Ohio State Buckeyes: Is Jim Tressel Dirty?

I know every Michigan blog in the world is on this topic today, so I thought I would chime in as well.

Does the Vest need a good dry cleaning?

Believe me, I get it. Yes, this is a Michigan blog and no, I don’t wear Buckeye Red colored glasses, but there is a lot of evidence that Jimmy has been dancing around this issue for a number of years.

I know Michigan is also under probation for a stretching violation, and for having non-coaches coach. We are doing our time, and that head coach is on a fishing boat somewhere off the coast of Florida. 

It goes back to his time at YSU. Jim Tressel, while coaching at Youngstown State, was close to a booster named Michael "Mickey" Monus who, at the time, was the CEO of Phar-Mor, Inc. and the head of the board of trustees.

Jim had a star QB at YSU named Ray Isaac who was a local kid that decided to stay home and play at YSU. Jim introduced Mickey to Ray, and you can pretty much guess the rest of the story, can’t you? Mickey gave Ray thousands of dollars, in addition to used cars.

A few years later, Mickey gets brought up on Federal Fraud charges for embezzling $10M from Phar-Mor, and the entire relationship between Mickey and Ray comes to light.

Of course, Jim denies ever knowing anything about it. Mickey went to the "other Big House;" the NCAA took away a few scholarships and sited YSU with a “lack of institutional control;” and Jim skated to Columbus, as he'd just landed the Ohio State job.

Since that time, there have been consistent similar events happening within Jim’s program. Brian at Mgoblog lists them here:

2003:

• Clarett’s expensive “dealership” car was robbed of over $10K of stuff.

• Clarett also claims that his grades were fake, he got free rent, and that people would hand him money all the time.

2004:

• OSU Booster gives Troy Smith $500 for a fake job; Chris Gamble also was employed by the same booster.

2005:

• Nick Mangold and AJ Hawk have their apartment robbed of $3000 in cash, 2 Xboxes, a Play Station, a $500 Watch, and a bunch of movies.

• Former Agent Josh Luchs said he paid Santonio Holmes during this period.

2010:

• Pryor is pulled over 3 times in cars registered to Auto Direct, a local dealership.

• Pryor and others are suspended 5 games for selling their Ohio State gear for free “Ink”.

2011:

• Oops!  Was this was important? I just thought it was an Easter message.

Another fact that OSU fans will consider “more icing than cake” is the 375 secondary NCAA violations between January 2000 and May 2009. This happens to be more secondary violations than any other division I school.

So I will go back to my original question: Is Tressel dirty?

I will even add one more question: OSU had to have known of the YSU investigation when they hired Jim. Did they know about it and overlook it, or did OSU hire a guy they knew could bend the rules to get an advantage and were okay with it?

I can tell you that there really aren’t too many secrets in college football.

Everybody and their brother knew about USC, and the Reggie Bush stuff is (probably) just a little bit of what went on there. If there was a situation at YSU, I guarantee that Ohio State knew the details, and whether Jim was involved or not.

So what do you think?

I think there is enough here for a full NCAA black coat investigation into the Ohio State Football Program. The same program that spends more on football than any other school in the country—to the tune of $31.7 Million last year.

There is too much smoke here not to be some fire.