Ay-Ziggy-Zoomba.com

COLUMBUS -- Ohio State coach Jim Tressel was autographing copies of his new book, Life Promises for Success, from 6 to 8 p.m. at a Columbus-area Costco Monday night.

Tressel exited the warehouse store in a different light than when he entered.

While he was signing his name, Yahoo! Sports reported on its Web site that Tressel was informed in April, 2010, by a tipster that several of his players -- including Terrelle Pryor -- were selling memorabilia to Edward Rife, owner of Fine Line Ink Tattoos in west Columbus.

The source told Yahoo! Sports that Tressel was troubled by the information and indicated he would look into the situation. Whether Tressel took any action at that time was unclear.

It was nine months later that a federal investigation discovered the sales that led to the suspension of six Buckeyes for NCAA violations.

When Ohio State held a news conference on Dec. 23 to announce the five-game suspension of players Pryor, Mike Adams, DeVier Posey, Dan Herron, and Solomon Thomas, and the one-game suspension of Jordan Whiting, athletic director Gene Smith said the school became aware of the memorabilia sales on Dec. 8.

If Tressel knew of the potential violations in April and did not act on or inform his superiors about it, he could be charged with NCAA violations including unethical conduct, failure to monitor, and/or a failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance. His contract could be terminated for failing to promptly report violations.

And if it is found that the information was passed along but not reacted to properly, the football program could face a possible disqualification of its 2010 season, which saw the Buckeyes go 12-1 and win a share of a record-tying sixth straight Big Ten championship.

Tressel and Smith, who is sequestered in Indianapolis as the head of the basketball's NCAAA Tournament Selection Committee, did not return messages Monday night. An Ohio State spokesman said the school would not have any reaction to the report until Tuesday.

Yahoo! Sports has broken stories on several NCAA violations at other schools in the past.

The distinction that is important here is the moving of this story from Pryor and his teammates to Tressel. It is moving from six student-athletes who committed NCAA violations while claiming they didn't know they were wrong, to a veteran coach who has dealt with NCAA allegations in the past now being accused of not being forthright with information.

I saw this and I gotta say this was a bit disturbing. I have always respected Jim Tressel, but I also have always felt like all the corruption / free cars / NCAA violations were being committed by boosters of the program, not Tressel. If this is true, this is really disturbing. You can guarantee there will be an NCAA investigation into the program.

Keep in mind ... Yahoo! Sports was the one who first reported trouble brewing at USC regarding Reggie Bush. The NCAA swung the hammer hard at USC. Ohio State's athletic director and compliance director better be preparing right now should NCAA investigators start sniffing around the program.

MarkL wrote:I saw this and I gotta say this was a bit disturbing. I have always respected Jim Tressel, but I also have always felt like all the corruption / free cars / NCAA violations were being committed by boosters of the program, not Tressel. If this is true, this is really disturbing. You can guarantee there will be an NCAA investigation into the program.

Keep in mind ... Yahoo! Sports was the one who first reported trouble brewing at USC regarding Reggie Bush. The NCAA swung the hammer hard at USC. Ohio State's athletic director and compliance director better be preparing right now should NCAA investigators start sniffing around the program.

He has never had a star QB who was not sanctioned by the NCAA....at OSU and Youngstown....

For what it's worth, the OSU athletic department is taking this really seriously. Their athletic director, Gene Smith, has been in NYC for meetings regarding seeding the NCAA basketball tournament. He's got a loaded schedule and would not leave unless it's really important.

He's flying back to Columbus probably right now and there's been a press conference scheduled for 7 tonight to address these allegations. Whatever is said tonight, you can guarantee Smith is taking this very, very seriously.

AP says he's getting a two-game suspension, which was proposed by the university to the NCAA.

That vest is teflon.

Huh.....Sweater Man gets a vacation when the boys trot out there against Akron and UT. Then he gets back in time for the first legit game of the year at Miami (FL). Good timing.

THROW PRAYOR IN THE FRYER................

Another Buckeye Recruit that couldn't handle the limelight......he is responisble for bringing down the buckeye nation. Clarett did this garbage in 2004 and trussel now is taking the fall for a bunch of knuckleheads that couldn't wait to be drafted in the NFL. Sometimes giving a kid a chance backfires, but if you are talented somebody is always going to take a chance on you as long as wins matter. Unless you actually have standards like BYU and nobody in the top 15 regularly in football or basketball for that matter has enough guts to that.

