accept the disadvantages and do the best you can by utilizing the advantages you do have. What I think Fitz does., and does well. Solution 2. Change what you do to be competitive with other programs. What Notre Dame did under Lou Holtz. Solution 3.Change where you are so you aren't competing with the OSU's and Michigan's. That means changing conference or Division.

If you don't like OSU because they win, you root against the favorites, or you don't like losing to the Buckeyes, those are the same reasons I would root against OSU if I was a fan of another program. But if you are saying the reason you hate OSU are "only" because of ethical reasons, then you should also have the same angst with teams nationally and in the conference that have had more arrests and worse academic performances.

 

[shakes3858]

Ok Shakes, I'll respond as a matter of respect, but I'm not holding my breath that anything I say can minimize your anger and hate. Regarding the entertainment industry, I was hardly talking about key grips and security guards.
Here's what you wrote:
Regarding the entertainment industry, it's not just the actors but others involved in the industry. You say "Regarding the entertainment industry a lot," but regardless (or is it irregardless?) I have no idea what you're talking about now. Is it the high paid actors? Is it the others involved in the industry? I could see an executive putting up with Charlie Sheen's crap because he'll bring viewers which lead to dollars. Can't imagine criminals get a lot of other positions in hollywood.

If you would like I could provide a list of A Level stars who despite getting arrested, have used drugs, been drunk in public, hit women, and similar acts are still making very healthy livings and in some cases winning awards. Just to name a few, Roman Polanski won Oscars while not being able to step foot in the US because he would be arrested for sexual assault on a 13 year old, I don't know who that is. Charlie Sheen was the highest paid actor on TV while taking large quantities of cocaine and large quantities of prostitutes, I don't watch him. Robert Downey Jr. was addicted to Coke and heroin I don't watch him, Mark Walberg was arrested for assault I did see Ted, but I can't take him seriously from his days with Marky Mark and the funky bunch, and Tim (Allen) the Toolman Taylor was in prison for drug trafficking Watched him as a kid. Is he still doing stuff on TV.. Bill Cosby? I stopped watching him too. The list goes on... And we haven't even touched Rock and Rap stars. I don't listen to a lot of music. It'll be on the background at the gym or bar. I definitely don't listen to rap.


Recruiting gang members? in the real world, coaches don't go looking for gang members or drug addicts to add to their program. They usually aren't very good football players, and believe it or not, coaches don't really want those guys on their team. Regarding Hernandez, yes he had red flags but he was never charged with anything coming out of highschool. In retrospect Meyer may have been better off not taking him, but the same could have been said about Michigan and Notre Dame which also offered a scholarship to their schools. If Hernandez decided to go to Ann
Arbor or South Bend, they would have taken him.

Hmmm.... good football players that were addicted to drugs. Well, there was Lawerence Taylor who once said "I can't wait til I retire so I can start smoking crack again." He was pretty good. Some even think he's a hall of fame player. Tyrann Mathieu is a pretty good player. Let's see who else... Josh Gordon. Noah Spence, he's pretty good too, remember him? here's a link to a list of players that have been suspended for drug use (although many are PEDs) so I'm going to go out on a limb and say drug use doesn't preclude you from being good at football. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suspensions_in_the_National_Football_League The problem is some coaches don't care if a player is in a gang or on drugs.

Michigan and Notre Dame are willing to sacrifice the safety of those at their school for a good football player too isn't a good excuse. Also, Meyer didn't have a program culture of discipline, respect, and good citizenship at Florida. If Hernandez went to those other schools, maybe he doesn't kill anyone because those coaches have a better culture for him.

Let's see. "Meyer's an ass that only cares about winning." Well, I know he cares about winning- he's pretty good at that. He cares about his family, as being more involved with them was a big change when he went back into coaching. As far as being an ass... I don't personally know him like you do so it wouldn't be fair for me to make that assessment. Although from your post, Meyer admitting that he has made mistakes and strives to do better seems to be a major part of you determining that he's an ass. I wish more people were similarly ass-ish.
Yeah, if you think Meyer left Florida to spend time with his family, you're the one on drugs.

Congratulations on your dad teaching you to never hit women. Good dad's do that. You know who doesn't tend to get into trouble at OSU? Middle and upper class kids, from good families, with good role models, from good schools and safe neighborhoods. Although still a minority within the team, the kids who do tend to get into trouble are usually from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, growing up in neighborhoods full of violence and drugs, no strong role models or fathers, and mothers who are either in trouble themselves, or working 2-3 jobs to pay the bills. And the funny thing is when these kids are recruited, neither they, their mother, their teachers or their coaches focus on the bad things the kids do. They usually mention the good things and the potential for the kids because they know that the kids best chance of doing something and getting away from trouble is to get a scholarship. But I don't want to bog down the discussion of how bad some kids are by talking about some of the actual reasons they do what they do.
I didn't know growing up poor is the reason for bad/illegal behavior. Sounds like an excuse to me. You must be a democrat. I'll see you on the rant board. At some point in your life, you're responsible for your actions and you have to stop blaming your circumstance. 18 seems fair. 16 seems ok too. But one point is true you're finally listening that some kids don't have strong role models... like Urban Meyer who isn't a strong role model. He singularly focused on winning and money.

I like the way you reference Carlos Hyde in your punching the girl scenario. Based on the video on what actually happened, no charges were filed because of what actually happened. As to your question of whom I would rather go see in their office if I was Hyde? Well, the three game suspension Hyde received from Meyer was greater than what either the school, conference, or NCAA required. Hyde came back, stayed out of trouble, and is now earning a nice living in the NFL where he has the opportunity to take care of himself and his family. Based on what you are suggesting Fitz would do, Hyde would have been thrown onto the street despite the lack of charges; if he was ever given the opportunity to go to college in the first place. So we will agree on this: Yes if I was Carlos Hyde I would have preferred to be in Meyer's office based in your proposed scenario.
I don't know what Fitz would do in this scenario, because it's never happened because Fitz emphasizes things that other coaches don't. You should listen to Fitz. He talks all the time about teaching players to be good husbands and fathers. I don't hear that around the country.

I think I responded to most of your statements.
And yet, you still haven't made a valid point.

 

[klemman]

I accept that there is very little I will ever say that you will accept, because...well... You won't. But I'll continue playing for awhile. As I said at the beginning if you follow pro sports, watch tv, movies, or listen to music, claiming that you hate organizations that you identify as criminal laden would make you hypocritical. Since you say you really don't do any of those things, then I'll take that back.

"Irregardless" is considered incorrect usage in an attempt to say regardless or irrespective. But being a Northwestern person you probably already knew that and were just testing this intellectually challenged OSU grad.

Kudos to you for slipping in the gym and bar statements. In case you thought I wouldn't notice. Kind of telling me that you're a badass and social prince, and not some disgruntled malcontent sitting in his mother's basement banging away on the keyboard about how unfair and unjust is life. Major points for you on that one!

Let's see, drug use. Yes drug use doesn't necessarily inhibit athletic performance but for most, drug addiction does. If you look back that was your original accusation of Meyer recruits- "drug addicts". Taylor and some others are so talented that for awhile they can overcome drug addiction on the playing surface. Generally speaking though drug addiction has a negative effect. I'll let the last statement stand on its own. As far as Hernandez, I wasn't using Michigan and Notre Dame as an excuse for Meyer. Just saying that if you hate Meyer because he took Hernandez then you should hate those schools too. Turns out you do hate them too. I'm not surprised. Consider this though. Hernandez was bad before he went to Florida and bad after he left. While not perfect, he was probably the most controlled in his life while at Florida. Wow, maybe that was because of Meyer!

Shakes, you either like to twist my words or don't fully read my posts. I didn't say Meyer left Florida to spend more time with his family. I said spending time with his family was a big change when he came back into coaching. It was the result of stepping back from coaching, talking to other coaches, and attempting to add some work life balance that would help him keep perspective on the importance of things like "winning". Part of that whole change and learning from his mistakes that I mentioned.

Not a democrat and I don't think you want to get into a debate on politics with me because that type of stuff is actually important, unlike football which to me is entertainment. As I said in my post, the environment some one grows up in isn't an excuse, but it is a factor. That's why I said that even among those that grow up in such an environment, those that get into trouble are still a minority. However, they are statistically more inclined to get into trouble than those who grow in a more stable household. Just like the drug addiction, I'll stand by that last statement.

And yes, Meyer and many other coaches tell their players to be good husbands and fathers. And while it's not an "excuse", it is easier for young men to follow that direction if they've actually been exposed to good fathers and husbands. Just like it is easier to understand the value of an education for young men who have seen the value that comes from an education. See how I tied that in with my previous statements? It's not as good as your gym and bar reference, but I'm trying.

Shakes, I know that you still think that I've made no valid points, but I am looking forward to your next round of blasting my logic.

 

[shakes3858]

I accept that there is very little I will ever say that you will accept, because...well... You won't.
I only accept facts. The facts are that Urban Meyer has a terrible track record when it comes to player behavior and he should've never been hired. If you don't care about his track record, then all you care about is winning. I much prefer my Notre Dame family members admitting that they don't care about Brian Kelly's wife being an abortion activist. They own up to it and admit they just want to win.

But I'll continue playing for awhile. As I said at the beginning if you follow pro sports, watch tv, movies, or listen to music, claiming that you hate organizations that you identify as criminal laden would make you hypocritical. Since you say you really don't do any of those things, then I'll take that back.
Sweet

"Irregardless" is considered incorrect usage in an attempt to say regardless or irrespective. But being a Northwestern person you probably already knew that and were just testing this intellectually challenged OSU grad.
No, test, more of an inside joke with myself and people that don't read the board... but it entertains me anyway. The correct answer though is the use of irregardless is up to debate. Most people think of it as a double negative. Others view it as a synonymous term with regardless. Either way, I'm no grammar expert... most of this board will attest to that.

Kudos to you for slipping in the gym and bar statements. In case you thought I wouldn't notice. Kind of telling me that you're a badass and social prince, and not some disgruntled malcontent sitting in his mother's basement banging away on the keyboard about how unfair and unjust is life. Major points for you on that one!
I'm no badass. I turned 33 today, I have a double herniated disk in my back, and a drinking problem. I do have a job, I don't live in my parent's basement. I don't turn music on but I hear music. Some things are unavoidable.

Let's see, drug use. Yes drug use doesn't necessarily inhibit athletic performance but for most, drug addiction does. If you look back that was your original accusation of Meyer recruits- "drug addicts". Taylor and some others are so talented that for awhile they can overcome drug addiction on the playing surface. Generally speaking though drug addiction has a negative effect. I'll let the last statement stand on its own.
Drugs are bad... and you would prefer if OSU players stop using drugs because then their performance will be better on the field... got it.

As far as Hernandez, I wasn't using Michigan and Notre Dame as an excuse for Meyer. Just saying that if you hate Meyer because he took Hernandez then you should hate those schools too. Turns out you do hate them too. I'm not surprised. Consider this though. Hernandez was bad before he went to Florida and bad after he left. While not perfect, he was probably the most controlled in his life while at Florida. Wow, maybe that was because of Meyer!
You're correct, I hate Michigan and Notre Dame too. It's not just Ohio State. Feel free to ask me about Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, the SEC, the ACC, and the PAC12... oh forgot the Big 12. Honestly, I hope maybe a Catholic education, the presence of priests and nuns on campus could help a troubled teen, but I always have a family member at Notre Dame. I hope that no one like Hernandez (or Prince Shembo) steps foot on that campus.

Shakes, you either like to twist my words or don't fully read my posts. I didn't say Meyer left Florida to spend more time with his family. I said spending time with his family was a big change when he came back into coaching. It was the result of stepping back from coaching, talking to other coaches, and attempting to add some work life balance that would help him keep perspective on the importance of things like "winning". Part of that whole change and learning from his mistakes that I mentioned.
I read it. I'm not twisting your words. I know that you believe that Urban Meyer wanted more of a work life balance and to spend more time with his family. I believe that is BS pandering so Meyer could get a lucrative deal with ESPN again which seems to love the SEC so much once his OSU career is over due to his eventual burn out or a couple losses to Harbaugh. If Urban is seen as someone who betrayed the SEC, his stock won't be as high. Now, he's someone who won in the SEC, left for a good reason (family), and took a job in the less intense Big Ten (in the mind of the SEC faithful).

