Tressel’s Resignation Was The Right Move

One of my favorite sports writers, Terry Pluto, nailed it with this article:

I’ll always believe that Jim Tressel is a good man who made a series of poor decisions in his final year as Ohio State’s football coach. That’s why I’m not surprised that Tressel resigned Monday morning.

No matter if he was encouraged to do so by OSU officials, or if he came to the realization that the NCAA investigation would never let up until he left – leaving this way was the right thing to do.

According to the NCAA, deception is a mortal sin. That’s what Tressel did when he failed to disclose that some of his players were selling and trading OSU items to the owner of a tattoo parlor, who also was being investigated for drug trafficking and other possible crimes. The reason the NCAA has a rule against selling memorabilia is that players could receive massive cash payments from boosters for small items – it was a backdoor way of paying the athletes. Tressel had to know this rule.

Read the rest.

And then read this article by Pluto about why OSU should dismiss Terrell Pryor.