ESPN reported this morning that five Ohio State players, including stars Terrelle Pryor, Dan Herron and Devier Posey, are suspended the first five games of next season by the NCAA. All five are still eligible for the January 4th Sugar Bowl, however.
The five accepted extra benefits, including free tattoos, and sold autographs, memorabilia and gear. Pryor sold his Big Ten Championship ring, a 2009 Fiesta Bowl sportsmanship award and his 2008 Gold Pants, a gift players received for beating arch-rival Michigan. The other players involved sold jerseys and shoes, also received tattoos.
The other two players suspended are starting left tackle Mike Adams and reserve defensive linemen Solomon Thomas. Former OSU quarterback and ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit called it "addition by subtraction," saying now the Buckeyes could get back to being a team.
Pryor, Posey and Herron are all eligible to enter the NFL draft after this season.
The NCAA is a weird, weird world. Cecil Newton openly shops his son around the SEC for $200,000 and the Auburn quarterback walks off with an armload of awards, including the Heisman. Now he's playing on the NCAA's biggest stage. Stars all over the country are driving around in cars they never paid for and apartments furnished by invisible ink. LaMichael James mentioned in an interview that he and the Rodgers brothers like to meet for dinner at Ruby Tuesday. College football players don't have time for summer jobs. Training is a year-round deal now. Where do they get the money to spring for dinner at Ruby Tuesday?
Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski once said you couldn't investigate any program in major NCAA sports without finding at least ten minor violations. The hypocrisy and glaringly obvious inconsistencies are everywhere. Millions of dollars are at stake, and these are the most talented and sought-after young athletes in their respective sports.
Knowing what's at stake, the NCAA looks the other way in most cases, while randomly hammering players and schools for minor and obvious violations. Sell a jersey or get a free tattoo? You're going to miss games. Finance a church renovation with a large lump sum payment? Shame on you. We'll talk to you later. All over the country there are parents of athletes who have gotten jobs and homes and cars. It's a package deal and an old story. Hugh McElhenny once joked when he went to the NFL he had to take a cut in pay. That was in the 1950's. Auburn's '57 national title team included a blocking back who shot a man to death. The Tigers were already on probation for recruiting violations. They will be again. It's part of the circle of life in the NCAA.
The Oregon Ducks are big time now, and a future NCAA probe is inevitable. The other Northwest schools, infested by the bedbugs of envy and resentment, will fuel an innuendo with a whisper followed by a rumor until some administrative flack with a basement office follows a money trail to the door of a pizza-by-the-slice restaurant or tattoo parlor and the Ducks are painted with the same brush that once marked SMU or Alabama or USC with a scarlet "C." Cheater. Lose 30 scholarships and suffer a three-year bowl ban.
Here's the problem: When teams get penalized, they get penalized for doing the same things everyone else is doing, just in a more successful or flamboyant way. Athletes at lowly Washington State are getting paid. They're just not getting paid as well or as effectively. To evade the penalty you have to postpone the attention and detection. And the surest way to do that is unpalatable.
Keep losing.
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