Not a democrat and I don't think you want to get into a debate on politics with me because that type of stuff is actually important, unlike football which to me is entertainment.
Well, that's good. I thought this was an opportunity to take a cheap shot at democrats who feel no one is accountable for their actions because it's the system and circumstance is the only factor.

As I said in my post, the environment some one grows up in isn't an excuse, but it is a factor. That's why I said that even among those that grow up in such an environment, those that get into trouble are still a minority. However, they are statistically more inclined to get into trouble than those who grow in a more stable household. Just like the drug addiction, I'll stand by that last statement.
Ok, I'll grant you that there is a statistical probability is there (I have an issue with causation vs statistical correlation), but let's roll with it. Shouldn't your coach be doing more due diligence to only recruit the good kids out of poor backgrounds rather than leaving it chance? If a kid comes from a troubled background, shouldn't your coach be working with him to make sure he doesn't get in trouble?

And yes, Meyer and many other coaches tell their players to be good husbands and fathers. And coaches. And while it's not an "excuse", You say it's not an excuse, but you're using it as an excuse. it is easier for young men to follow that direction if they've actually been exposed to good fathers and husbands. Then your coach needs to do his due diligence. Maybe he can take some of that huge salary and use it to PIs. . Just like it is easier to understand the value of an education for young men who have seen the value that comes from an education. You just explained Cardale Jones's twitter account to me (C'mon bro too easy). See how I tied that in with my previous statements? It's not as good as your gym and bar reference, but I'm trying.

Shakes, I know that you still think that I've made no valid points, but I am looking forward to your next round of blasting my logic.
Maybe instead of complaining about me thinking you've made no valid points, you could make some valid points for a change. Seems like a win/win. I'll read something besides excuses and pandering to OSU's football players. You can have satisfaction of making a good point for a change.

 

[mikewebb68]

 

[EvanstonCat]

Again it is unfair to throw the all the players under the bus under any coach, because there were some outstanding character guys under Cooper, Tressel, and Meyer. Regarding Cooper, I think the combination of not really being aware of some of the historical culture under Woody and Earl Bruce, the transition of college football from a regional recruiting/following to a more national one while he was in Columbus, and later in his tenure the pressure to beat Michigan, win a bowl game, and win a National Championship, led to some poor decisions and loss of control. Not an excuse, just an understanding of what led to things beyond, "You guys are evil and suck".

For Tressel I see a problem that many leaders runs into. I think deep down they want what's right. If those under him follow what they say, then all will be alright. But the problems occur when that leader starts believing they're own hype. Tressel started thinking that "because of who I am, if I do something even if technically it's a violation, my intent isn't to do wrong so I'm above the fray." If you look at what got him fired, it wasn't that he was setting up players to get illegal benefits in order to increase the talent on the team. He lied about his knowledge of players getting free tattoos and selling their personal property. Still wrong doings, not the worse thing in the world, but Tressel's culpability is certainly there- and his firing was appropriate.

Dude, the Tattoos were nothing. I hate dOSU and I thought they were getting a raw deal on the tattoos. It was the felonies and woman beatings (Lou Izzary), the free cars (Clarrett), the assault weapons and drugs (Coleman), the kicking to the curb of players that didn't contribute on the field (forget the dude who had to eat 99 cent meals at Wendy's), the kids who got in the doghouse and had academic support removed to compel them to fail out of school and free up a scholarship, then transferring to other Division I schools and finding out their credits at dOSU didn't count for squat (Maldanaldo), the tutors who wrote exams, the make-up oral exams to keep star RB's eligible. That's what Tressell was all about

And no one is throwing ALL of the players under the bus. Sure, you had some high character guys. And even NU will have a bad egg every now and then. But, the question is what does dOSU do to look the other way, sweep things under the rug, or even encourage things as an institution all for the sake of winning on the field at all costs including the well-being of the kids that end up in Columbus that is the root of my hatred for your program.

 

[klemman]

Here's the difference in my viewpoint from many OSU haters. I agree that there are some OSU players who end up being bad people, but they more often than not, insinuate that all players there are bad. Of course ECat you come back and say not all players are bad but when you insinuate that "dOSU does this it that" it is an objective of the organization to cheat.

Let's look specifically at the players you mention.:

Izzary- Freshman year before the season even started he got into a fight in the dorm. He was suspended from the football team for the rest of the year. Seems like an appropriate response by the team. In the Spring of that year he commits a felony and is kicked off the team and goes to jail. Are you implying that he got some kind of free ride by the coaches?

Clarett- He was definitely a kid with issues. He's since been diagnosed as bi-polar. That explains a lot. But even after his great freshman year, he was suspended his entire sophomore year. It very well may have cost OSU a National Championship. Again, he wasn't given an out, and if OSU only cared about winning, he never would have been suspended.

Moldanado- Yes his credits didn't transfer. At the time you could take remedial classes (these classes don't teach addition and subtraction. It's basically a highschool level college prep class for students who didn't test into a college level class) at OSU b cause of their open admissions policy. (You can no longer do this on main campus). Those classes don't count for any student's degree. I did go to school with a non-athlete who came fro an inner city school and started in remedial math. He eventually graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. Regarding Moldanodo, if he didn't test into a college level class, it was appropriate to place him here. There was some controversy because he took some "football" courses. Those were electives which he is allowed to take. They don't count towards a degree but it can keep him eligible and in scholarship. I wouldn't be surprised if an academic advisor suggest it. It's also worth noting that he was the second string running back after his freshman year. Among Moldonado's complaints was that despite the success on the field, he was delegated to almost an afterthought in Spring Practice and looking at the next season. If you're going to speculate so will I... Is it at all possible that the academic advisors were trying to keep him eligible to be on scholarship, while the coaches were in a sense punishing him for failing in the classroom? It sounds like that would be a good plan if it did happen that way. Inst ad of allowing ji to,lose his scholarship and get thrown to the curb.

Players who don't produce don't get thrown to the curve- At every senior day I see players who were either walk-ones who earned a scholarship for more or less being a good practice player, or highly rated guys who never had collegiate careers that matched their recruiting ranking. They weren't thrown off the team. Now some players are told that they're good players but unlikely ever to play at OSU because of the depth chart. They're given the option to transfer where they might be able to play. And some players don't play because of injuries. They're given the option to continue academically on a scholarship without having to go to practices, film room, meetings, etc. and no chance of playing, A nice option if you want to go that route.


Coleman- You'll have to remind me of what he did regarding assault weapons or drugs. I can't remember and couldn't Google anything.

So for the exception of Coleman the past 20+ years where you like to get your isolated situations, where is OSU looking the other way?

I say once again, if you hate OSU because of academics and player lawbreaking- regardless of what the actual numbers are, then also hate the teams in the conference that have worse academic performances and more arrests. But no one does. If you hate OSU because they win, at least admit that winning and dominance is the real reason. If you hate OSU because it represents big time college football, then: Petition to get out of big time football, change what you do to be more competitive against big time football programs, or accept the differences and do the best you can with what you have. And say you hate Big Time football instead of making OSU a villain.

 

[shakes3858]

I say once again, if you hate OSU because of academics and player lawbreaking- regardless of what the actual numbers are, then also hate the teams in the conference that have worse academic performances and more arrests. But no one does.

I hate those schools. I have a lot of hatred to go around... and it does. I don't hate big time football though... or we have different definitions of big time football. Northwestern plays big time football. What I hope Northwestern's mission is to show the country that you can win with smart kids, that are good people, and real student athletes and a coach that isn't plays by NCAA and ethical rules. Stanford plays the recruiting games, so they're out.

 

[klemman]

Shakes, "Complaining about you?" You give yourself a bit too much credit. As a person who admits to having "a lot of hatred to go around..." It's you who tends to be the complainer. Regarding valid points, I give many of them. In return you offer some facts along with a whole lot of generalization and speculation that once again because of your self-admitted hate, is biased to the point of losing validity.

The fact that you hate most of the collegiate football programs who play big time football (Northwestern the exception) including Michigan, Notre Dame, and Stanford... Pretty much clarifies from where you are coming. It just doesn't happen to be where the majority of that world sits. I would bet that collegiate sports isn't the only genre where you stand on the outside complaining about what is in the inside. That's not an insult, just an observation from afar.

I do feel as if I know you better. You don't watch much movies or TV, you don't listen to music, you don't follow professional sports, you have a resentment for organization's and individuals that you feel win and make a lot of money unfairly, you spend time in gyms and bars but you also have a herniated disk and a drinking problem. You seem to like going on the Internet and I'll bet that despite my kidding, you're probably a pretty smart guy.

I would say that based on what you've given me, I'm forced to take anything you say in the future with a grain of salt. But before I fully commit to that, like a former Illinois resident who was actually a genius, you don't have a cabin in Montana, and there's no way you have access to my mailing address, do you?

 

[EvanstonCat]

You make it sound like these are isolated incidents. And that the University and specifically Jim Tressell were not complicit in brushing these aside. Let me remind you a little bit of history. This is just an excerpt from the Tressell days, because after a while I stopped recording, as it was becoming too much work:

Tressell’s Buckeye Hall of Shame

Pick any four seasons. How about Jim Tressel’s first 4 at tOSU? 19 different Buckeyes got into trouble with the law under Jim Tressel's reign through the end of 2004. It would be 20, if you count Robert Reynolds who should have been charged with attempted murder and at least felonious assualt and battery in his brutal choking of Wisconsin QB Jim Sorgi.

For reference, Jan 18, 2001 is when Tressel was hired. That’s 19 Buckeye players in just less than 4 seasons of play in trouble with the law under Jim Tressell’s reign. Parents gotta love the fact that Jim Tressell’s players get into trouble with the law almost at the same rate as his players graduate.

This list does not include offenses since the end of 2004, such as the punter who was charged with felony possession of controlled substances with intent to distribute. As an aside, said punter was let back on the team this past spring – typically Tressel looks the other way when it comes to first time offenders. Nor does it discuss how the rest of college athletics breathed a sigh of relief the week in the spring of 2005 when Ohio State decided to go ahead with an increased drug and alcohol testing program. Of course, they claim it was in the works long before three football players were arrested on drug- and alcohol-related incidents in a 10-day span that month. But, I digress. The point is that this is an incomplete list, simply because keeping up with the infractions at dOSU is too much for anyone.

Chances are by the time you’ve read this, yet another Buckeye player has gotten into trouble with the law. We gave up on updating this list, so please forgive us for not being able to keep this outrageous pace.


