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Former Buckeye tipped off Tressel
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, left, sits next to E. Gordon Gee, Ohio State University president, during a news conference Tuesday, March 8, 2011, in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State suspended Tressel for two games and fined him $250,000 for violating NCAA rules by failing to notify the school about information he received involving two players and questionable activities involving Buckeye memorabilia. Tressel also will receive a public reprimand and must make a public apology.
By DOUG LESMERISES
Cleveland Plain Dealer
COLUMBUS
A former Buckeye player was the lawyer who last April informed Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel that two of his players may have been selling memorabilia to a suspected drug trafficker.
Tressel didn’t share the information with his superiors, in violation of NCAA rules, leading to the two-game suspension and $250,000 fine Ohio State announced on Tuesday.
Christopher Cicero, a Columbus attorney, exchanged the emails with Tressel, a source told The Plain Dealer. Tressel on Tuesday cited his desire to protect the confidentiality of Cicero and not interfere with a federal investigation, as well as fearing for the safety of his two players involved, as the reasons he didn’t share the information.
According to the Ohio State media guide, Cicero earned a varsity letter with the Buckeyes in 1983. Tressel was a first-year assistant coach that season under Earle Bruce. The Columbus Dispatch, citing sources, also reported that Cicero was Tressel’s email contact.
In both 1995 and 1996, Cicero represented Ohio State players arrested on assault charges after incidents at a bar and a party. In December of 1995, Cicero told The Plain Dealer of representing the players, ‘It’s a fraternity here, a pretty tight fraternity here.’
The Associated Press reported that in a statement released Wednesday, Cicero said he willingly cooperated with Ohio State when asked to by a school attorney to discuss his email exchange with Tressel. In releasing those emails Tuesday, Ohio State had blacked out Cicero’s name.
Cicero had his law license suspended for a year in 1997 after being found to have bragged about having sex with a judge who had appointed him to a case. Cicero said he was exaggerating at the time he told other lawyers about a relationship, though he and Judge Deborah O’Neill both admitted to later starting an affair.
Though that question has now been answered, others regarding the future of Tressel and the Ohio State football program remain. Among them, including those solicited from readers on Wednesday, are:
Will Tressel be allowed in the stadium during his suspension games? The press box? Is he prohibited from calling any plays?
The ban, as suggested by Ohio State, specifically prohibits him from any gameday activities — so no pregame pep talk or walking to the stadium with the team. He can’t be in Ohio Stadium during the game, and he can’t have any contact with his assistants while the game is going on — so no secret bat-phone calls to ask whether to punt or go for it on fourth down.
Who will act as head coach when Tressel is not on the sideline?
This question would have been easier to answer a year ago, when receivers coach Darrell Hazell also held the title of assistant coach and ran practice on an occasion or two when Tressel was dealing with other business.
But Hazell is now the head coach at Kent State. The assistants with head coaching experience are defensive coordinator Jim Heacock (Division I-AA Illinois State) and running backs coach Dick Tressel (Division III Hamline). Both Heacock and offensive coordinator Jim Bollman spend the game in the coaches’ booth, not on the sidelines. So the guess is that co-defensive coordinator Luke Fickell, who was on the sidelines last season and is seen as a future head coach, might get the call, allowing the coordinators to stick to their usual jobs.
Might the Big Ten impose its own sanctions before the NCAA does, possibly strip Ohio State of the Big Ten title proactively?
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told the New York Times on Wednesday that the conference will wait for the NCAA to make a decision on sanctions and will not impose its own penalty.