John U. Bacon

The Jim Tressel era at Ohio State started on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2001.

The Buckeyes happened to have a basketball game that night against Michigan, so it was a good opportunity to introduce their new football coach. When Tressel stood up to speak, he knew exactly what they wanted.

He was hired on the heels of John Cooper, whose record at Ohio State was second only to that of Woody Hayes. But in 13 seasons, Cooper’s teams lost to Michigan a stunning ten times. Can’t do that. And you can’t say, “It’s just another game,” either – which might have been his biggest mistake.

Knowing all this, Tressel told the crowd, “I can assure you that you will be proud of your young people in the classroom, in the community, and most especially in 310 days in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the football field.”

The place went crazy. “At last,” they said, “somebody gets it!”

Tressel got it – and he proved it, beating Michigan nine out of ten times – and the last seven in a row, a record. The Buckeyes have also won the last six Big Ten titles, another record, plus a national title.

Jim Tressel is clearly one heck of a coach. He was also pleasantly professorial, famed for his sweater vest, not his temper.

But smoke always billowed up behind him. His previous team, Youngstown State, won three Division I-AA national titles, but one of his stars got in trouble for taking money from a wealthy booster. The school got in trouble, but not Tressel. At Ohio State, another star was suspected of academic fraud and taking money, too. The player got in trouble, but not Tressel.

Last spring, however, a few of Tressel’s players traded signed jerseys for tattoos. Yes, it was against NCAA rules, but it was still relatively small potatoes – until their coach lied about it to the NCAA. Not once. Not twice. But three times. As usual, it’s not the crime, but the cover-up that always does them in. But no one ever seems to learn this.

Tressel committed his third lie right before the Buckeyes’ big bowl game against Arkansas. The Big Ten, the NCAA and the bowl officials were only too willing to play along. There was money to be made.

But after the Buckeyes’ victory, reporters dug a little deeper and discovered an oil spill of corruption –money, cars, you name it. With more to come.

The Jim Tressel era at Ohio State ended on Monday, May 30, 2011, when he “resigned.” But don’t worry: Tressel will be fine. He’ll get to keep his national titles and his severance package and he’ll probably end up on TV as a color commentator, because the networks seem to prefer hiring only the most corrupt or incompetent coaches for those cushy jobs.

The mess Tressel leaves behind will be for everyone else to clean up: the players, the school and the next coach, for years. A few former opponents – like Michigan – might get some of their losses to Ohio State erased from their records. But it’s unlikely they’ll storm the field after getting the news.

And that’s why coaches like Tressel cheat: It works – for them.

The Big Ten and the NCAA don’t want to catch you, and when they finally have to, it’s the guys who come after you who will pay the price. A few years from now, when the Ohio State Marching Band is performing their famed “Script Ohio,” it will be Jim Tressel dotting the “i,” while John Cooper looks on from the press box.

Cheating is excused. Losing is not.

Winning is rewarded.

Following the rules is for suckers.

Wish I had a better story to tell you.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the Wall Street Journal, and ESPN Magazine, among others. He is the author of “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller, and “Third and Long: Three Years with Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines,” due out this fall through FSG. Bacon teaches at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009.

John U. Bacon

On Tuesday night, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith flew back from New York, where he had been running the NCAA basketball selection committee, to conduct a press conference. He announced he was suspending his head football coach, Jim Tressel, for the first two games of the 2011 season.

It looks like Tressel has gotten himself into a bit of hot water. That’s why Smith, his boss, flew back to make sure everybody said they were “taking responsibility” – a phrase which changed some time in the last decade, and now means the exact opposite.

It was fine theater.

In December, a few weeks before Ohio State’s Sugar Bowl game, five Ohio State players were forced to admit they sold some jerseys, mementos and trophies to a tattoo parlor owner. (And if you can’t trust a tattoo parlor owner with your ill-gotten goods, who can you trust?) Well, he naturally put them on eBay, and there’s your scandal. It all seems pretty petty to most people, but it’s serious business to the NCAA.

In fairness to the NCAA, the players knew the rules – despite initially denying they did – and brazenly decided to do it anyway. They got caught, and they will have to pay the price. Or they might … eventually. You can’t be certain.

That’s because they were not caught by the FBI or the IRS or whatever agency hunts down the scofflaws who tear off mattress tags. They were caught by the NCAA – and that changes everything.

The NCAA started in 1905, after 18 college students died playing football that year. President Theodore Roosevelt wanted to save college football, so he called the presidents of Harvard, Yale and Princeton to the White House to figure out how. And that’s when the NCAA was born.

For decades, the NCAA’s main source of money was members’ dues, which it used to enforce the rules. Simple enough. But about 30 years ago the NCAA started profiting enormously from its basketball tournament – the current TV contract is worth more than 10 billion dollars. The sheriff became the saloon keeper. And nobody can do both jobs equally well.

Six years ago, the University of Southern California Trojans were suspected of giving the parents of its Heisman Trophy-winning tailback, Reggie Bush, a house. A whole house. I said at the time: Watch how slowly the NCAA moves on this one. But even I didn’t think it would take five years for them to find the house – the kind of thing you can find with, say, a phone book.

But when the five Buckeyes were busted, they were in danger of being suspended for their upcoming bowl game. Suddenly, the same Keystone Cops who took five years to find a house sorted out the Ohio State mess in just a couple weeks. Then they allowed the players to serve their five-game suspension the following fall, when some or all of them might already be in the NFL.

Now an email has turned up which seems to prove Jim Tressel knew about all of this back in April – but told the NCAA in December he knew nothing, no-how. Oops.

So that’s why Gene Smith came rushing back to Columbus to announce he would suspend Tressel for two games. Sound serious? It’s supposed to – but those first two games are against the Akron Zips and the Toledo Rockets – games the Buckeyes could not lose if they were paid to.

If the suspended players stay in school, they will miss out on almost half their last season to prepare for their one chance at pro football. Fair enough. They brought it on themselves. But their coach, who covered all of it up for a year, will be just fine.

How can I be so sure? Because his boss, Gene Smith, is currently the chairman of the NCAA committee for this year’s men’s basketball tournament – the NCAA’s cash cow. If he’s not the sheriff, he’s the deputy. He’ll find just enough wrongdoing to make it look like he’s doing something – and not one ounce more.

The NCAA is no longer interested in integrity – just the image of it. That’s what sells. The suspended players don’t get that. But Tressel does, and so does his boss. They know the saloon owners won’t be too eager to investigate the saloon manager and his best bartender when business is booming.

So, drink up. This round’s on the house.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the Wall Street Journal, and ESPN Magazine, among others. He is the author of “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller, and “Third and Long: Three Years with Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines,” due out this fall through FSG. Bacon teaches at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.