The Members to date (and counting)

December 21, 2004: Albert Dukes, a freshman WR was arrested 12/21 in Palm Beach County, FL for felonious lewd and lascivious battery involving a 13 year old girl.
October 23, 2004: Lydell Ross is arrested at Pure Platinum gentlemen's club on Bethel Road in Columbus for attempting to pass fake money to a 24-year-old woman at the club. Ross was suspended for two games and the charges were later dropped.
June 7, 2004: Ohio State University police arrested tight end Louis Irizarry and charged him with Criminal Trespassing at Neil and Tuttle Park Place.
May 17, 2004: Freshman Punter A.J. Traspasso is arrested again for underaged drinking. This time, it was by Perkins Township police near Sandusky, Oh.
May 5, 2004: Freshman Punter A.J. Traspasso is charged with underage drinking. The all-state punter was cited after the Spring Game along East 15th Avenue near campus, authorities said.
May 1, 2004: Sophomore backups Louis Irizarry and Ira Guilford are arrested and charged with robbery after a student is assaulted and his wallet is stolen at 3 a.m. They are held in Franklin County jail through the weekend. Both plead innocent to the robbery charge, with Guilford released after paying a $25,000 bond. Irizarry is held pending a hearing to determine if he had violated his probation from an earlier assault conviction.
April 29, 2004: Ohio State fullback Branden Joe was cited for an alleged misdemeanor open container violation, according to Columbus police.
Nov. 16, 2003: At 3 a.m. after a win over Purdue and six days before the Michigan game, wide receiver Santonio Holmes and quarterback Troy Smith are charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct after a fight in a parking lot on campus. A window in a car is kicked out and one woman reported her jaw was broken. Holmes is held out of the starting lineup at Michigan but returns to play most of the game. Holmes also started in the Buckeyes' Fiesta Bowl game. He pleads innocent to the disorderly conduct after the team returns to Columbus. The disorderly conduct charge is dismissed against Holmes on March 30, 2004. Smith is found guilty of the charge.
Oct. 27, 2003: Louis Irizarry is charged with three counts of first-degree misdemeanor assault after three people sustain minor injuries during a fight in a Park Hall dorm room. Irizarry is suspended two days later. He is found guilty of one charge each of assault, negligent assault and disorderly conduct and pays $404 court costs and is put on probation. He is later reinstated to the team and is listed as the second-team tight end on the 2004 spring depth chart before he is suspended indefinitely after the May 1, 2004, arrest.
June 2003: Sophomore tight end Redgie Arden of Ohio State pleaded innocent Monday to his second drunken driving charge in 15 months. Arden, 21, was arrested at 5:54 a.m. Sunday on a charge of operating a motor vehicle under the influence, the Ironton Police Department said. In March 2002, Arden pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge in Ironton. He was sentenced to three days in jail and fined.
April 2003: Running back Maurice Clarett reports that a car he has borrowed from a local used-car dealer was broken into and thousands of dollars in cash, CDs, stereo equipment and clothing was stolen. The car was in the parking lot at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center and Clarett calls police from a telephone in Tressel's office. Clarett was later charged with lying to police about the value of the stolen items and is charged with misdemeanor falsification of the police report on the theft. Clarett pleads guilty on Jan. 14, 2004, to the reduced charge of failure to aid a law enforcement officer. He is ordered to pay the maximum fine of $100 and serves no jail time.
Oct. 13, 2002: Linebacker Fred Pagac Jr. is charged with persistent disorderly conduct. Pagac was arrested at 3:45 a.m. after police said he was intoxicated and had a role in a fight involving two women outside a campus-area bar about 12 hours after the Buckeyes' homecoming victory over San Jose State. The police report said an officer told Pagac to stop but he continued to fight. Pagac was suspended for the team's next game at Wisconsin. Pagac pleaded innocent. In December, before the team's national championship game against Miami in the Fiesta Bowl, Pagac was acquitted in a jury trial.
Aug. 17, 2002: Defensive lineman Quinn Pitcock is charged with underage drinking in his hometown of Piqua. Despite fleeing from police, and possessing Buckeye football speed, he is chased down by the Piqua cops and puts up a brief struggle, but is not charged with resisting arrest. He is suspended from the team for the three weeks of preseason workouts, then worked out with the team and is not held out of any games. He pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct.
Aug. 24, 2002: Flanker Chris Vance, the Buckeyes' second-leading receiver from 2001, is suspended from the team before the season opener for what Tressel called a violation of team policy. Vance was with the team on the sidelines but did not play against Texas Tech. He rejoined the team for practice the following week but did not play in the second game against Kent State. Athletic director Andy Geiger later said Vance's unspecified violation took place the previous winter. Vance returned for the third game.
July 29, 2002: Wide receiver Angelo Chattams is investigated for the alleged theft of a set of golf clubs from a sport utility vehicle in West Carrollton. Prosecutors approve but do not file a theft charge, permitting Chattams to enroll in a program for nonviolent, first-time offenders and avoid a charge. He was excused from the team to deal with the legal matter, then reinstated and played in the season-opener. He does not play again for the Buckeyes.
July 26, 2002: Police find Branden Joe, a sophomore fullback, asleep in a car on a highway ramp near campus. The police report says he refused to take a Breathalyzer test. He was suspended for the three weeks of preseason camp and the team's season opener against Texas Tech, then returns to the team although his playing time is limited by injuries.
April 27, 2002: Linebacker Marco Cooper is arrested hours after the Buckeyes' annual intrasquad scrimmage and charged with felony drug abuse and carrying a concealed weapon in his sports-utility vehicle. Cooper pleads guilty to two charges in November and is put on probation.
March 2, 2002: Tight end Redgie Arden is arrested on a charge of drunken driving in his hometown of Ironton. The redshirt freshman is found guilty and is sentenced to three days in jail and fined. Suspended indefinitely from the team, he does not participate in summer workouts before the 2002 season but is reinstated before the start of the 2002 season and played in 11 games.
Nov. 15, 2001: Quarterback Steve Bellisari is arrested two days before the Illinois game for drunken driving. Tressel suspends the Buckeyes' three-year starter indefinitely and then reinstates him to the team three days later. A senior, he practiced with the team for the Michigan game but did not play, then came off the bench to play most of the team's Outback Bowl loss to South Carolina. He later served a weekend in jail.
March 21, 2001: Cornerback Derek Ross is arrested on charges of driving without a license and providing false information to police, giving an incorrect name when pulled over for speeding. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail. He is suspended from Ohio State's 2001 spring practices, then played most of the 2001 season, leading the Big Ten in interceptions and earning second-team all-conference honors. Left team to make himself available for the NFL draft a year early.

​

 

[EvanstonCat]

Tressell’s Dishonorable Mention

Note that the above list does NOT include other incidents that have happened while on Tressel’s watch, which include:
May, 2003: Chris Gamble and 9 other players are ruled ineligible by the university for signing autographs at a health care group's convention. The players were paid an hourly salary for working at a booth operated by a central Ohio health care company at the Ohio Health Care Association's convention May 5-8 in Columbus.
October 11, 2003: Robert Reynolds chokes Wisconsin QB, Jim Sorgi, knocking him out of the Badgers' 17-10 win over the Buckeyes. The act was so violent, that Sorgi clearly could have pressed charges for felony assault, but alas Reynolds’s act fails to join the Hall of Shame by the refusal of the victim to press charges.
Fall 2003: NCAA investigates Ohio State players for possible academic ineligibility. Maurice Clarett is the focus of the investigation. Chris Gamble’s name was mentioned a few times at the beginning, but either nothing was found against him or the entire investigation was turned against Maurice when a teacher admitted that Clarett got preferential treatment. She was then was later fired by the university. Clarett was guilty of 14 violations of the ethical-conduct bylaw and two violations of receiving preferential treatment or benefits because he is an athlete. Clarett was suspended for the entire 2003 season.
Fall 2004: Maurice Clarett blows the whistle on tOSU. ESPN does an excellent series of articles exposing the dark undercurrents and cheating of the Ohio State football machine, citing cases from a number of ex-Buckeye players, both those who were rode off the team after they were seen not to merit a scholarship for their play as well as a corroborations of a number of successful Buckeye players who were drafted and played in the NFL and had no reason to lie. Travesties included putting players like Sam “the Bull” Maldonaldo on a Mickey Mouse course curriculum, and then dropping all academic “assistance,” after they fell out of favor with the coaches. Abandoned players found later that they couldn’t transfer over half of his Ohio State earned credits, because they did not stand up to academic standards for other schools in and outside of Division I. Others discuss hundred dollar handshakes, and receiving money, cars, and gifts from boosters for performing in games. Others talked about “tutors” who would write papers for players and take tests for them.
Dec. 28, 2004: Ohio State announces it will sanction a booster who gave $500 to quarterback Troy Smith for work Smith didn't do and suspends Smith from playing in the Alamo Bowl and the 2005 opener. The Cleveland Plain Dealer later reported that multiple sources told them that Smith used money he accepted from a booster to pay for a cell phone his mother obtained for former Buckeye tailback Maurice Clarett.

 

[EvanstonCat]

Extra Credit

By Ryan Hockensmith

ESPN The Magazine

In the fall of 1999, nearly every program in the country wanted Sammy "The Bull" Maldonado. What coach worth his whistle wouldn't? He was a Parade All-America with 99 touchdowns and a then-state-record 7,581 rushing yards for Harrison (N.Y.) High. He had to sift through 3,000 recruiting letters-all of which still rest in a U.S. Postal Service bin in the family's basement-before narrowing his list to Ohio State and Syracuse.

On a fall Friday morning, Buckeyes coach John Cooper sat down with Sammy's family in their living room. Rafael Maldonado, a street-tough native of Puerto Rico who'd gone from washing cars to owning a chunk of 55 New York City parking garages, didn't pull any punches. "You're getting a very good football player," he said. "But you're also getting a pain in the ass."

Cooper belly-laughed; he knew the type. Sammy, a B-student with 960 SATs, was a good kid, if a bit aloof. That didn't deter Cooper. A few weeks later, there was a press conference at Harrison High. Maldonado was going to become a Buckeye.

That fall, Maldonado lugged his first handoff seven yards off tackle for a touchdown against Penn State. He would rush 22 times for 50 yards as a freshman behind senior Derek Combs and junior Jonathan Wells. Buckeye fans chanted for The Bull whenever he saw the field, and even pestered his parents for autographs after games.

But after another loss to Michigan, Ohio State fired Cooper, and Jim Tressel-architect of four national titles at Division I-AA Youngstown State-took over. Within a year, Maldonado would be roadkill, unwanted by the team he played for and unable to play for anyone else.

Despite a solid spring and summer that got him up to No. 2 on the depth chart before that next season, Maldonado was on the sideline when August camp opened. He was asked only to participate in sprints at the end of practice, while Wells, now the starter, and freshman Lydell Ross, one of Tressel's first recruits, shared the running back duties. "I didn't know what I'd done wrong," Maldonado says. "I think Tressel wanted the guys he recruited, not the players who were already there."

Sammy's mother, Nereyda, came to campus in September and videotaped two weeks of her son standing with his arms crossed during all the drills. Then Rafael flew to Columbus for a face-to-face with the coaches. He says when he asked Tressel why his boy wasn't playing, the coach told him Sammy made too many mistakes in practice. Pressed again, Tressel insisted the kid sat because of blunders.

"You're a liar," Rafael shot back. "I've seen two weeks of tape, and Sammy hasn't even put on his helmet."

The Maldonados say that Tressel looked stunned when running backs coach Tim Spencer (now with the Chicago Bears) confirmed that Nereyda had attended practice, and they add that the head coach quickly shuffled them out of his office. Sammy barely spoke with the staff the rest of the season; he finished with 39 carries for 168 yards. "I was just some body," he says, "basically a walk-on." (Ohio State has declined to discuss anything about Maldonado.)

He was at a loss. A superstar talent from a privileged upbringing, Sammy wasn't used to not getting what he wanted. On a bleak February day in 2002, increasingly worried about a son who seemed defeated, Rafael Maldonado called Sammy's cell phone. Sammy had slipped into his own world, most days rarely leaving the couch in his off-campus apartment. He got up in time to watch Jerry Springer at 11, then played video games the rest of the day. Football was a past life. Sammy answered his phone but told his dad he couldn't talk because he was in class. "No you're not," Rafael said. "You're on the couch beside your roommates."

A minute later, Rafael was barging into the apartment. He shut off the PlayStation and chased the other guys out. Then he presented two options to his son: find a D1-AA program, where he could play right away, or transfer to Maryland, where Rafael could try to mine connections with coach Ralph Friedgen, a Harrison native. "I don't know," Sammy told his dad. "You decide."

Rafael asked Cooper, who'd become a family friend since his dismissal, where he should steer Sammy. "Your son is a Division I football player," Cooper said. "Period."

So the Maldonados asked Harrison's coach, Art Troilo Jr., to talk with Friedgen. "He's the best player I've ever had," Troilo told the Maryland coaches. "And a damn good kid." Friedgen wasn't sold. "I have enough headaches," he said to the Maldonados over the phone. "I don't need your son."

Sammy Maldonado has made the most of a second chance at Maryland.

But the family and Troilo kept chipping away. Finally, Friedgen told Sammy he could come to College Park.

Then Maryland got a look at his transcript.

