If you have ever watched \Monday Night Football,"" you've surely heard Al Michaels near the beginning of the game say something like, ""OK, let's meet the offense,"" and then you'll see a succession of players glare into the camera and mumble their name and college for which they played football (you'll note I didn't say ""graduated from""). Undoubtedly, the game has at least one starter from Ohio State, because the Buckeyes are a machine when it comes to churning out National Football League prospects. And those players always look into the camera and add that extra article. It's never just ""Ohio State University""--it's always Ohio State University. It always comes off as arrogant and superior, like the players think they are better than everyone else simply because they went to Ohio State University.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
It's no longer just former running back Maurice Clarett against the university, which has flatly denied everything Clarett said about taking money from boosters and academic improprieties. Another former Buckeye, cornerback B.J. Barre, came out in support of Clarett last week, echoing everything Clarett has said. If you still think Clarett isn't telling the truth, you're probably about as intelligent as former Buckeye wide receiver Ken-yon Rambo, who left Ohio State early for the NFL in 2001 with a sparkling 0.00 grade point average.
How many more players will have to acknowledge the corruption before Ohio State stops lying to itself? Considering Ohio was a state in which voters turned out in droves on Election Day to vote in part on ""values"" issues, you would think the flagship university would try to find the moral high ground here and own up to its mistakes.
That would not be enough, however; the school must be punished. Last Thursday my fellow columnist Eric Schmoldt suggested the NCAA treat Ohio State like it has other programs that have broken rules in recent years. But I think it should be treated far worse than any other program has been before. What incentive do major programs have to follow the rules if they know the worst that will happen is little more than a slap on the wrist? Once the investigation into this mess is complete, the NCAA should throw the book at Ohio State. How about a decade of probation and scholarship restrictions? Ban the Buckeyes from appearing on national television or in bowl games. Refuse to recognize the school's 2002 National Championship. There's no better way for the NCAA to once and for all end corruption in college football than to decimate one of its most storied programs. Yes it's harsh, but someone has to take the fall at some point for the greater good of the game.
Jim Tressel, Ohio State's head football coach and the man ultimately responsible for running a clean program, ought to be fired. After all, Ohio State fired Jim O'Brien, its men's basketball coach, in June after he admitted paying a former recruit $6,000. O'Brien is currently suing the university for $3.4 million, claiming his contract had a narrow set of circumstances for which he could be fired without pay. Since the NCAA later found no violation in O'Brien's payment to the recruit--and no, I don't know how to explain that one--O'Brien is arguing his firing breaches his contract.
Given the university's precedent of firing O'Brien even before waiting to hear from the NCAA as to whether the coach had even broken the rules, there is no way Tressel should be retained as football coach. Of course, the Buckeye basketball team under O'Brien was generally mediocre, whereas Tressel has been quite successful in a very short period of time. It won't surprise me when Ohio State embraces the hypocrisy and lets Tressel keep his job. Winning is more important than integrity, after all.
But how about an even more unsettling statement: We here at UW have to turn a blind eye Saturday and root for this suddenly sleazy program to knock off Michigan if the Badgers want to have a shot at getting to the Rose Bowl. So for Wisconsin's sake, go get one more win, Tressel. Let it be your last.
mtworringer@wisc.edu.
