Fighting Talker

This remains Andy Geiger’s fault. So when you see folks offering him effusive praise, remember he was responsible for a contract so badly written that OB got to keep his money despite being caught cheating.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State paid former men’s basketball coach Jim O’Brien $2.74 million for improperly firing him for violating NCAA rules.

O’Brien’s attorney, Joseph Murray, on Thursday confirmed the payment of $2.74 million. That amount represents the award, plus interest, he won in a lawsuit against the university in August 2006.

The Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear the university’s appeal in February.

O’Brien was Ohio State’s coach from 1998 to 2004. He was fired by then-athletic Andy Geiger for giving a Serbian recruit $6,000.

Terrele Pryor a Headcase? Uh oh.

I talked to someone very close to the Ohio State football program yesterday and he was very concerned about the road ahead for young Mr. Pryor. The adjustment to college is not going to be an easy one after you’ve been told for so long that you are the greatest player in the history of mankind.

This can only go well.

Because… if you google John Markell Must Go my post comes up first!! Yay!!!

Seriously, I can only go down from here.

It happened again. While admitting that I still don’t care about OSU Basketball, we gotta stop playing Florida.

Bye Bye Greg. Bye Bye Mike.

“The chances of me keeping my job are about this big.”

Warning: This following post is extremely obscure, especially to my friends/family who have no connection with The Ohio State University or its Men’s Hockey Program.

In the wake of this weekend’s disgraceful CCHA Playoff First Round Defeat to lower-seeded Northern Michigan, I have finally reached wits end with one man, one excessively-tanned man.

That man is John Markell… The OSU hockey coach.

Much in the manner of our Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence… please allow me to list my grievances against Mr. Markell.

• We have had our last two seasons ended early in the CCHA Tournament by D-III schools that under almost any circumstance, OSU should beat at any time, in any sport.
• Our roster has been in flux with players leaving early (Montgomery) or struggling with grades (Keserich and Montgomery)
• He ended last season with a 1 win in ten games collapse
• He has languished, Norv-like, at this university for nearly 13 seasons, winning a grand total of one trophy and a .480 winning percentage
• A program that used to be considered on the cusp joining the CCHA royalty of UM and MSU is now an also ran again
• He has allowed us to fall to second in terms of Ohio hockey programs behind Miami
• When we did qualify for the NCAA Tournament three-years running, we a scored grand total of two goals, crashing out in the first round each time.
• Nearly five years out from the CCHA Tournament title, it’s clear that no long-term gain was made from that
• Markell always appears to have just taken a belt-sander as a suppository behind the bench, only occasionally showing some passion to whimper at a referee or weep after losing at home to another CHA or Atlantic Hockey minnow
• His staff has admitted reading the USCHO message boards about him and his team
• He has bitched-out reporters about their use of adjectives… John - you coach, we’ll write.
• He has the charisma of a dead halibut, not terribly helpful when the program is starving for attention
• He has in the past, matched his tie and shirt to his inexplicably bronzed complexion and hair

Other grievances emailed in include:

• He and his staff appear to believe that OSU are the victim of some vast refereeing conspiracy.

I am sorry John, your time has passed.

Gene Smith, if you want to show the College Hockey world that you have any kind of commitment to this program doing anything other than hemorrhaging your money - he must be fired.

Not much else you can really say. Once Ginn got hurt, OSU couldn’t possibly stay with Florida in a shootout and that, as they say, was that.

Our interior lines (both of them) looked dreadful, and without Ginn, what little offensive creativity Tressel is capable of was immediately stiffled. In light of our loss, one question really has been pinging around my head.

Yup, I am listening to SportsRadio 1460 The Fan - the (near) official radio organ of Ohio State. And would you believe, they’re talking about tonight’s game. And would you believe - they think OSU is going to win?

Now in this case, I actually agree with them. But I am reminded how stupid this station is. Chris Speilman is a nice guy, but how many different times can you tell me why OSU is going to win the game today. They’re not doing anything creative, they’re not trying to do or say anything a listener would already expect.

But then that’s not their job…

and now I just heard an for the Doug MacLean Show… “Get it straight from the source.” For non-OSU readers, understand Doug MacLean is the single worst GM in the entire NHL. Getting info straight from him is like buying a map from the captain of the Titanic.

Ooh, next up is Joe Germaine. You know what I’d ask him? “What exactly do you know about playing for a National Championship?”

From the final Press Conference (PDF) on 1/7:

Q. Jim, one of your defensive players this week said you handed out a card with a Confucius saying on it. I was curious what motivational device you used during the year that did or did not work and could you share the Confucius saying with us?
COACH TRESSEL: Obviously that one didn’t work because it wasn’t Confucius (smiling). It happened to be Nelson Mandela. But anyway, so some of them work and some of them don’t.