IN SIX academic quarters at Ohio State, Maldonado had earned a decent number of credits (his 57 were the equivalent of about 40 at a semester school). He compiled a 2.3 GPA and had never lost his eligibility. But his coursework included four credits for playing football, three for Tressel's Coaching Football class, 10 for remedial reading, 10 for remedial math and three for Issues Affecting Student Athletes. Six other credits wouldn't transfer because he earned D's in two classes. Maldonado couldn't understand how he had earned only 17 transferable credits in two years. Even today the number pinballs around his head. "What kind of degree can you get from Ohio State if none of your classes count at other colleges?" he asks.

Not much of one, according to The Drake Group, an NCAA watchdog. Members of the organization refer to schools like Ohio State as "football factories" that offer soft courses designed to keep players on the field. (See sidebar on page 120 for a comparison of Big Ten programs.) "The purpose isn't to educate and graduate," says Drake Group associate director David Ridpath. "They're eligibility mills."

Maldonado figured that Friedgen wouldn't even offer a spot once the coach got wind of his transcript. The player needed to crunch the equivalent of 43 semester credits into one year just to become eligible at Maryland. He underestimated Friedgen, but just barely.

When the Maldonados flew to College Park for their first meeting with the skeptical coach, he delivered an ultimatum the family now calls Friedgen's Ten Commandments, establishing the uphill path Sammy had to travel. "We'll take you on a conditional basis," he said. "You have to pay your own way, you will go to class, you will go to study halls and you will get good grades. Do it my way or get lost."

The coach told Sammy he had to get B's in six credits of summer coursework. If he was late, or missed one class or a study hall, there would be no scholarship. Assistant coach Dave Sollazzo, another Harrison native, repositioned his desk to overlook the steps outside Byrd Stadium. Every morning at 7, Maldonado climbed down the 50 steps from the street above, gave a tired wave, then wobbled over to study hall. Sammy got his B's-and his scholarship.

Friedgen was impressed. He had seen his share of transfers over the years, but none with such a barren transcript. "It wasn't his fault," the coach says. "They had him in a bunch of classes that he shouldn't have been in."

Maldonado says the curriculum was not his idea. "Over there, they just put you in classes," he says. "I let them take care of my schedule.

I wish I wouldn't have."

But even after Maldonado worked his soft body and softer academic record into shape, Friedgen still regarded him as little more than a favor. Relegating him to the scout team, the coach decided to make Sammy despise him, to keep The Bull on edge. He made sure Maldonado became well acquainted with Maryland's Dawn Patrol, in which every slip-up, on or off the field, was rewarded with a 6 a.m. exploration of Byrd's lower bowl. "Twenty-eight aisles, 28 steps each," Maldonado moans.

(to be continued)

 

[EvanstonCat]

(Sammy Maldonado Part II)

After one unfocused midseason practice, Friedgen called Sammy into his office. "You're not good enough to play here; go to UMass," he said, dropping his eyes to some paperwork on his desk. A seething Maldonado stomped to the doorway before spinning around. "I'm not a I-AA player," he spit out. Friedgen didn't look up. "Talk doesn't go far with me," he said. "Show me, don't tell me."

Maldonado ran hard the next day, and the day after that, and damn near every day since. "I still get mad about it," he says. "I love the guy, but I look at Coach Friedgen and I'm afraid."

That's how Friedgen wants it. Maldonado surged to third on the depth chart, but when he bombed his first round of exams, Friedgen reverted to his drill-sergeant pose, suspending him for two games in the middle of the 2003 season. In the three games after the benching, Maldonado made the most of his 13 carries, rushing for 91 yards. But on the final play of the first quarter against North Carolina, he took a pitch, cut inside and felt his left knee give. He had torn his ACL.

Sammy's parents, worried that their son's confidence would sink again, checked him into a hotel after the surgery and took turns fetching ice and pain-killers. After a few days, Friedgen showed up with his wife, Gloria. She offered home-baked brownies, Sammy's favorite, and some encouraging words. But her bad-cop husband figured this wasn't the time to stop riding The Bull. "I told him he was a baby and he should suck it up," Friedgen says.

Sammy stewed for the rest of the week. The next Monday, though, he hobbled to a morning study hall in the mid-November chill before heading to class and practice in the afternoon.

He kept up with his school work and hammered rehab every day. This past summer he dropped eight pounds-he's down to 227-and opened preseason camp second on the depth chart behind Josh Allen. In the season opener against Northern Illinois, Maldonado churned out 84 yards and scored Maryland's first touchdown of the year. He got his first 100-yard game a week later against Temple. After nine games, he leads the Terps with 486 rushing yards and five scores. Most impressive, he's on target to graduate in May.

Maldonado doesn't need to read the stat sheet to know how far he's come. Walking to the football offices earlier this fall, he heard a bellow from across the street. "Yo, Bull!" He looked over to see a student wave and raise a fist in the air. Sammy was stopped in his tracks. "That felt good," he says. "Showed me people know what I went through."

Friedgen called him into his office the week before the Terps faced No.7 West Virginia in October. "Because I've been ripping you for three years now, I figured I'd tell you how good you've been doing," the coach said. "I want you to be a captain this week." Maldonado could barely speak; after the way that Friedgen always treated him, praise seemed too good to be true. He mumbled a meek "thank you" and began to rise from his chair.

But Friedgen wasn't through. "You gotta promise me one thing," he continued. "I don't want to hear that some NFL agent came in after the season and fed you a line of BS about getting your degree later on. Get it done." Maldonado stalked out, motivated all over again to show his coach what he could do

 

[EvanstonCat]

Clarett claims cash, cars among benefits

By Tom Friend and Ryan Hockensmith

ESPN The Magazine

Ending six months of silence, former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett has told ESPN The Magazine in this week's edition that he "took the fall" for the school during a 2003 NCAA investigation and that he's talking now because he wants to "clear his name" with National Football League owners and general managers.

Clarett says that while he was at Ohio State in 2002 and 2003 head coach Jim Tressel, as well as certain members of his staff and boosters, provided him with improper benefits. He says he covered up Tressel's improprieties during the NCAA investigation and afterward, Ohio State "blackballed'' him from the football program.

According to Clarett, Tressel arranged loaner cars for him and Tressel's brother, Dick, found him lucrative landscaping jobs that he did not even have to show up for. He says members of Tressel's staff also introduced him to boosters who'd slip him thousands of dollars, and the better he played, the more cash he'd receive. He says boosters eventually began inviting him into their homes or would meet him out in the community.

"When you'd leave, [the booster] sets you straight," Clarett told The Magazine. "They say, 'You got any money in your pocket?' They make sure your money's straight."

Clarett also says he likely would have been ineligible for Ohio State's national title season of 2002 if the football staff had not "aligned'' him with an academic advisor whose goal was simply to keep him eligible. He says the academic advisor enrolled him in Independent Study courses and also put him with hand-picked teachers who would pass him whether he attended their classes or not. He says his advisor also introduced him to a tutor who prepared outlines and told him what to write for assignments.

Another former Ohio State player, linebacker Marco Cooper (2000-01; Spring 2002), corroborated many of Clarett's comments. Cooper, who was suspended from the team following two arrests for drug possession, says he also had bogus landscaping jobs, that a booster helped furnish his apartment, and that he was able to borrow cars from local Columbus dealerships in exchange for signed OSU memorabilia.

In a story separate from the Clarett issue, another former Ohio State player, current Maryland running back Sammy Maldonado, says he was placed in so many courses that did not put him on the road to graduation that only 17 of a possible 40 credits earned would transfer to his new school.

Ohio State officials have declined to comment on many of the allegations. School President Karen Holbrook, Jim Tressel and Dick Tressel refused to respond through spokespersons, while Athletic Director Andy Geiger said he would not answer questions until after the magazine story appeared, if then.

Maurice Clarett says he received improper benefits during his time at Ohio State.

"We went through a yearlong investigation of our academic programs, everything that [Clarett] has to allege,'' Geiger said. "He vowed to me that he would do something to try to get us and this may be what he's trying to do.So he's on his own.

"We dealt with this guy [Clarett] for 18 months. I just hope you've checked into the background and history of who you're dealing with.''

Clarett's former academic advisor and tutor also declined comment. The NCAA, which investigated Clarett for potential academic and financial irregularities in the summer of 2003, said it is against its policy to discuss the Clarett case.

Clarett, 21, who gained 1,237 yards and scored 18 touchdowns in 2002, his only collegiate season, says he was asked during the 2003 NCAA investigation whether he received a loaner car from Tressel, and, to protect the coach, he says, he answered no. He says when he was asked about other indiscretions, he answered, "I don't know" or "I don't remember," which was a violation of NCAA Rule 10.1, requiring forthright answers.

"What would have become of Ohio State if I said everything?'' Clarett told The Magazine. "Half the team would have been suspended, and it would have been worse for everybody. I was like, 'Why don't I just take it?'"

The school suspended him for the entire 2003 season, and when Clarett asked to be reinstated for 2004, he says the athletic department systematically "blackballed him" by taking away the teachers and tutors.

Clarett then tried applying for the 2004 NFL Draft, and was first ruled eligible and then ineligible, because he wasn't the requisite three years removed from high school. He says he was "depressed" by the court's ultimate decision to ban him, but is now working out in anticipation of the 2005 draft in April. He says he is hoping this winter to play in this winter's East-West Shrine game and the Senior Bowl, all-star invitationals that would be his first football games in two years.

Several pro executives say, as of now, the running back could go as low as the fourth or fifth round. Clarett contends he will change any negative perceptions at the NFL combine in February.

"I'm thinking, 'NFL GMs know college players take money,' " Clarett says. "It was nothing like I stole something. Nothing like I'm running from the law or I'm dragging a girl down the stairs. No domestic violence. No nothing. [But] I got to clear myself up now, because it's affecting the minds of the GMs."

 

[EvanstonCat]

Buckeyes chime in

By Ryan Hockensmith

ESPN The Magazine

Maurice Clarett isn't the only ex-Buckeye to allege improprieties at Ohio State. A number of players tell of similar experiences.

Marco Cooper, a linebacker suspended after two drug-possession arrests, says he enjoyed perks described by Clarett. When Cooper needed wheels, he says he went to a local Dodge dealer, got keys to a car and was allowed to return it whenever. Cooper never paid or signed papers. "There's no records for that stuff," he says. "There can't be." Just as there are no records for signed helmets and balls he says players use as currency around town for cars and clothing. "It starts at the No. 1 locker and goes all the way around the room," he continues. "You don't even know who you're signing for."

Cooper says a teammate once came home with a friend and some furniture for their apartment. The friend, an OSU student, was the son of a prominent booster. "He gave us furniture all the time," Cooper says. "At least $2,000 worth of nice tables and couches." In an interview last December, Curtis Crosby, an ex-Buckeye cornerback from Columbus, said he and other players accepted the same friend's generosity. He claimed that five to 10 teammates would go out to eat, none of them seeing the tabs for meals that cost hundreds of dollars.

Several former players say there are benefits to playing for OSU and coach Jim Tressel.

Like Clarett, Cooper says he worked a no-show landscaping job set up through the football staff and would come and go as he pleased. He says he was paid $10 to $12 an hour and always put down in for 30 hours. "I never worked 30 hours." He adds that he received at least $2,600 in cash and never filed paperwork or went through the compliance office. He knows at least eight teammates who did the same. Crosby also says he worked bogus jobs.

But Cooper's account differs from that of Richard McNutt, a cornerback who worked on another landscaping crew. McNutt says he did anything his crew manager asked. "I can only speak for myself. All I know is I worked." (After an ankle injury ended his career, McNutt became a student-assistant for head coach Jim Tressel; he now coaches the secondary at D3 Washington & Jefferson in Pennsylvania.) Chris Vance, a star wideout in 2001-02, also denies seeing any improper benefits but says he believes Clarett. "I don't think he's lying. If he feels it's right to speak out, then I'm behind him 100%."

Cooper is back at Ohio State, taking 10 credits a quarter and hoping to return to the team or to transfer. But transferring won't be easy. After Crosby became academically ineligible, he left in 2002 and spent two semesters at Columbus State CC. He then met with officials at Grambling, who saw a transcript that included Officiating Basketball and Officiating Tennis and denied nearly half of his credits. "What are they doing up there at Ohio State?" he says an adviser asked.

