Center of a Sports Storm

Last night I was having dinner with a friend and his wife and the conversation was about the Bucks. As I was out and about this morning enjoying the day the news of the OSU players getting suspended dominated on the radio and on the voices of people out and about. Christmas? Sadly, no. For this is Buckeye country.

What I noticed is that yesterday, the voices of misdirection were out in full. Today? A different story. Voices of reason seem to be taking over. This spells disaster for OSU because the smokescreen arguments coming from AD Gene Smith did not work at all (help their families, didn't know the rules). In politics you see smokescreen (lies) arguments (example: Every politician) that last more then 24 hours. What folks in power want to achieve with smokescreen arguments are:

1. Kill the story. OSU made the announcement right before Christmas in the attempt to have it forgotten and not on the lips of "major" figures (talking heads and writers) off for the holidays.

2. Get the investigators out of their backyard. Gene Smith and the University went as far as falling on the sword, claiming that it was their fault.

3. Get people to feel sympathetic to the guilty. This is where the "help the families" comes in. If you can get sympathy then anyone arguing against you looks heartless and evil. What? wouldn't you have done this for your mother you sick person?

4. Misdirection. Turn the wolfs against themselves. Smith covered this with the "selling personal property" stuff. Misdirection is the most powerful tool the guilty have. Now you have writers arguing over NCAA bi-laws and paying players.

The sad and disappointing thing here is that if they just stayed quiet they would have been in better shape. See: Cam Newton story. But this is OSU. Arrogance and pride has led them down their path. I know this is eating Jim Tressel, an outwardly Christian person here in Columbus, up inside.

What I am seeing here in Columbus has happened before other places, many times. At this point it is running a course similar to the Southern Methodist University path back in the early 1980s. That ended with the school getting the "death penalty" and loosing it football program for a year. It took the school nearly 25 years after that mess to even make another bowl game.

For a resonable take on the whole OSU situation go HERE.

Below are a few sentences from the article:
"This incident at a Columbus tattoo parlor took place in 2009, after the ’08 season. Players sold everything from Big Ten Championship rings, to Gold Pants charms (awarded for beating Michigan) to jerseys and shoes with their autograph on them. Terrelle Pryor even sold his ’09 Fiesta Bowl sportsmanship award."

"How did they get caught? The US Attorney’s office found the items in question at the parlor and contacted OSU to see if any of these items had been stolen."

Wait... hold on. The US Attorney's office? yeesheesh. This is something that has to have been happening over an extended period of time. Bad bad bad.

I'm still trying to figure out what and when the other shoe will drop on this story. I've never seen Terrelle Pryor out and about around town, but I do hear stories. They ain't good. This story is very far from reaching its end.