Jim Tressel Resigns, but Has Taught Us a Thing or Two About College Football

After sitting back for the past five days and watching the Jim Tressel/Ohio State Buckeye debacle, I have come to the conclusion that college football is just as corrupt as any professional sport and to some degree, may be more so under the circumstances it portrays itself.

If we are really to believe that the student-athlete is supposed to take his/her academics seriously, and put them above everything else (I have two words for you...), then why is the demand for winning and promotion and sales and notoriety so important in the world of college sports?

The answer lies in the almighty dollar.

Former Buckeyes head coach Jim Tressel isn’t the first head football coach to get caught mired in a scandal. But he might be the biggest name to get himself in this kind of trouble.

Tressel was the modern version of Woody Hayes, an Ohio native and the favored son of the state, and with that came a certain degree of immortality. The signing of Terrell Pryor with all his “potential” which he truly has yet to flash on the field, helped lead to Tressel’s resignation and a continued investigation into alleged gifts being offered to current and former football players. It all adds up to one big cover-up and a façade that the school and the NCAA will not admit is happening in Ohio, as well as the other 49 states that promote college football.

Before there was Jim Tressel, there was Southern Cal’s Pete Carroll. Before Carroll, there was Pat Dye. Before Pat Dye, there was Danny Ford and before Danny Ford, there was Charlie Pell. There is a certain expectation of truth and voracity that comes with being the face of a college football team, and it starts with coaching. After all, they are the ones sitting in mama’s living room asking her son to come play ball at the coach’s institution  of “higher” learning.

In this case, with Tressel and other coaches who have been in this situation, learning is something they have not learned yet.

The issue with Tressel isn’t that he knew about the incidents with tattoos or cars or impropriety, it is that he knew it, did not tell the whole story, and got caught lying and cheating, all for victories, all for winning, all for promoting the integrity of the game, not the school.

There are coaches in the SEC such as Steve Spurrier and Will Muschamp that believe college athletes—especially football players—should be paid to play. They come to school on scholarship and don’t have to worry about debt once they leave school or have to worry about money while in school. Many athletes will tell you money is always around them. Blaine Gabbert once told ESPN radio personality Colin Cowherd that he was broke in college just like every other college student, but if he wanted to take a pretty girl out on a date, the money was always there.

Now, since this scandal is fully exposed and will get more attention and more issues will come to light on Ohio State’s campus, understand that the NCAA is going to look at other schools. They may not receive the "Death Penalty" like SMU did back in the early 1980s, but they will be more enforcing.

Ohio State is one of the ten largest schools in college sports and boasts some of the best talent anywhere in the country, along with the likes of Florida, USC, Texas, Oklahoma and others. But to expose a school for fraudulence, at this level, and a coach who was believed to be indispensable just proves that no team, no school, no athlete is untouchable.

And ironically, Tressel, Hayes and now Pryor are forever linked for something that does not make the school or the NCAA proud of their accomplishments.