They're doing some things competitors aren't, according to an ESPN poll of the Big Ten and of the BCS top 15 from 2003. Four of the 23 schools surveyed offered officiating courses, but only Ohio State has sport-specific classes. Nine schools gave credit for playing football, but OSU topped the list with a maximum of 10 career credits. Seven schools offered a football coaching course, but only four (Indiana, Miami of Ohio, Mississippi and Ohio State) let their head coach teach it.

In two years at OSU, LeAndre Boone says he took whatever courses his athletic adviser suggested: "He'd say, 'Take this class; this professor loves football players.'" After two years Boone left for D1-AA Hampton, where he could play right away. But he went from academic junior at Ohio State to barely a sophmore at Hampton. After playing one game he was found to have a career-ending heart condition, and he's since moved with his wife and two daughters to the one place he knew he could get a degree: Ohio State.

Despite acing courses like Officiating Softball and Power Volleyball, Fred Sturrup (in car, left) became academically ineligible for 2001 and lost his scholarship. He thought about leaving and met with Youngstown State coaches, but after hearing transcript horror stories from teammates, he asked for a chance to stay. To get through spring ball while he got his grades in order, he unloaded furniture for $7.50 an hour. He'd ask teammates for quarters to make phone calls, then spend them once a day on Wendy's 99-cent menu. For four months he lived in his 1971 Cadillac. If Sturrup made a mistake, he says, coaches ran him until he was exhausted.

"I thought they were going to kill him," Crosby says.

Sturrup has given up on being a Buckeye, but not on his education. He hopes to graduate from Ohio State this spring. "They stuck their foot in my ass," he says. "But I'm not letting them stop me from getting my degree."

 

[EvanstonCat]

Clarett: My side of the story

From ESPN The Magazine:

He left on a Greyhound bus last May, without a goodbye, without anyone even flipping him the bird. He left unceremoniously, in the middle of the week, with one suitcase, one jacket and one championship he doubted was worth its weight in paper. He left behind the car dealerships, where he says the head coach got him SUVs. He left behind the library, where he says tutors got him bogus A's. He left behind the two-story homes, where he says he got paid for watching paint dry.

He left behind the stucco mansions, where he says boosters slipped him cash for playing Sega with their kids. And he left behind the horseshoe stadium, where he says one man in particular "sold me out".

He never told his mother he was fleeing Columbus, fleeing Ohio, fleeing the racist hate mail she'd already handed over to the FBI. He was too depressed to tell her, but too persona non grata to stay.

He sat alone on that bus for four days. Sat there clearing his mind. Sat there until he saw the Pacific Ocean. He pressed his head against the window and stretched his legs across two seats, and replayed all of his thoughts: the NFL won't let me in. They hate me. They think I don't work hard. They think I'm poison. They don't know the half of it. They don't know the lie.

He got to Hollywood and liked that he could actually walk the streets and not hear: There goes Maurice Clarett. He slept on a buddy's floor, and laid off the carbs, and hoped by this autumn, his second season away from football, his name wouldn't still be synonymous with scandal. But no chance. His associates called several NFL GMs this October and asked them, "What's your perception of Clarett?" And the consensus was the same: immature. Risky. No work ethic. Fourth round.

It angered him, because he thought his college coach, Jim Tressel, the coach he claims he protected in an NCAA investigation, would have set those GMs straight. Would have told them how Clarett used to close down the weight room, how he once returned from knee surgery like it was the flu, how they never would've beaten Miami without him.

"I thought he'd give me the NFL," Maurice Clarett says. "I thought he'd say, 'You took from me and you didn't tell on me, so here's the NFL.' He could have painted me as the first pick in the draft, as the world's greatest everything. He wound up selling me out."

Maurice Clarett is speaking to clear his name with the NFL.

Now, Clarett is a football pariah, denounced by his own school, a school he carried to a national championship almost two years ago. According to one NFL GM, Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger disparaged Clarett's character to league officials last spring, leading some teams to take Clarett off their draft board. "The AD just didn't like Clarett, for whatever reason," the GM says.

But few know why Clarett kept answering "I don't know" to the NCAA's questions. The NCAA kept asking where he got his cash, cars and trinkets, and Clarett claims he kept saying "I don't know" or "I just magically got them" or "I don't remember." Geiger was furious with him for that, and the NCAA ran him out for that. But Clarett says he lied to save his coach's hide, lied because he thought his coach would convince Geiger to keep him eligible, lied because he didn't want to implicate the men in Columbus with deep pockets.

"He's ineligible because he declined to tell the truth 17 times during an investigation," Geiger says, while refusing to comment on Clarett's specific allegations. "If you want to give him credibility when he's been unable to tell the truth under any circumstance since I've been around him, I'm not going to respond."

But, says Clarett, "what would've become of Ohio State if I said everything? Half the team would've been suspended, and it would've been worse for everybody. I was like, why don't I just take it?"

He thought Tressel would return the favor and protect him, but instead he was suspended indefinitely. Then, he says, he was stripped of teachers, tutors and perks. He calls it an institutional "blackball." That's why he sits in front of a tape recorder now, 14 months later, so he can tell the NFL GMs that there's another side to this story. That's why he's making claims about free rides, free cash, free grades and an Ohio State system that he says lined his pockets and then methodically tore him down.

"Ohio State created me," Maurice Clarett says right off the top. "They created what they suspended."

TO HEAR him talk, his college classes were a sham. Maurice Clarett graduated from high school a semester early and arrived at Ohio State in January 2002. Before long, he says, his grades were literally guaranteed. He describes a system that kept him and other players eligible and was overseen by the football program. He says his "grades were messed up" early on, that he wasn't supposed to be eligible for spring practice or the opening of training camp, but that his coaches simply fixed the problem. "As soon as they'd seen me struggle, they switched academic advisers for me," Clarett says. "He turned me on to a tutor, and then we were cool.

"The tutor is a professor at the school. I'd sit there with a notepad, and I'd be playing or talking on the phone, and he'd just outline everything in the book, and say, 'This is what you write for your paper.' He'd take a notepad and say, 'Write this, write that.'

"And they'd tell you like, the old test from winter '02 is going to be the test for January '03. Or the fall of '01 is going to be the next test. They tell you how the tests rotate."

As Clarett moved into his debut season in the fall of 2002, about to be the first true freshman running back to start a season opener at Ohio State, he realized everything was aligned to prevent his academic failure. If it wasn't tutors doing "research" for him, it was academic advisers registering him in courses friendly to the football program.

"My classes were all independent study," he says. "So I'd show up in like the eighth week of the quarter and do something for the last two weeks, and I'd be fine. A lot of times, during classes, I'd be in the weight room lifting. The coaches would be like, 'You get your class done?' I'd be like, 'I'll get it done the last two weeks.'"

Clarett says his adviser mapped out his course schedule, put him in easy classes and told him which teachers were on his side. For example, he says he almost never attended one African-American and African studies class, and when he did, it wasn't difficult to cheat. "It was probably like a 40-person class, and 30 of them were football players," he says.

(to be continued)

 

[EvanstonCat]

(Clarrett's story Part II)

A former member of OSU's academic support staff, who requested anonymity, confirms Clarett's initial grades were "in bad shape," and that Clarett was given a tutor who "only had a few weeks to get him ready for exams" and keep him eligible. "We helped Maurice with, 'How can I survive, how can I get a good grade on a test,'" the former staffer says. "We understand the system. But that doesn't mean we did his work. Players like to brag that people are helping them out. It's a sign of status."

Clarett wasn't naive. He had suspected before he arrived in Columbus that he'd have privileges. "Any kid from Ohio will know," he says. "It's kind of a tradition. If you play good at Ohio State, you get taken care of." But living it was another experience. The favors, he says, began his first day on campus, in January 2002. There were no unoccupied dorm rooms that day, he says, and a staff member told him to stay in a hotel. "I ain't got no money," Clarett said. He says the staff member simply put it on a credit card.

That summer, Clarett says, the staff began finding him phantom jobs to put money in his pocket. He says it was the responsibility of running backs coach Dick Tressel, Jim's brother and then associate director of football operations, to find jobs for guys on the team. "If you're a walk-on, you're going to get a real job," Clarett explains. "But if you're a player, you go water some flowers for like four hours, and they pay you like a couple hundred. Sometimes you don't show up and you still get paid.

"That was my introduction to 'here comes all the free money.' I did show up at first. But I was like, this is boring, I ain't doing this. I used to go watch 'em hang drywall or something. I'd just hang out, go to McDonald's, come back, watch, leave, be gone. I made a couple grand."

By the fall, he says, the staff was "aligning" him with boosters who'd give him money for food, or for the shopping mall. He says coaches would tell him, go eat here and say hello to this person, or go to this school and talk, or go to this event and speak. Do this and when you leave, someone is going to set you straight.

"They got a little thing where you read books every Friday for kids. And you'll magically meet somebody there. Mr. Such-and-Such will be there. And then you meet Mr. Such-and-Such, and Mr. Such-and-Such becomes your friend for a while."

And how much cash would Mr. Such-and-Such pass along?

"Depends how you played that week," Clarett says.

After a 175-yard game? "It was in the thousands," says Clarett, who had 175 yards in the 2002 season opener against Texas Tech. "That was cool."

How would the cash change hands? "It'd get filtered down," Clarett says. "Me and a player would go into a coach's office. And the coach would be like, 'You met my friend Such-and-Such? He's a good friend of the program. You should check him out sometime.' You go over to his house, you meet him for dinner. You go play with their kids, meet their kids. The boosters know you're in college and need help. They're like, 'You got any money in your pocket?' They make sure you're straight."

Clarett lived 15 minutes from campus, so he also needed a car. He says he took that request right to the head coach. "My transmission blew in my car, a Cadillac. So I'm like, 'Coach Tressel, I can't get back and forth to campus.' This is probably after practice, 6 o'clock, 5 o'clock one night. He gets on the phone and says, this is where I get my car from. He called the man from McDaniel Automotive. He's like, 'I got a player here, Maurice Clarett. He needs a car. Do you have a car out there he can use?'

"So the man gets on the phone with me and says, 'What kind of cars do you like?' I say, 'Got any trucks?' He says, 'Yeah, I got two trucks. I got an Expedition and I got a Tahoe here right now.' He's like, 'I'll be there tomorrow morning.' They drove down to give me the car."

Clarett says he kept the Tahoe for 11 days, then switched to the Expedition. NCAA Rule 16.12.2.3 states that an institutional employee or representative of the institution's athletic interests is not allowed to provide a student athlete with the use of an automobile. According to Clarett, that is exactly what his head coach did. "This is what Jim Tressel arranged," Clarett says.

He says as long as he was running the football well, Tressel was attentive, asking, "You cool? How's your living situation?" He says they talked three or four times a week, always behind closed doors. "We never talked in front of anybody else," Clarett says. "It was always, 'Come to my office.'"

As the season wore on, he says the car swapping escalated, and the dealerships had no qualms about accommodating him. "When you're hot in Columbus, you just go," Clarett says. "Somebody's going to recognize your face. You say, 'I need to use a car.' 'Okay, here you go.'"

He says he'd keep the cars "for weeks, until I got tired of 'em." His favorite was the Lexus SC 430 sports car, but he tried to borrow anything that was new at the time. "Put it like this," he says. "There's a dealership on Morse Road, The Car Store. They've got a used car lot. You just go to the dealership, and go and go and keep on going. That's the car dealership Coach Tressel introduced me to, that and McDaniel Automotive. Both places set me up. I wouldn't have known these places if it wasn't for Ohio State."

(To be continued...)

 

[EvanstonCat]

(Clarrett's story Part III)

The perks made for a plush season. It didn't hurt that the Buckeyes were on their way to the national title game. The week they defeated archrival Michigan was Clarett's favorite week. He says coaches excused players from classes leading up to the game, and that after the 14-9 victory, boosters stopped by flashing their money clips.

"I couldn't have asked for more," Clarett says.

"I had the money I wanted, the car I wanted. I literally, literally had everything. My freshman year, being 19. If I wanted to call a girl, I could've called any girl I wanted, probably, in Ohio. If I wanted any car to drive, I could go to a dealership and get it. If I wanted some clothes, I had the money to put clothes on my back.