This stuff happens all over the place and your blind if you don't think. Even happens in the MAC.

unfalconbelievable wrote:THROW PRAYOR IN THE FRYER................

Another Buckeye Recruit that couldn't handle the limelight......he is responisble for bringing down the buckeye nation. Clarett did this garbage in 2004 and trussel now is taking the fall for a bunch of knuckleheads that couldn't wait to be drafted in the NFL. Sometimes giving a kid a chance backfires, but if you are talented somebody is always going to take a chance on you as long as wins matter. Unless you actually have standards like BYU and nobody in the top 15 regularly in football or basketball for that matter has enough guts to that.

This stuff happens all over the place and your blind if you don't think. Even happens in the MAC.

I agree....but most of us dont look at the coach like he is a part of the holy trinity. We are a bit more reasonable here.

Can I pick the two games he sits out?

1. Michigan
2. The Bowl Game

Like the $250K fine, but I also would have imposed no bonuses for next year and made him repay the bonuses he received for the past year as well.

Will he face sanctions from the Big 10, 11, and 12 (like Bruce Pearl did from the SEC) and also from the NCAA or will they think OSU did enough?

transfer2BGSU wrote:Like the $250K fine, but I also would have imposed no bonuses for next year and made him repay the bonuses he received for the past year as well.

In related news, ticket prices have been raised a quarter to cover the fine.

Heh Heh Heh...Saint Tressel feeling the heat. osu has more NCAA infractions in the last 10 years than any other BCS program. Waiting to hear from the osu sheep how this is just hatin' on the Buck$.

This is far from over. The 2 game suspension and 250K fine is from OSU alone. The BIG 10 and NCAA has yet to do its own investigation and there will be more suspensions. Tressel LIED. He knew about the allegations back in April. He admitted is last night and his answer wasn't very good. When asked why he didn't bring this information forward back in April his response was 'I didn't know who to turn to'. That is completely BS. He could have went to the AD, Gordon Gee, or to the NCAA. He tried to get away with lying. In December he said he first learned of the allegations in December. Well we see that is not true. He tried to cover it up.

Jim Calhoun lied to the NCAA for phone call recruiting violations and got 5 days suspension. Bruce Pearl lied to NCAA and got 8 game suspension. Dez Bryant lied about going to a party and getting a free mean and got suspended for a season. Lying to the NCAA is serious and Coach Tressel will get a more serious penalty from the NCAA. This is far from over.

Tressel could have said, "I saw the email. Didn't take it seriously. I get hundreds of fake emails a day.'. That would have been a better response but he said he didn't know who to turn too. He didn't know who to talk with. During his tenure at OSU Troy Smith was given money by a booster. Tressel may not have known about that at the time. Clarett grades were ineligible. He may not have known about that. Pryor and Clarett both were given cars to use on the weekends. I will back Tressel and believe that was given by a booster and he may not known about that. But he blatantly lied and withheld information. And what makes things worse for Tressel. He lied to the NCAA when he was at Youngstown State. This is far from over!!!

Here is a column from Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal...I give the dude kudos for standing up and telling it like it is instead of trying to "protect" Tressel and the osu program. I was blown away when I first read this:

Jason Lloyd: OSU's Tressel piles lies on top of lies
By Jason Lloyd
Beacon Journal sports writer

