College Football - Jim Tressel Exposed - Whoopty Damn Do

So apparently Jim Tressel knew that some of his players had sold memorabilia in violation of NCAA rules, as well as tangentially being connected with a guy involved in a federal drug distribution investigation, back in April 2010 - before the season and before the NCAA investigation and before they were suspended (and then not suspected for the Sugar Bowl) -  but didn't say anything believing that some vague sense of confidentiality trumped his duty to, you know, tell the truth. 

We're stunned.  Really, just completely stunned.  How could a man that looks like this ever lie:

Who wouldn't trust a man with that icy stare?

Oh that's right.  It's because he's a big time football coach and that's what they do!!  We forgot.  Our bad. Of course, because that's what they do, the collective media is engaging in a fair amount of lamenting and hand-wringing trying to decipher how they were duped, yet again.  In fairness, they do have to write something and if you can't come up with a creative angle, it's easy to pull the old "Coach X isn't the man he said he was" story from your stock database, change the name and there you go.  It's like Campbell's Instant Story. 

When you think about it, of course he's not the man he said he was.  How many people do you know who actually are?  1? 2?  Are you even the person you say you are?  It's pretty rare to be that honest or self-aware.  We're all the person we say we are when it's convenient but when the pressure is on, that facade breaks down and you find out what a person is really about.  And for Tressel, like most coaches, it was winning and self preservation.  Any any person with the capacity to devote the time and single-minded effort needed to succeed at the highest levels of sports has something, very very wrong deep in their core.  Coaches are sociopaths.  So why would Jim Tressel be any different?  Because he wears a sweater vest? 

College sports is big business and to succeed you've got to win and that's what, we as fans want.  If they love god and treat their players (particularly the really good ones) like family, that's a bonus.  Until they stop wining, of course, then all that "We Are Family" stuff will keep them about as employed as Sister Sledge.  So hopefully, the enlightened of us can move past the fake outrage and take the next "scandal" in stride like when we find out that JoePa impregnated a flapper during the roaring 20's. 

Finally, not that it would ever happen, but what Tressel should have done was to become the face of the NCAA opposition movement.  Instead of blatantly lying about what he was thinking (anytime you start explaining what you yourself must have been thinking, it's an obvious sign of dishonesty), he have walked up to the mic and told the assembled media:

Yeah, I knew about it and I chose not to do anything because, quite frankly, it's a bullshit rule.  How could I sit there in my huge office with my $2.5m salary at a school that makes millions off their backs and tell them it's wrong to sell their OWN stuff.  How is that fair?  If the NCAA wants to do their job and investigate them so be it, but I'm not turning them in for something so ridiculous. 

And with that form of civil disobedience, he'd have changed the argument completely from "How could Jim Tressel be a liar?" to "Are the NCAA rules fair?"  He'd be a modern day Che Guevara and crunchy kids (or just people who shop at Target) everywhere would we wearing sweater vests with his silhouetted face on them.  He'd be a hero.  Instead, now he's just like everyone else.