"And then, within a matter of months, everything got taken away. Every single thing. I'm talking from A to Z. I'd call people and they're, 'Uhhhh, I'm too busy right now.' The clubs that used to let me in? 'Uhhhh, not today.' The girls? 'Uhhh, I'm too busy right now.' Everybody became unavailable.

"I had nothing."

THE FALL was in stages, and was in part self-inflicted. Maurice Clarett knows he was wrong to have his hand out. And he also knows now he was wrong to assume Ohio State would always have his back, especially after he called them "liars" before the biggest game of his life. When he asked to attend the funeral of a childhood buddy in the week leading up to the Fiesta Bowl, he says he had initial approval to take a red-eye from Phoenix to Youngstown. But, he claims, Ohio State pulled the plug on the trip just hours before the flight. The school contended that Clarett hadn't filed the necessary paperwork to get permission to go. Clarett-who says he knocked on Tressel's door crying that night-told the media that Ohio State wasn't telling the truth.

"It was real big," he says. " 'Clarett calls Ohio State a bunch of liars.' "

Ohio State went on to win the national title, and Clarett scored the winning touchdown. But as far as Clarett is concerned, the minute he called out his school was the minute he was sent to an island. The boosters were the first to abandon him. "They didn't help me out," he says, "because I ran my mouth."

But he was still "switching cars like crazy." On the night of April 16, 2003, he borrowed a luxury vehicle from The Car Store, a loaded black 2001 Monte Carlo, just purchased at auction. He drove it to practice the next morning, and while he was working out he learned it had been burglarized. He says he called Tressel, asking him what to do, and says Tressel advised him to phone campus police. Records show he called them from a phone in the football office.

He met a campus policeman at the car. When he was asked what was missing, Clarett says he told him assorted TVs, radios and CDs, plus his wallet and some clothes. The cop asked how much the TVs and radios were worth, and Clarett says he could only guess because it was a borrowed car, a car he'd had for only 12 hours. He says the cop also asked how many CDs were in the car, and Clarett guessed there were two cases containing up to 300. The cop, agreeing with his guess and assuming each CD cost $15, added it all up.

So the unsigned police report listed the following stolen items: cash ($800), various audio components ($5,000), clothing ($300), two CD cases with a total of 300 CDs (estimated $4,500) and a black leather bi-fold. Total: $10,150.

Clarett thought the news of the break-in might go public, but it didn't. He never filed an insurance claim because the stolen items weren't his. When school ended in the spring, he simply moved on, leaving the team's practice facility to work with a personal trainer in Cleveland. He soon sensed Tressel and his staff were riled, thinking they'd lost control of their star.

"I didn't care," Clarett says. "I was like, the hell with them. I'm not saying it to be cocky, but people in town thought I had become bigger than Ohio State. The thing at the Fiesta Bowl had made everything real big, and they thought I needed to be brought down."

Soon he received an urgent phone call from the athletic department. The NCAA wanted to see him. They told him to bring an attorney.

 

[EvanstonCat]

(Clarrett's story part IV)


MAYBE IT was all the buzzing around in that Lexus. Or maybe it was the costly break-in. But by the spring of 2003, the NCAA had serious problems with Maurice Clarett.

On May 5, the NCAA first contacted Ohio State about him, and on June 26, Clarett and the only attorney he knew-personal injury lawyer Scott Schiff-first met with investigators. They asked about the break-in. Tressel, according to reports, was vague about his knowledge of it.

Soon, the leaks started. On July 12 The New York Times reported that Clarett and other players had received preferential academic treatment, that Clarett had walked out of an exam and been allowed to take an oral retest. The school responded by saying it would investigate academic standards for athletes (they ultimately said they found no wrongdoing). Geiger said there had been no special treatment for Clarett or any other athletes at the school.

On July 29, news of the Monte Carlo break-in finally went public, and the next day Tressel and Geiger announced that Clarett couldn't rejoin the team until issues about his eligibility were settled. By Aug. 22 the punishment had become a "multigame" suspension. Then on Sept. 10, Geiger announced that Clarett was done for the year for violating NCAA Bylaws 10.1 (not giving forthright answers) and 12 (taking benefits).

After Geiger made his announcement, Clarett refused comment-he claims Ohio State asked him not to talk-but he now claims he violated Bylaw 10.1 to protect Tressel and violated Bylaw 12 because of Tressel.

He says during the investigation that the NCAA rifled through credit card statements and asked, "How are you affording $800 worth of clothes from Macy's?" He says he told them he "magically" got the cash from his mother. When the NCAA asked how he paid for his food and gasoline, he started with the "I don't knows."

The NCAA asked about the Chevy Tahoe, the one he'd kept for 11 days, and he played dumb. "They asked, 'How did you get the car?'" Clarett says. "I said, 'I looked up the dealer's number in the phone book.' So they go investigating and find out the number isn't even in the phone book. They said, 'Did you get this car through Coach Tressel?' I'm like, 'Nah.' They suspended me for that." They also suspended him for the break-in, claiming he'd lied about the cost of the stolen items. "I didn't lie, I guessed," he says.

But by then he had begun to see the hypocrisy of it all. He was also being suspended for his relationship with Bobby Dellimuti, a caterer and family friend from Youngstown who gave Clarett and his mother upward of $2,000 while he was still in high school. At first Clarett lied and told the NCAA that Dellimuti gave him nothing. But eventually he came clean about a $500 check and $1,000 worth of cell-phone bills Dellimuti had paid for him since the 11th grade. Because Clarett hadn't known Dellimuti before his recruitment by Ohio State, these gifts were a violation of NCAA rules. This confounded Clarett. He says Ohio State gave him much more money than that, but, in the end, these cell-phone bills were what was helping to derail his sophomore season.

Sitting in the room with Geiger and NCAA officials, Clarett says he nearly lost his cool: "I said, 'If you're suspending me for stuff I did back in high school, I was never eligible to play anyway. So the trophy should be taken back, right?'

"Geiger just said,'No, no, no, no. That has nothing to do with it. Just answer the questions.'"

And that was the hang-up; Clarett wasn't answering questions. "I was trying to protect Coach Tressel, the boosters and everybody," he claims. "There were all kind of bills I had run up that boosters just gave me cash for. And I couldn't explain to the NCAA where I got it from.

"During the investigation, they started asking, 'Did anybody else get benefits?' And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, 'I'm going through four-hour interviews. If I tell on anyone, you're going to bring him in, and he's going to have four-hour interviews. It was more than 10 people. It was more than 20 people.

"The NCAA was, 'Are you sure you don't want to say anything about anybody else? And Mr. Geiger was like, 'Are you sure?' Inside, I'm like, 'Are you crazy?' The only thing that matters at Ohio State is football. Everybody knows what's going on, but everybody doesn't want to act like they know."

In September, the Columbus City attorney began to prosecute Clarett for the police report. The attorney said Clarett had falsified it. Clarett maintained he'd guessed at it, but rather than go to trial he accepted a plea bargain and paid a $100 fine to put the ordeal behind him.

But he was being vilified in town, and by December, he says, he'd received hate mail and a death threat. He was sure it was all payback for his one big mistake: dissing Ohio State at the Fiesta Bowl. "They were thinking, 'How do we get him back?'" Clarett says. "They called me a liar. 'He lied about his police report. He lied during his investigation.'"

Clarett thought there was one person who could help. But he couldn't get that person on the phone. "I couldn't talk to Coach Tressel," Clarett says. "He was making himself unavailable.

"We had so many meetings before that Coach Tressel just saved me in. I think he knows in his heart he sold me out. He sold me out to keep his integrity. I don't know if it was the pressure from the athletic department saying, 'You got to sell him out.' But he sold me out.

"Coach Tressel, he made everything easy & until he wanted to make it hard."

(To be continued...)

 

[EvanstonCat]

Clarrett's story Part V



CLARETT BEGAN to believe that Ohio State was squeezing him. He was allowed on the sideline for the 2003 home games, then he wasn't. He could play on the scout team, then he couldn't. He had his tutors, then he didn't.

He says he went to Tressel in January 2004, asking for a scenario that could land him back on the field. Months before, Tressel and Geiger had said publicly that the door was open for a return if he paid back the Dellimuti money to charity, stayed eligible and showed "personal growth." But in January, he says, Tressel told him he wouldn't consider a reinstatement unless Clarett met two more conditions. He had to work out every day at 6 a.m. for the next two months. And he had to maintain a 3.5 GPA.

Clarett has never been a morning person, nor had he ever had to pay much attention to his GPA. "For me, it was either eligible or not eligible," he says. But he went to his academic adviser to ask what classes to take. He was surprised at the response: "Maurice, you have to sign up for your own schedule now."

He enrolled in another African-American and African studies class with the teacher he had before. But after a week, he says this professor barred him from the course, and Clarett claims she told him "somebody from a higher power" had instigated the move. "They blackballed me," Clarett says.

With no tutors or teachers in his hip pocket, he felt a 3.5 GPA was improbable if not impossible. And when he told Tressel the 6 a.m. workouts were too extreme, he says Tressel's response was, "If you make that decision, you have to make another decision." So Clarett quit school in February 2004 and applied for early entry into the NFL draft.

We all know the rest. A court ruling put him in the draft, another court ruling took him out, and when the Supreme Court wouldn't overturn the final ruling, Clarett was in limbo. No school, no NFL, no nothing.

His mother, Michelle, was despondent. She remembered the day Tressel sat in her home and promised to treat Maurice like his own son. What did she think of Tressel now? She doesn't know where to begin. "Is it betrayal? Is it disrespect? Is it dishonesty? Is it deceit? Is it a knife in my back?"

SO HE got on that Greyhound. By this time, so much more was in his head. A gun shot had been fired into his mother's home. Then, in February, ESPN reported that Dellimuti had made frequent calls to online offshore bookies, and Clarett was forced to answer questions about his friend's betting.

He likes that no one in Columbus knew where he was headed. And as the miles rolled by, he devised a plan. He needed NFL GMs to know that he hadn't been the nuisance at Ohio State that he was made out to be. And the best way to convince them of that was to open his mouth. "It wasn't like I stole something," he says. "Not like I was running from the law or dragging a girl down the stairs. But I have to clear myself up now, because it's affecting the minds of the GMs. I didn't say anything before, because I didn't think it'd be a problem."

So that's why he's sitting in front of a tape recorder. He says he wants to make it clear he didn't do it to get Ohio State in hot water, that he is "still a Buckeye at heart." But that said, he also thinks Ohio State "is going to try to ruin me now," that they will "bring in their high-powered lawyers and alumni" to discredit him, that they may badmouth him again to the NFL, that they may try to get his mother fired from her job as a county clerk.

He says that would hurt, but the story's out now. He's hoping to play in the East West Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl this January, his first games in two years, and he also hopes to show off his reinvented body at the NFL combine in February. At last year's combine, his body fat was a flabby 16%, but this time he plans to pare it down to under 5%. "I'm working," Maurice Clarett says. "I'm up every morning at 6 a.m."

At that hour, he's all alone again.

 

[EvanstonCat]

Booster money train at OSU

By Seth Wickersham

ESPN The Magazine

Former Ohio State running back Robert Smith believes Maurice Clarett is telling the truth about receiving cash from boosters and other powerful fans of the Buckeye football team, but stopped short of indicting the university's coaches or staff for providing benefits deemed improper by the NCAA.

"Absolutely I think that (Clarett getting paid by boosters) happened," he said. "I believe that it's happened. But there's a difference between fans providing it or members of the university. There's a huge distinction. I don't believe members of the university provided for him."

Why does Smith believe that Clarett is being truthful about the money?

Because Smith listened to teammates talking about the same sort of payments when Smith starred as a tailback in Columbus from 1990-92.

"I know players who played there who talked about it," he said. "It's not the kind of thing that was seen, but I know players I played with that talked about it."