POSTED: 11:22 p.m. EST, Mar 08, 2011

COLUMBUS: He can't stop lying.
Even when he was trying to explain Tuesday why he lied in the first place, Jim Tressel was still lying.
He lied and deceived his bosses — all of them — for months. Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith, university President E. Gordon Gee and NCAA investigators who came to town in December looking for the answers he refused to supply.
Typically, lying to all of those people is a fireable offense — it's even written into his contract as such. But Tressel is returning to work today as the football coach at Ohio State University because of six consecutive Big Ten championships, a 9-1 record against Michigan and a national championship soiled in the same stains that cloak the program again today.
Tressel should have been fired for lying to his bosses. Not Tuesday, when OSU officials finally came clean because of a Yahoo Sports report that forced their hand, but back in January when they first discovered Tressel's lies and cover-up.
Tressel learned last April, through an e-mail from a local attorney giving him a heads-up, that the federal government raided a local house and at least two current players were involved in a memorabilia scam with a convicted felon (Eddie Rife) and receiving free tattoos from him.
He lied to everyone about it and pleaded ignorance — the same ignorant excuse he used in 2002 when Maurice Clarett was driving around town in free cars, in 2004 when Troy Smith was taking money from a booster and previously in the late '80s and early '90s when Ray Isaac's pockets were stuffed at Youngstown State under his watch.
For Smith and Gee to suspend Tressel for two games (against Akron and Toledo) and fine him $250,000 (14 percent of his salary for next season) is a snub of arrogance at the rest of college sports.
When Tennessee men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl lied to NCAA investigators, he was suspended half of the conference season by SEC Commissioner Mike Slive. When Washington football coach Rick Neuheisel lied to NCAA investigators, he was fired by the university.
Pearl lied about hosting potential recruits at his house and Neuheisel lied about a March Madness office pool — hardly the same as lying about playing ineligible athletes.
And let's be clear: Jim Tressel knowingly played six ineligible athletes all of last season.
According to the self-report the university filed with the NCAA on Tuesday, Tressel lied to Ohio State at least three times about his knowledge of the case — twice when pressed about it by school officials in December and prior to that on Sept. 13, when he signed an NCAA Certificate of Compliance indicating he had reported any knowledge of possible violations to the institution.
Tressel did reveal, according to the report, that he had received a ''tip,'' but couldn't recall from whom. He claimed he did not know that any items had been seized.
The whole time he was telling those lies, he had multiple e-mails in his university account from that Columbus attorney with intricate details of the entire case.
School officials didn't discover the e-mails until stumbling upon them while investigating a separate matter. Otherwise, it's fair to assume Tressel never was going to come forward with his knowledge or the e-mails.
He would've simply strolled through life and pleaded ignorance, just as he did when Clarett was cashing in with cars and Isaac and Troy Smith were taking cash payments from boosters.
Tressel received the first e-mail on April 2 and replied to it four hours later. He could've forwarded it onto the compliance office or, at the very least, mentioned it to his boss, Gene Smith.
Instead, he tried Tuesday to hide behind a bogus request for confidentiality that didn't exist.
In the initial e-mail Tressel received, which the university released copies of Tuesday night, there is no mention of keeping the e-mails confidential. That request for confidentiality didn't come until April 16 — exactly two weeks after Tressel received the first e-mail.
Lies. All lies.
He could've suspended the two players he knew were involved, but chose to continue to play them.
''The focus of mine was to not interfere with a federal investigation,'' Tressel said. ''If you all of a sudden sit down some players that have earned the opportunity to play, it's a whole new set of questions that arise.''
Only one problem — they hadn't earned the opportunity to play. They had violated NCAA rules and he knew it. Beyond that, college athletes are suspended every season for a broad ''violation of team rules'' infraction and no further explanation is ever offered. Tressel could've sat the two players he knew were involved for a nonconference game early in the season, but his arrogance and ability to slide out of so many previous scandals infused in him a sense of entitlement to do it again.
This time, he finally got caught.
This isn't over.
Just because Ohio State thinks a pathetic two-game suspension and hefty fine suffices, the NCAA doesn't have to agree. It can assess more sanctions, such as a longer suspension and in more meaningful games.
Pearl didn't play any ineligible players. Tressel did.
And for once, he can't plead ignorance about it.
''The integrity of this program,'' Gee said, ''and the integrity of this coach is absolutely superb.''
Lies. All lies.

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Jason Lloyd can be reached at [email protected].

Very nice letter. Glad to see he included my Bruce Pearl mention. When I wrote my reply this morning I had no idea someone wrote that detailed of a letter. Kudos to the reporter. That is a very great letter and like I said this is far from over. Curious to see what the Big 10 and NCAA does. I am guessing OSU will lost at least 17 scholarships just as USC did.

Been waiting for this for years. It's about time.

They could easily make an example out of him with all the lying. Their best hope is the NCAA goes light on them because the NCAA doesn't want to bite a hand that feeds too hard because OSU is a major cash cow for them.

Loving it