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Should Jim Tressel be in OSU’s Hall of Fame?

By Josh Criswell

November 24, 2012; Columbus, OH, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes former coach Jim Tressel is held by players from his 2002 National Championship team in a game against the Michigan Wolverines at Ohio Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports
November 24, 2012; Columbus, OH, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes former coach Jim Tressel is held by players from his 2002 National Championship team in a game against the Michigan Wolverines at Ohio Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports /
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Legendary former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel is being inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame, despite leaving the program in the wake of an NCAA violations scandal. Is this the right move?

Jim Tressel led the Ohio State football team to one of the most successful stretches in school history from 2001 to 2010. That decade of national prominence would quickly be forgotten outside of Columbus, Ohio, however, as the former Buckeyes coach would leave the school amidst multiple NCAA violations.

Regardless, Ohio State has decided to induct Tressel into their Athletics Hall of Fame later this year; a move that is certain to spark controversy in the college football landscape.

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If it were the College Football Hall of Fame honoring Tressel, I would take serious exception to this. A head coach forced to leave one of the most recognizable universities in the college football has no place in the sport’s Hall of Fame.

If Ohio State wants to honor him, though, it should be free to do so. After all, the school is the one stuck with the decision if it backfires, not that it likely will.

Like it or not, circumventing the rules has always been a fabric of collegiate athletics, and Tressel’s actions are far from the most egregious that we have witnessed. Whether it was USC turning a blind eye to boosters funding an NFL lifestyle for their star players in the early 2000s (and assuredly long before that), Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari leaving both of his prior two schools under a cloud of NCAA violations or North Carolina committing nearly two decades of academic fraud, there have been much worse transgressions in the world of college sports.

Tressel’s actions, unlike the aforementioned three, are actually somewhat defensible. Not in the realm of model conduct or NCAA legality, obviously, but in regards to protecting his players. Tressel had sat down in the living rooms of prospects and delivered a promise to their parents that he would take care of their sons.

Sure, there were numerous incidents regarding improper benefits during his tenure at the school, but it was a cover up scandal that cost him his job and his status as one of the best coaches in college football. Tressel discovered that his players were breaking the rules by selling their Ohio State merchandise to a tattoo artist and known drug dealer. Instead of reporting the violations as he should have, he tried to keep the situation under wraps and handle it himself, both to protect his players and keep his team’s national title hopes alive.

While Tressel’s deserved every bit of the tarnished public image and NCAA disgrace that his knowingly breaking of the rules cost him, it should not impact how Ohio State goes about their business. It is almost an ode to the scandalous nature of big-time college sports; a national championship and an 8-1 record against the school’s biggest rival trumps the NCAA punishment and embarrassment that the former head coach cost the university.

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