Smith's description of the booster culture surrounding Ohio State's football program in the early 1990s fits with Clarett's statements about the current one. In the Nov. 22 issue of ESPN The Magazine, Clarett said before he left events where boosters were present, they would pull him aside. "When you'd leave, (the booster) sets you straight," Clarett said. "They say, 'You got any money in your pocket?' They make sure your money's straight."

Now a businessman living in Florida, Smith said that he knew which boosters gave players money. He would not comment on the booster names or the names of teammates he says accepted money.

But when asked if he heard about Ohio State teammates talking about, in his words, "$100 handshakes," Smith said: "Yeah."

Smith, who twice led the Buckeyes in rushing before playing nine seasons with the NFL's Minnesota Vikings, says a booster never offered him money. He believes that was because he was a pre-med major who once got into a dispute with a coach over high-level classes Smith took.

"I think that if players are looking for that kind of thing they can find it," he said. "You know what I mean? Some more than others. I really think, though, I had the kind of image at Ohio State where I may have been the whistle blower type. So that wasn't shoved in my hand."

Clarett said Tressel helped him get cars during his playing days by calling local dealerships. Smith said that he never witnessed anything like that when he was in school, however he heard similar stories from Buckeyes who played before him.

"I heard about car dealers, but that was like back in the '80s and even in the '70s actually," he said. "I didn't hear anything about that from current guys or guys that I played with."

Clarett also told the magazine that he would have been ineligible for Ohio State's 2002 national championship season if the football staff had not "aligned" him with academic advisors who simply had to maintain his eligibility by putting him in classes with handpicked teachers and by providing him with tutors who told him what to write for assignments.

Smith, 32, did not see or hear of any of those academic allegations during his time at Ohio State.

"The only thing I ever heard about -- I mean I heard easy A's from certain classes just because they were easy classes, and I heard it from regular students as well -- but I never heard about people getting tests or anything," he said. But, he added, "I'm sure there were some teachers that liked football players."

Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger has denied Clarett's statements that Tressel or his staff provided illegal benefits for Clarett.

Smith said that he could see both sides of the argument.

"Yeah, we know this stuff goes on, but at the same time, like I said, I think that it's highly doubtful that the university was directly involved," he said

Smith said that he spoke with Clarett once, during the 2002 season, when Clarett wanted advice on handling the pressure as a player in Columbus. Clarett broke Smith's freshman rushing record that year. He also indicated he didn't believe Clarett's allegations would help a future career in the NFL.

"If he thinks it's going to help his standing with the NFL, he's got another thing coming," he said.

 

[EvanstonCat]

Barre hosted Clarett on his recruiting visit

By Seth Wickersham

ESPN The Magazine

B.J. Barre, a former Ohio State cornerback who was host to Maurice Clarett during the ex-tailback's recruiting trip, says that during his two years as a scholarship-athlete he was paid for doing little work, had tutors write papers for him and was enrolled -- without his knowledge -- into Ohio State's Office of Disability Services so that he could take tests with help and under no time limit.

Barre said he supported Clarett by speaking publicly about taking money from boosters and academic improprieties because "I understand what he's going through."

"I think everybody already knows it was kinda going on," he said. After reading Clarett's comments in the Nov. 22 issue of ESPN The Magazine, Barre said: "It wasn't nothing new to me."

Barre, who played in 10 games as a freshman at Ohio State in 2000, said that he worked construction on Ohio Stadium during the spring and early summer of 2001. He said he did not remember the name of the company that hired him. He said that "six or seven" other Ohio State players did it with him but declined to give their names.

"I worked construction on the stadium," Barre said. "I pretty much gathered up and hung out with the boys, went to go get something to eat and kinda just, you know, I guess what they call work, but we really didn't do too much work."

Barre said the most work he ever did was push a broom. Clarett and former Buckeye Curtis Crosby told ESPN The Magazine about similar no-work/high-pay jobs.

"It would vary," Barre said. "Depends on how much we showed up. If you show up four times a week, you might get $800, $900, almost $1,000, depending on how much you showed up."

Barre, now 23 and playing with the Arena Football League's Chicago Rush, said his tutors often did his classwork for him.

"When I was there, I kinda had a couple of tutors who wrote a couple of papers for me and stuff like that and help me out more than they were supposed to," he said.

Although he says he does not have any sort of learning problems, he was allowed to take tests under guidelines for students with learning disabilities.

"It was a program where I'd go to a different building to take my test. I would leave class to take my test," he said. "Sometimes the teacher would help me with the test, like the tutor would read it to me or whatever to help me with the test."

Barre echoed Clarett and other former Buckeyes Sammy Maldonado and LeAndre Boone, who said their schedules were stacked with classes friendly to athletes. The first that popped into Barre's mind was the same African-American studies class Clarett took. Clarett said he almost never attended that class and when he did it was not difficult to cheat.

Did certain Ohio State teachers give football players an easy ride?

"I don't wanna say easy ride," Barre said, "but I guess show favoritism."

Barre said that he did not go to his African-American studies class yet received points for attendance.

Like several other former players who spoke to ESPN, Barre said his academic adviser picked his class schedule.

"You have advisers. It's not really you doing it. You don't even really have to pick your schedule out," he said.

Barre said he felt he fell out of favor with the Buckeyes coaching staff and after that thought his academic advisers stacked his classes to a level where he couldn't avoid flunking out. During the fall semester of 2001, he registered with 21 credit hours -- a normal load is 12 to 14 hours; included were difficult courses, such as upper-level physics.

"I think guys they'd want outta there, they'd try to load 'em up with a lot of classes, knowing they're already in academic trouble," he said. "And load 'em up with, ya know what I'm saying, really hard classes and push 'em out of there."

Barre doesn't know how he fell out of favor with Jim Tressel and other Ohio State coaches.

"That's the question I ask myself," he said.

Barre indicated boosters paid other OSU football players. He said he never saw money transfer hands, but he and other players were given credit cards with names other than their own. He also said he saw players driving around in numerous different cars.

"Yeah, I mean a guy don't just pop up with two and three cars a week, you know what I'm saying?" he said. "Switching cars like that because, like you said, we're college athletes. We don't get paid for playing football. So it's kinda hard for a guy to just pop up with two or three cars a month or something like that. We don't have the money to pay for it."

Barre, who went to Whitmer High in Toledo, flunked out of Ohio State in 2002 and continued playing football at Pasadena City College in California, where he earned his associate's degree. He was host to Clarett when the noted high school star made his recruiting visit to Columbus in 2001.

"He was a pretty cool guy," he said.

Ohio State associate athletics director for communications Steve Snapp said the university would have no comment on Barre's allegations.

 

[EvanstonCat]

Football paying off at Ohio State

Opinion ; Boca Raton News

Published Thursday, November 18, 2004 at 1:00 am

by Steve Zimmerman

College football used to be fun to watch either on television or in person. That was when real amateurs played the game.

But now with huge television contracts and shoe companies waving big bucks under university college presidents and athletic director’s noses, a seamy side has emerged, chock full of suspicion, innuendo and outright guilt.

So meet college football’s latest poster boy for alleged illegal activity.

Jim Tressel has come under scrutiny again after his former star running back Maurice Clarett alleged being paid for jobs he never worked and for being given cars to drive by boosters.

And Tressel deserves everything he is getting now. For Tressel is a traitor. He is a traitor to his players and his programs, plural. Tressel’s problems at TOSU are well documented. The one’s he had at Youngstown State are not.

Tressel was employed at Youngstown State prior to taking over as OSU football coach from John Cooper in 2001. Since then, the Buckeyes have finished 7-5, 14-0 and 11-2 and were national champions in 2002.

In 2003, Tressel came under fire for his first Maurice Clarett affair. Clarett was dismissed from the team after leading them to the national title in 2002. He was accused of, and admitted to, lying on a police report and also admitted he accepted gifts of cash and cars from boosters.

All the while Clarett was under fire; he never once gave up the coach. But when the heat fell on Tressel for an explanation, he, without hesitation, gave up Clarett, squealing like a greased pig at a pig race on the Fourth of July.

That sent a very chilling message to any players who might also have thought about coming forward with accusations or, heaven forbid, the truth.

Don’t cross the coach or else you could wind up like Clarett, on the sidelines out of football.

In 1988, the Youngstown State Penguin quarterback was a young man named Ray Isaac. Isaac was the star and Tressel knew it. So did one “overzealous” booster. And therein lies the beginning of Tressel’s problems with the NCAA.

Isaac, by his own admission, began taking money from a booster shortly after becoming a Penguin. He admitted in the past few weeks to several news organizations that the amount could have been as high as $10,000 in his college career. And that is above and beyond the use of cars he had.

The gifts, which came from the former chairman of a well-known discount drug store chain (Phar-Mor), only came to light when that chairman found himself in court accused of corporate fraud.

Tressel, like Sergeant Schultz on the old Hogan’s Heroes comedy, told investigators, “I know nothing.”

And they believed him.

Clarett has alleged the same things at OSU, including jobs where he got paid but did little if any actual work. And again, Tressel has claimed no knowledge of any illegal activity.

And now, four other former Buckeyes, including former Minnesota Viking Robert Smith say they either received gifts or knew of gifts being given players at Ohio State.

But the tie-in between Clarett and Tressel goes even deeper as Clarett is from guess where...Youngstown, Ohio. And Tressel knew Clarett and followed his high school exploits closely while still at YSU. He also recruited Clarett’s older brother to come to YSU.

An investigation was conducted over the allegations at Youngstown State but Tressel skated by without a nick. It was after the final report was released that he was hired by The Ohio State University.

What has happened to Clarett is nobody’s fault but his own. He took the gifts knowing it was wrong. He stopped attending classes during his freshman year because he didn’t think it mattered. And he took the bad advice of an agent, signed with that agent and tried to move to the NFL following his sophomore season.

He was rebuked by the NFL and lost in court. So now he sits in limbo, apparently working out in preparation for the 2005 NFL Draft.

If Clarett is drafted, after all he ha been through and the baggage he now carries, it won’t be until the late rounds. If he stayed in school and had played his sophomore and junior seasons, coming out after his junior year, he might have gone in the top three rounds.

Now that is just a fairy tale for Clarett. The NCAA is now planning to visit the school for what could be just another of its dog and pony shows.

And Tressel, following another loss Saturday, sits on the hot seat. Unfortunately, it is because of wins (lack of) and losses (too many) and not his skating ability.

 

[EvanstonCat]

Three more former Buckeyes support allegations

By Seth Wickersham

ESPN The Magazine

The NCAA is now interested in talking with former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett about possible improprieties surrounding the Buckeyes football program, ESPN has learned.

It remains unclear whether the NCAA, which visited Columbus on Nov. 15, will convene a new investigation into academic fraud and booster misconduct after Clarett implicated the school during an interview published in ESPN The Magazine earlier this month.

Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel and athletic director Andy Geiger have dismissed Clarett's charges during recent media gatherings, but new sources from within the program have told ESPN they believe Clarett, and the NCAA has reason to listen to the allegations.

Three former Ohio State players -- the son of a former Buckeyes assistant coach, an Academic All-Big Ten selection and a current NFL player -- spoke about tutors doing classwork for members of the football team and of a booster culture that spawned "$100 handshakes" and high-paying, low-effort summer jobs.

Former Buckeyes linebacker Fred Pagac Jr., whose father Fred Sr. was an assistant coach at Ohio State for 19 years, says, "There are always people who will help you and cross the line. I've personally seen it happen. You had tutors who if you asked them for help writing a paper they'd end up writing it. You'd go in and ask help about specifics, and then it would end up getting written."

Jack Tucker, an Academic All-Big Ten selection at fullback, also believes tutors complete homework for football players. "Absolutely," he says. "For someone to think it doesn't [happen], they're crazy."

Carolina Panthers wide receiver Drew Carter describes a culture in which football players would find a "hookup" -- a tutor who does their homework for them or a booster who provides an easy, high-paying job -- and pass the information to their teammates. "Someone would be like, 'Man I got a paper due' and teammates would be like, 'Go to this guy,' " Carter says. "He'd write out a rough draft and say, 'Here, do it for yourself.' "

Though a number of other former players have told ESPN they never saw any wrongdoing in Columbus, Carter says it was common knowledge which tutors would do other people's work. "Yeah, the hookup," he says. "When you find that hookup, gotta help your teammates by letting them know about it."

