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Shame on the mass media for the fall of Jim Tressel
- Tressel's Resignation
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- Photo gallery: Jim Tressel at YSU
- Scandal may hurt OSU’s recruiting
- Maurice Clarett speaks
- Valley VIPs come to Tressel’s defense
- Pryor ends his silence with 97-second apology
- Luke Fickell takes over as Ohio State interim head coach
- Tressel skips rules meeting
- Pryor hires agent, prepares for draft
- Expert: Ohio State scandal in ‘leaky faucet phase’
Shame on the mass media for the fall of Jim Tressel
The Jim Tressel article Sports Illustrated came about by trying to dig deeper into the NCAA-violation scandal at Ohio State University. After reading the article, it just came to be hearsay. With hardly any evidence at all, a judge would have it thrown out of court. Not to say that all of the 20 some people interviewed likely were lying. No evidence existed to support their story of trading sports memorabilia for tattoos.
Ray Small, a player that was in coach Tressel’s doghouse a number of times, retracted some of what he said the next day. He claimed that the university newspaper got the story wrong. Maurice Clarett who was suspended for the 2003 year of football and ended up spending time in jail was interviewed by SI. Also Ellis, a name given to one of the tattoo parlor employees, was interviewed over the phone while he was at a correctional institution. Can you really respect the credibility of these ex-players?
From the time in March when coach Tressel admitted to his wrongdoings, no new concrete evidence was brought about. I believe Jim Tressel was definitely pressured to resign by either the board, an alumni group, President Gee or all of them combined.
Pressuring Coach Tressel was wrong. Knowing what he did for Youngstown State University’s community was magnified even more in Columbus. His accomplishments far surpass the mistake of violating NCAA rules.
The university’s upper echelon gave in succumbing to the media. Yes, the self-serving media won. The media will manipulate anything to continue nursing off it as long as it could. By putting Tressel in their cross hairs, they pursued him to lose his job for their own monetary benefit. This will be a story to feed off during the whole 2011 college football season and longer.
The media were so unprofessional that the day Tressel resigned, they opened another can of worms by debating who will be the next OSU head coach after this season. I heard very little gratifying information spoken about Coach Tressel. They fail to speak that Tressel’s commitment helped educate, coach and prepare his players for their future.
The media also play a double standard. Coach Tressel’s career is now tarnished, while ex-governor Eliot Spitzer is rewarded with a CNN news spokesman job. Spitzer did not break the law, but he surely violated moral values.
GARY SCURTI, Youngstown