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发帖数: 764 | 1 This story appears in the June 6 edition of Sports Illustrated. To purchase
a digital version of the magazine, go here.
The character traits that have made Jim Tressel a successful football coach
and a beloved figure in Ohio are numerous and frequently cited. Former NFL
coach Tony Dungy has praised Tressel's "integrity" and said he is the kind
of man you'd want your son to play for. Eddie DeBartolo, the former 49ers
owner, has said that Tressel's "steady" demeanor and knack for relating to
young men reminded him of Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh.
Tressel has often been described as senatorial, an adjective rarely applied
to a football coach; in fact, one of his nicknames is the Senator. He has
been lauded for his sincerity and his politeness, and people who admire his
faith in God often mention the prayer-request box on the desk in his office
at Ohio State.
The 58-year-old Tressel benefited from the fertile recruiting grounds of
Ohio, but supporters always believed he got the most out of players because
he was -- as the title of a 2009 book about him declares -- More Than a
Coach. Under Tressel, the Buckeyes often sat together before meetings or at
the start of practice for 10 minutes of "quiet time" to read about virtues
such as humility, faith and gratitude. Tressel liked to say that his teams "
play as hard as we can play" but also "respect as hard as we can respect."
Yet while Tressel's admirable qualities have been trumpeted, something else
essential to his success has gone largely undiscussed: his ignorance.
Professing a lack of awareness isn't usually the way to get ahead, but it
has helped Tressel at key moments in his career. As coach at Youngstown (
Ohio) State in the mid-1990s, he claimed not to know that his star
quarterback had received a car and more than $10,000 from a school trustee
and his associates -- even though it was later established in court
documents that Tressel had told the player to go see the trustee. In 2003,
during Tressel's third season in Columbus, Buckeyes running back Maurice
Clarett was found to have received money and other benefits. Even though
Tressel said he spent more time with Clarett than with any other player, he
also said he did not know that Clarett had been violating the rules. A year
later an internal Ohio State investigation (later corroborated by the NCAA)
found that quarterback Troy Smith had taken $500 from a booster. It was the
second time the booster had been investigated for allegedly providing
improper benefits to a star player, but again Tressel said he had no
knowledge of the illicit payment.
On Monday -- after months of turmoil during which he had first claimed to be
unaware of violations in his program and then acknowledged that he had
known about them -- Tressel resigned. (He had four years left on his
estimated $3.5 million-a-year contract.) In his 10 seasons Tressel was the
most successful coach in Columbus since Woody Hayes, having led the Buckeyes
to three BCS title games, the 2002 national championship, a 9-1 record
against Michigan and a winning percentage of 82.8%. But like Hayes, who was
fired after hitting a Clemson player during the 1978 Gator Bowl, Tressel
exits ignominiously, all of his many accomplishments tarnished. "After
meeting with university officials, we agreed that it is in the best interest
of Ohio State that I resign as head football coach," Tressel said in a
statement. "The appreciation that [my wife] Ellen and I have for the Buckeye
Nation is immeasurable." The school named Luke Fickell, 37, as interim
coach for the 2011 season. The team's co-defensive coordinator and assistant
head coach, Fickell is a Columbus native who played for Ohio State from
1992 to '96.
Tressel's most recent troubles began in December, when the Department of
Justice, passing along information it had gathered in a raid while
investigating the owner of a Columbus tattoo parlor for drug trafficking,
informed Ohio State that at least six current players, including
quarterback Terrelle Pryor, had traded team memorabilia for tattoos or cash
at the parlor. When those revelations became public, Tressel said he hadn't
known what the players had done and expressed disappointment that they had
not listened to what he called the "little sensor" inside them that knew
right from wrong. Four of Tressel's highest-profile players were found to
have committed major NCAA violations, yet the coach's supporters insisted
that those were isolated incidents outside his control.
Then, on March 8, Tressel stood before TV cameras and confirmed a Yahoo
report that he had been aware of the memorabilia-for-ink scandal and had not
informed Ohio State officials when asked about it in December. Tressel said
he had first learned that players were breaking NCAA rules almost a year
earlier, in April 2010, when a Columbus lawyer e-mailed him. Rather than
alert his superiors, as NCAA regulations require, Tressel said he "couldn't
think" whom to tell. It was later reported that he had told one person, a
hometown adviser of Pryor's. By ignoring his own "little sensor" and failing
to be forthcoming, Tressel protected key players from being ruled
ineligible for much of the 2010 season, in which the Buckeyes were a popular
pick to reach the BCS championship game. (They ended up going 12-1.)
A failure to disclose potential violations is considered one of the NCAA's
cardinal sins and almost always leads to a coach's dismissal or resignation.
Yet Ohio State supported Tressel and continued backing him despite weeks of
negative press and calls by prominent alumni for him to be replaced.
That support crumbled suddenly over Memorial Day weekend. Tressel was forced
out three days after Sports Illustrated alerted Ohio State officials that
the wrongdoing by Tressel's players was far more widespread than had been
reported. SI learned that the memorabilia-for-tattoos violations actually
stretched back to 2002, Tressel's second season at Ohio State, and involved
at least 28 players -- 22 more than the university has acknowledged. Those
numbers include, beyond the six suspended players, an additional nine
current players as well as nine former players whose alleged wrongdoing
might fall within the NCAA's four-year statute of limitations on violations.
One former Buckeye, defensive end Robert Rose, whose career ended in 2009,
told SI that he had swapped memorabilia for tattoos and that "at least 20
others" on the team had done so as well. SI's investigation also uncovered
allegations that Ohio State players had traded memorabilia for marijuana and
that Tressel had potentially broken NCAA rules when he was a Buckeyes
assistant coach in the mid-1980s.
Last Friday, SI informed Ohio State spokesman Jim Lynch of the new
allegations and asked that Tressel be made aware of them. Lynch said the
school would have some comment by the end of the day. No comment came, and
on Saturday, Lynch told SI to contact Tressel's lawyer, Gene Marsh, for any
response from the coach; Lynch also said he could not confirm that Tressel
had been apprised of the new allegations. The implication was clear: Ohio
State was distancing itself from Tressel. (E-mails from SI to Tressel and to
Marsh and multiple phone messages for Marsh went unanswered.)
For more than a decade, Ohioans have viewed Tressel as a pillar of rectitude
, and have disregarded or made excuses for the allegations and scandal that
have quietly followed him throughout his career. His integrity was one of
the great myths of college football. Like a disgraced politician who
preaches probity but is caught in lies, the Senator was not the person he
purported to be.
To understand the arc of Tressel's head-coaching career, start with its blue
-collar origin in the Steel Valley. Youngstown State hired Tressel in
December 1985. He had grown up mostly in Berea, about 90 minutes west, as
part of a noted Ohio football family. Jim's father, Lee, coached at Baldwin-
Wallace in Berea for 23 seasons -- Jim played quarterback for him from 1971
through '74 -- and in 1978 led the college to the Division III national
championship.
Since the late 1970s, Youngstown had hemorrhaged steel-industry jobs. The
more its longtime source of pride slipped away, the more important the
Youngstown State football program became. