No one reads a mystery novel by starting in Chapter 9, jumping to Chapter 2, ahead to Chapter 20, then backward again to Chapter 6.
All context would be lost and the plot would prove impossible to follow.
But that’s exactly how we’ve learned the details of Jim Tressel’s attempt to conceal NCAA violations by his players, resulting in a troubling investigation of the head coach and the Ohio State football program.
Facts have been leaked, reported and confirmed in random order, making it difficult to gauge the depth of Tressel’s deception and process how fully he engaged in lying to the NCAA and Ohio State to conceal his behavior.
Boil away all the dates and times of emails, telephone calls and press conferences and we are left with three indisputable facts:
• Tressel lied to the NCAA in September and lied twice to OSU investigators in December.
• Tressel played quarterback Terrelle Pryor and wide receiver DeVier Posey the entire 2011 regular season when he knew they were ineligible because of NCAA rules violations.
• Tressel had innumerable chances to notify OSU and the NCAA of his players’ wrongdoing and he never admitted to any of it until confronted by Ohio State on Jan. 23 with damning emails from the tipster who told him about the violations nine months earlier.
Any of those three transgressions would be enough to result in the immediate firing of most coaches.
But most coaches don’t win like Tressel, who has averaged 10 wins per season over his decade at OSU.
No one in power at Ohio State – not president E. Gordon Gee, not athletic director Gene Smith nor any member of the Board of Trustees – has demonstrated the fortitude to own the decision to fire Tressel for his unprecedented wrongdoing and embarrassment of not just the OSU football program, but the university’s national reputation.
Tressel lied; he cheated, and he engaged in a prolonged cover-up.
That’s quite a hat-trick of misbehavior, one few rogue coaches in the annals of the NCAA’s worst rule-breakers could match.
Because the details have dribbled out over the past five months, it’s been easy to miss just how duplicitous Tressel has been.
But we now know that when he signed and dated an NCAA rules compliance form in September -- certifying he had notified Gee, Smith and other OSU officials of all NCAA rules violations he knew about – Tressel had:
• Exchanged 12 emails with Columbus attorney Chris Cicero, the tipster who notified him of Pryor’s and Posey’s wrongdoing in April 2010.
• Spoke at least three times for a total of 36 minutes with Pryor’s “mentor,” Ted Sarniak, a glass factory owner from the quarterback’s hometown, who accompanied him on his recruiting trips.
• Exchanged 33 text messages and phone calls with Pryor in April of 2010.
We don’t know how often Tressel communicated with Cicero, Sarniak or Pryor over the summer, because OSU has not provided that information despite numerous requests from media organizations.
But consider only the spring communications – the dozen emails with Cicero, the calls with Sarniak and the more-than-once-a-day contact with Pryor.
Now flash forward to December, when OSU investigators spoke to Tressel after receiving notification from the U.S. Attorney’s office that several players’ championship rings and awards were among memorabilia seized in the drug raid Cicero warned Tressel about in April.
OSU investigators spoke with Tressel on Dec. 9 and again on Dec. 16.
According to the school’s self-report to the NCAA, OSU’s investigators asked Tressel if he had previously heard anything about the players’ activities with Edward Rife, the tattoo parlor owner that Cicero gave him repeated detailed information about nine months earlier, including that OSU players had sold Rife their memorabilia.
Remember, Tressel had exchanged 12 emails with Cicero, spoken with Sarniak three times for 36 minutes and communicated with Pryor more than once a day.
Given all that knowledge and discussion about the matter OSU investigators were asking him about, this is how Ohio State said Tressel answered:
“When Coach Tressel was asked if he had been contacted about the matter or knew anything about it, he replied that while he had received a tip about general rumors pertaining to certain of his players, that information had not been specific, and it pertained to their off-field choices.
“He implied that the tip related to the social decisions/choices being made by certain student-athletes. He added that he did not recall from whom he received the tip. He also stated that he did not know that any items had been seized.”
The “general rumors” Tressel spoke of, the ones that “had not been specific?” The truth is, Cicero’s initial email named specific players and gave an inventory of the rings and memorabilia they had sold to Rife in violation of NCAA rules.
The “social decisions” smokescreen Tressel tried to distract OSU investigators with? The truth is, Cicero’s first email accuses Rife of being a felon, a former witness in a capital murder case and a drug trafficker. Cicero even gave Tressel court case numbers to support those claims.
Cicero’s second email, sent to Tressel after Cicero met for 90 minutes with Rife, said, “He really is a drug dealer.”
And what of Tressel’s assertions to OSU investigators that, “he did not recall from whom he received the tip,” and that “he did not know any of the items had been seized?”
Those are laughably untrue based upon Tressel’s correspondence with Cicero and the knowledge he gained from their repeated email exchanges.
For Tressel’s claims to OSU investigators to be genuine, we must believe that after exchanging 12 emails with Cicero, Tressel didn’t remember who Cicero was? That’s odd, because in an email to Sarniak in April, Tressel described Cicero as “a criminal lawyer in town. He played here when I was an assistant coach in the early 1980s. He has always looked out for us.”
For Tressel’s claims to OSU investigators to be true, that he didn’t know any memorabilia from his players had been seized by federal agents, we must believe that Tressel forgot that in Cicero’s first email the attorney notified Tressel that “the Federal Government raided (Rife’s) house yesterday; they seized $70,000 in cash and a lot of Ohio State Memorabilia, including championship rings.” In that same email, Cicero told Tressel players sold Rife “a lot of Ohio State memorabilia, including championship rings…shirts/jerseys/footballs.”
Cicero’s second email to Tressel, sent after Cicero had a 90-minute conversation with Rife, told Tressel that Rife “has about 15 pairs of cleats (with signatures), 4-5 jerseys – all signed by players…about 9 rings Big Ten Championships…(and a) National Championship ring).”
But Tressel apparently forgot all that, too, when he spoke with OSU investigators in December and made the claim that “he did not know that any items had been seized.”
Piecing together the details of Tressel’s actions and placing them in context next to OSU’s own version of the tale he spun in December paints a picture of deception that defies the coach’s well-crafted reputation for integrity and honesty.
Ohio State’s administration seems willing to wait for the NCAA investigation to run its course.
Perhaps Gee, Smith and the school’s Board of Trustees don’t believe that a firing is merited for the lying, cheating and cover-up Tressel engaged in.
Or perhaps they are hoping for NCAA sanctions so severe it will force Tressel’s resignation, thus sparing weak-kneed school officials the wrath of some fans wholly committed to Tressel’s Teflon image in spite of his actions.
Follow Bruce on Twitter @BHOOLZ
Email Bruce@brucehooley.com