Carter says "hook-ups" were also responsible for finding players cushy summer jobs. "A fan or an [alumnus], that's the hook-up. You go up to the guy through a friend; you don't even know him. It wasn't like, 'Oh, I need an easy job this summer, Coach.' Not like that at all. Somebody on the team has a job and you ask them, 'Is it hard?' And they say no and you say, 'OK, I'm gonna try and get on it.' "

Carter did odd jobs when he was at Columbus for which he says he was paid up to $20 an hour. "You get a paycheck, $1,000 or something like that. It wasn't under the table; my job had my Social Security number and everything. But you still got paid quite a bit of money for sweeping, cleaning up stuff, doing like very, very light work. What you would call nonstrenuous work."

Clarett said he received money "in the thousands" from boosters after posting big rushing totals in games. On the subject of fans and boosters offering "$100 handshakes," Tucker responds as if it were common knowledge. "Yeah, I believe that happens," he says. "I mean, tell me something I don't already know."

Carter, Pagac and Tucker do not believe Tressel set up Clarett with vehicles. But Carter says it should have been obvious to the administration that Clarett was driving expensive cars. It was certainly a popular subject of conversation among players.

"I don't know how he got those cars, but he had them," Carter says. "It was blatant. I'd see him changing cars like every couple of weeks and it was like, damn. I don't know how the coaches could not have seen it."

Asked for a response, Steve Snapp, Ohio State's associate athletics director of communications, said: "In my opinion it's another example of selective journalism on [ESPN's] part and and an attempt to run an unbalanced story."

Last week Geiger criticized Clarett and the players who have backed his claims as "colossal failures."

Carter is offended by Geiger's statement and hopes he, along with Tucker and Pagac, will lend credibility to his former teammates. "Those are good guys who made some mistakes," he says, "but I don't think they're colossal failures. They're my friends, we went through it all together. If guys like Freddie and Jack and me went through it and didn't get in trouble and did everything right, but still, you know, got some perks because of it, are you gonna call us colossal failures, too?

"That's why Ohio State is being afraid -- because if other people, legit people, like Freddie and Jack and myself, say stuff, then they'll be like, 'Oh no.' "

 

[chicagocatfan24]

This is the worst thread in the history of these message boards

 

[shakes3858]

This is the worst thread in the history of these message boards

Holy hyperbole, Batman. Turk's rant board thread about the world being flat is by far worse.

 

[chicagocatfan24]

Holy hyperbole, Batman. Turk's rant board thread about the world being flat is by far worse.

That's actually true, I wanted to punch my computer screen just reading that garbage

 

[mikewebb68]

Holy hyperbole, Batman. Turk's rant board thread about the world being flat is by far worse.

And DCF's apology thread to the Wisconsin fans for beating them also immediately comes to mind. Fortunately that was the beginning of the end for him...

 

[DaCat]

That was a bad one. "Sorry we stole your win.." Arrrrggghhhh.

 

[klemman]

Wow, get away from a message board a few days and ...wow. Chicagofan, I agree with you, but since the posts were I assume directed towards me, I'll answer.

Ecat, nice book. First of all you include a list that looks impressive, but the majority of the illegalities were misdemeanors such as under age drinking and open container, things that happened usually in a players first year or two, and very often while they weren't on campus or were in their home towns. You also included examples where players were acquitted or the charges were dropped. Many of the players on your list were also either suspended from the team or outright kicked off the team.

You mention almost 20 players in Tressel's first 4 years who got into trouble. Considering that each of those years there were 85 scholarship players, that amounts to about 6% of players in each of those years got into trouble- most of which were minor infractions. In the overall scheme of things, not an outlandish ratio.

Regarding Clarett, he has recanted a lot of what he has said. Again, he was suffering with bi-polar issues which may have led him to some stretching of the truth as well as being a reason he did some of the things that he did. And in the end, he only played at OSU for one year. He was suspended for his entire second year. I think that was an appropriate response you the program for the infractions that he did do.

And finally, I never said that infractions don't occur. There are a lot of hanger-on'rs who are willing to do underhanded things to feel "close" to the players and programs. The coaches warn players about such, and certainly doesn't support or arrange these connections. But they do occur and sometimes an kids make mistakes.

 

[chicagocatfan24]

Wow, get away from a message board a few days and ...wow. Chicagofan, I agree with you, but since the posts were I assume directed towards me, I'll answer.

Ecat, nice book. First of all you include a list that looks impressive, but the majority of the illegalities were misdemeanors such as under age drinking and open container, things that happened usually in a players first year or two, and very often while they weren't on campus or were in their home towns. You also included examples where players were acquitted or the charges were dropped. Many of the players on your list were also either suspended from the team or outright kicked off the team.

You mention almost 20 players in Tressel's first 4 years who got into trouble. Considering that each of those years there were 85 scholarship players, that amounts to about 6% of players in each of those years got into trouble- most of which were minor infractions. In the overall scheme of things, not an outlandish ratio.

Regarding Clarett, he has recanted a lot of what he has said. Again, he was suffering with bi-polar issues which may have led him to some stretching of the truth as well as being a reason he did some of the things that he did. And in the end, he only played at OSU for one year. He was suspended for his entire second year. I think that was an appropriate response you the program for the infractions that he did do.

And finally, I never said that infractions don't occur. There are a lot of hanger-on'rs who are willing to do underhanded things to feel "close" to the players and programs. The coaches warn players about such, and certainly doesn't support or arrange these connections. But they do occur and sometimes an kids make mistakes.

My post was directed at anyone and everyone bickering with each other about why their school is better than your school. It's a stupid argument and one that can't be won.

I've said it before, and I will not in any way elaborate on this, but I know a few current players at NU and players who recently graduated, and I can promise you, NU doesn't come close to rostering a team full of saints. People will call me out for saying this and not expanding on it, and I would too, but it's the truth.

Anyways, it's baseball season. The White Sox are smack dab in the middle of a pennant chase, so IDGAF about college football right now. F the Cubs

 

[Hungry Jack]

Is the trial over yet? Closing arguments made? Has the jury rendered a verdict?

 

[pawildcat]

My post was directed at anyone and everyone bickering with each other about why their school is better than your school. It's a stupid argument and one that can't be won.

I've said it before, and I will not in any way elaborate on this, but I know a few current players at NU and players who recently graduated, and I can promise you, NU doesn't come close to rostering a team full of saints. People will call me out for saying this and not expanding on it, and I would too, but it's the truth.

Anyways, it's baseball season. The White Sox are smack dab in the middle of a pennant chase, so IDGAF about college football right now. F the Cubs

And a Screw the Sox to you, too.

 

[klemman]

My post was directed at anyone and everyone bickering with each other about why their school is better than your school. It's a stupid argument and one that can't be won.

I've said it before, and I will not in any way elaborate on this, but I know a few current players at NU and players who recently graduated, and I can promise you, NU doesn't come close to rostering a team full of saints. People will call me out for saying this and not expanding on it, and I would too, but it's the truth.

Anyways, it's baseball season. The White Sox are smack dab in the middle of a pennant chase, so IDGAF about college football right now. F the Cubs

More or less my point and the reason I get into these discussions. I certainly don't say OSU is better than nay program including Northwestern. Each school has its advantages and disadvantages for different reasons, each school has a different goal, and these are reflected in the football programs.

I argue against the generalized villainization of OSU, or at least call for the reason, the real reason for the hatred.

 

[EvanstonCat]

My post was directed at anyone and everyone bickering with each other about why their school is better than your school. It's a stupid argument and one that can't be won.

I've said it before, and I will not in any way elaborate on this, but I know a few current players at NU and players who recently graduated, and I can promise you, NU doesn't come close to rostering a team full of saints. People will call me out for saying this and not expanding on it, and I would too, but it's the truth.

Anyways, it's baseball season. The White Sox are smack dab in the middle of a pennant chase, so IDGAF about college football right now. F the Cubs

You're missing the point. No one ever said we had a team full of saints. What we have is an institution that does not accept inappropriate activity, actively covers shit up nor does it cut corners to admit kids who have no business being at a B1G academic institution just to win on the field. Our kids get an education, they are managed to stay out of trouble, and when they do get in trouble, they are punished and no one tries to cover up anything. Take the gambling situation, where NU self-reported and was praised by the NCAA and the FBI for their actions and exhibited as a model of institutional self-control. Oh, and they still win on the field and go to bowls, with the hope being that we can make the leap to contend for B1G championships regularly and ultimately join the National Championship picture.Contrast that to dOSU, where the program is complicit in engaging in fraudulent activity (joke classes that don't transfer, tutors that do the work, make up oral exams), exploits kids for their football skills (dumping kids like Maldonaldo to the curb if they aren't contributing), and covers up everything and anything, from the blackballing of whistle-blowing tutors to something as mundane as tattoo's, just to win on the field. Sure, they win on the field, but at the expense of selling their soul and littering their wake with corpses. It's college athletics at it's worst.

Just like a White Sox fan - middle of a pennant chase in April. Probably will be out of it by May or June. SOX SUX.

 

[EvanstonCat]

More or less my point and the reason I get into these discussions. I certainly don't say OSU is better than nay program including Northwestern. Each school has its advantages and disadvantages for different reasons, each school has a different goal, and these are reflected in the football programs.

I argue against the generalized villainization of OSU, or at least call for the reason, the real reason for the hatred.

You still haven't responded to the overwhelming documentation of all the ridonkulous incidences at dOSU under Tressell, not written by me, but by major journalistic publications. These aren't tabloids we are talking about. This is ESPN which is the dominant authority on sports coverage in the nation. When you have scores of problems, that's not something that happens everywhere - it is a pattern. Continue believing that dOSU does no wrong. Your devotion to the football team leads to blindness. If we have different objectives, it's that we want to win while doing things right, while you will win at all costs, even the cost of selling your soul and the souls of your players to the devil.

 

[shakes3858]

You're missing the point. No one ever said we had a team full of saints. What we have is an institution that does not accept inappropriate activity, actively covers shit up nor does it cut corners to admit kids who have no business being at a B1G academic institution just to win on the field. Our kids get an education, they are managed to stay out of trouble, and when they do get in trouble, they are punished and no one tries to cover up anything. Take the gambling situation, where NU self-reported and was praised by the NCAA and the FBI for their actions and exhibited as a model of institutional self-control. Oh, and they still win on the field and go to bowls, with the hope being that we can make the leap to contend for B1G championships regularly and ultimately join the National Championship picture.Contrast that to dOSU, where the program is complicit in engaging in fraudulent activity (joke classes that don't transfer, tutors that do the work, make up oral exams), exploits kids for their football skills (dumping kids like Maldonaldo to the curb if they aren't contributing), and covers up everything and anything, from the blackballing of whistle-blowing tutors to something as mundane as tattoo's, just to win on the field. Sure, they win on the field, but at the expense of selling their soul and littering their wake with corpses. It's college athletics at it's worst.

Just like a White Sox fan - middle of a pennant chase in April. Probably will be out of it by May or June. SOX SUX.

Snailed it

 

[EvanstonCat]

Is the trial over yet? Closing arguments made? Has the jury rendered a verdict?

The jury rendered a verdict long ago. Open and shut really. It's just that this Buckeye fan fails to acknowledge it and needs to have it pounded into his head. Still, there really is no hope for him.

 

[shakes3858]

it's that we want to win while doing things right, while you will win at all costs.

No they want to win provided they can find an excuse. There was no excuse for Woody Hayes trying to choke a player for intercepting the ball. There was no excuse for Noah Spence doing ecstasy while on a drug suspension. They need to do just enough morally to get guys like Klemman to make excuses like "that's what you get when you play big time football"

 

[shakes3858]

And DCF's apology thread to the Wisconsin fans for beating them also immediately comes to mind. Fortunately that was the beginning of the end for him...

I've been losing lots of sleep over winning that game. I just feel dirty that the the Wisconsin QB threw so many interceptions, their offense ran for less yards than I did that day and the heralded Wisconsin Oline could block a spam email. How dare we win a game like that!