I always confuse South Africa freedom fighters and Chinese philosophers. They’re just so similar.

Today’s the big day - Ohio State-Florida for the National Title. I’ll have more posts on my thoughts as I wake up and the day goes on

Jere Longman wrote a long profile of Jim Tressel for today’s New York Times. I think Longman, whose writing I have long enjoyed, did a good job summarizing both the positives and negatives of Tressel.

What has always bothered me about Tressel is his hypocrisy on his team’s behavior and the calculatedness that he appears to maintain at all moments. There is a reason he is so often referred to as “senatorial,” (990 times in fact), it’s that he really resembles one both in the good times and bad. His act seems overly political at best to at times appearing nearly inhuman. I remember a press conference I attended back that took place less than an hour after Tom Friend published this article implicating Tressel very personally in buying Clarett a car. AD Andy Geiger went to the podium and vigorously defended Tressel, and questioning the veracity (a very valid question) of Clarett’s remarks.

But before Geiger spoke, Tressel took the stage.

Here is the transcript of the first part:

REPORTER: Jim, in light of what is on espn.com, one of your former players alleges that you made improper benefits and your brother made also improper benefits, and yet you’ll say you have no response to this?

TRESSEL: Well, as Steve mentioned, this is a two-part scenario today and Mr. Geiger is going to speak to those situations. I have not seen or read anything, and as Steve mentioned, my task today is to take care of discussing the Michigan State game and the Purdue game.

REPORTER: You don’t feel that you need to say anything, though, to refute this?

TRESSEL: No.

His reaction and total inexplicable lack of a denial of the charges rang of guilt, complicity or at best a smarmy lawyered up sound that Tressel always would say is beneath him. Finally, after the meek members of the Columbus professional sports media peppered him on such items as Purdue’s offense and the immortal Justin Zwick, Rusty Miller of the AP brought up the issue again. He is the “Reporter” mentioned on this next portion of the transcript.

REPORTER: Jim, without addressing the story directly, does it even at all concern you over the possibility of the ramifications for you personally or the program over a former player alleging improper benefits that you specifically provided?

TRESSEL: Well, let me go back to the beginning. We said this was going to be a two-part situation and Mr. Geiger is going to visit with you.

REPORTER: But it affects you personally, your name is specifically in the story.

TRESSEL: Again, I haven’t seen the story.

REPORTER: We have a copy on the table if you want it.

TRESSEL: What I want to do right now is get ready for Purdue and take care of things as they need to be.

REPORTER: Jim, though, can you categorically deny that any improper benefits or — or that you were involved in any type situation with Maurice Clarett of an improper nature? I guess he was asked about that during an investigation and denied it, and now he’s saying otherwise.

TRESSEL: Well, let me go back to the beginning. Mr. Geiger’s going to take care of discussing that and we’re going to take care of doing what we need to do and obviously there’s a time sequence in everything and we’ll take care of that.

Why wouldn’t he deny it? Even if you believe that he hasn’t read the story, why wouldn’t he deny it? Why is he leaving that to Geiger?

It didn’t seem to make any sense unless he was:

1. Guilty
2. Too stupid to defend himself
3. Too scared to defend himself
4. Too calculating to want to take the risk of defending himself, leaving the statement and possible credibility gap to Geiger, whom he surely knew would be retiring in the next few years.

His reaction and tone appeared to be, just as Longman’s article says, a little bit “weasel-y.”

To this day I don’t know why Tressel hasn’t taken a more vigourous stand against the allegations against him. His tactic of choice seems to be to let SID (and horrible human being) Steve Snapp do his defending for him. That’s fine, Snapp’s an intimidating dude. He doesn’t care who you are, he’ll punish you for writing something that the Athletic Department doesn’t like.

But Tressel needed to be out front there, taking the fight to his critics. That’s the great PR lesson of the last 15 years in American politics. When you get attacked, you don’t wait or waffle, you refute them and then hit back. By not doing that, Tressel irrevocably damaged his credibility in my eyes. An innocent, decent man doesn’t react that way. No matter if he wears a tie and sweater vest or not.

For the record, as I reiterated in The Lantern, I didn’t believe most of Clarett’s accusations. I actually think most of them are crap. But Tressel is still stained by them, partly of his own doing.

To Tressel’s credit, this season has gone pretty well when it comes to OSU football criminality. I can’t think of any crimes committed, and the NCAA issues that arose are too small to even deserve comment.