Jim Tressel Resigns: Sports Illustrated Report Reveals Depth of OSU's Violations

This morning, Ohio State head football coach Jim Tressel resigned. This evening, a new report by Sports Illustrated (published on SI.com) gives some clues as to why.

According to SI, the NCAA violations by Ohio State players extend far beyond the handful of athletes already sanctioned. While six Buckeyes were implicated in the December tattoo parlor scandal, SI found that at least 28 current or former players exchanged memorabilia for tattoos during Tressel’s decade at the helm.

Among the ex-players who spoke to SI was Robert Rose, a former defensive end who said that he and “at least 20 others” traded items like jerseys or helmets for free tattoo work. Another, anonymous source alleged that he saw four players make such an exchange for free marijuana.

In conjunction with previous violations committed on Tressel’s watch (both in Columbus and at Youngstown State), these findings paint a picture of a coach whose players systematically ignored NCAA regulations. Irrespective of whether the NCAA’s rules on memorabilia sales make sense, the rules exist, and Tressel’s claims not to have known about such widespread violations ring very hollow.

It’s hard to believe that Tressel’s Buckeyes are the only program showing this kind of disregard for the NCAA’s heavy restrictions on student-athlete behavior. They are, however, the program that has gotten caught, and there will be a price to pay.

Ohio State’s scheduled NCAA disciplinary hearing in August is going to be a painful one for the school. The infractions uncovered by SI are so pervasive that they’re likely to warrant penalties at least as severe as the ones that hit USC over the Reggie Bush scandal, which included a two-year postseason ban and many lost scholarships.

The NCAA is going to throw the book at Ohio State. Considering that Tressel was either complicit in (at worst) or willfully ignorant of (at best) what his players were doing, it’s hard to say that the program won’t deserve what’s coming to it.