The NCAA must have had too many investigators on the Cam Newton case. They found nothing new on Ohio State. They won't face a failure to monitor charge, so basically, all they'll have to deal with is a shitty interim head coach with inexperienced players next year.
NCAA tells Ohio State it finds no new violations; won't face 'failure to monitor' charge
FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2011 04:00 PM
BY RANDY LUDLOW AND ENCARNACION PYLE
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Web extras
Transcript of Tressel interview
Case summary
The NCAA has notified Ohio State University that it will not face charges of failing to appropriately monitor its football team as part of a memorabilia-sales scandal that brought down former Coach Jim Tressel.
The NCAA has not uncovered any new, unreported violations during its investigation and agrees with Ohio State that Tressel was the only university official aware of violations by his players and that he failed to report them.
"Other than (two redacted player names) and (Ted) Sarniak, there is no indication that Tressel provided or discussed the information he received ... with anyone else, particularly athletics administrators," the NCAA reported in an enforcement staff case summary.
In the summary that was delivered to Ohio State yesterday and released today, the NCAA again stresses that Tressel failed in his duty to report the violations and knowingly fielded at least two ineligible players.
The NCAA will not hammer Ohio State with its worst-possible findings of loss of institutional control or failure to monitor, which would bring significant punishment.
"Considering the institution's rules education and monitoring efforts, the enforcement staff did not believe a failure to monitor charge was appropriate in this case," the NCAA informed Ohio State.
The NCAA also reported that it investigated a Sports Illustrated report that identified nine additional players as selling OSU memorabilia to tattoo-parlor owner Edward Rife and interviewed the athletes, but confirmed only one as dealing with the man who is soon to be sentenced on marijuana-trafficking charges.
Ohio State also released today the 139-page transcript of a 5-hour interview with Tressel on Feb. 8, in response to a public-records request by The Dispatch. The transcript was submitted to the NCAA on July 8 as part of its response to the charges.
Tressel resigned on May 30 at Athletic Director Gene Smith's request, unable to survive a scandal that stained the university's reputation and prompted the school to vacate its 12-1 record and Big Ten and Sugar Bowl championships of last season.
Tressel was interviewed by both university and NCAA officials. The transcript portrays himas torn and frightened after receiving emails in April 2010 from lawyer Christopher Cicero reporting that at least two of his players had sold memorabilia to Rife and were associating with a man being investigated for drug trafficking.
Tressel said he shared the information only with Sarniak, a Jeannette, Pa., businessman who is a mentor to departed quarterback Terrelle Pryor and whom the coach described as a father figure to Pryor.
"And so those next couple weeks, in my mind, I spent a lotta time, you know, pounding, pounding, pounding and also wondering, 'Where do I - you know, where do I look for some help with this?' Cause to me, it wasn't simply an NCAA rule. And I'm not belittling the importance for an NCAA rule. But it was way beyond an NCAA rule. I mean, it was a security issue. It was a federal criminal issue. It was a narcotics issue. You know, it - you know, where do you turn?"
Tressel conceded he made a mistake in not sharing what he knew. He said if the issue came up today, he would go to university lawyers, because it involved a federal law-enforcement matter.
"I can't say that I thought about going to Doug (Archie) or Julie (Vannatta) or Gene, you know? Yeah. I don't - you know, I can't sit here and say to you that I consciously said, 'Yes, I should,' and then, 'I shouldn't.' "
Tressel said he was most concerned about his players.
"I mean my heart was torn out about having the NCAA things and going through all that and embarrassing our school and all that. I mean, that rips your guts out. But not like a guy being convicted of drug trafficking or, you know, being one of the ones that the feds are using to go get the next guy, and, you know, those kind of things."
Tressel said he knew that NCAA sanctions were "inevitable."
"It was pretty simple. We were either gonna be horribly in trouble from a criminal standpoint, or we're gonna be minorly involved in drug, you know, buying and stuff, or we're gonna face the NCAA reality that we did some things with our memorabilia we're not allowed to do. I was totally confident one of those was gonna happen."
Tressel said he never directly confronted the two players identified by Cicero as selling memorabilia - their names were redacted, but other records have identified one as Pryor, who is turning pro, and the other as wide receiver DeVier Posey, who is still on the team.
The former coach said he talked to Pryor and the other player "for two minutes max. And, the message was, 'I'm hearing things. They're bad things. Better stay away from people. You know we've talked about this often.' "
However, in the NCAA enforcement staff case summary, one player told NCAA investigators that Tressel did bring up Rife by name and informed him that some of his memorabilia had been seized by federal authorities from Rife's house. The player reported that Tressel said: "Whatever you guys did, I don't want to know, but when it comes back up, just make sure you tell the truth."
The second player said that Tressel was not specific with him about his knowledge, saying that the coach told him to "be smart" and not sell any memorabilia.
But, Tressel said he never mentioned Rife and never told the players that their names were associated with "a criminal situation." He denied telling the players he did not want to know of the details underlying their memorabilia dealings.
The coach reported he said: "'Hey, this is serious. You better stay away.' It was not interrogative from the standpoint of you know, 'Are you using drugs? Are you getting drugs? Are you selling memorabilia?' ... I don't know whatever else they could be involved with, but you know, I didn't go through a laundry list of 'are you?'"
During the interview, Tressel said he told Vannatta, OSU's senior assistant general counsel for athletics, on Dec. 16 that he had received a tip "from a kid that's an attorney" who was "a walk-on player for us."
Tressel said he told Vannatta he couldn't remember the attorney's name and that he didn't share any information from the emails that Cicero had sent informing him of two players' OSU memorabilia sale.
Tressel said he didn't mention the e-mails at the time because "I guess in my mind I wasn't sure what the relevance was."
A source close to Ohio State's investigation of the case said Tressel was mistaken when he said during his interview that he told Vannatta that he had received a tip from an attorney and ex-walk on player later identified as Cicero.
Compliance director Archie, Athletic Director Smith, Vannatta and two others were present for the discussion with Tressel after university officials had interviewed players about their dealings with Rife, the source said.
Archie, Smith and Vannatta said in interviews that Tressel only spoke of receiving a tip involving his players' "lifestyle choices" and did not describe who provided the tip or its details, the source said.
In a statement, Ohio State said that the NCCA's findings "all make clear that when Coach Tressel was interviewed by a number of people within the institution ... he did not share his knowledge about the NCAA violation."
The university has stated it had no knowledge that Tressel knew of the violations until the emails from Cicero were discovered on Jan. 13.
OSU officials are scheduled to appear before the NCAA's Infractions Committee on Aug. 12. The NCAA will decide whether to accept the OSU-imposed penalties or apply further sanctions.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2011/07/22/ncaa-ohio-state-violations.html
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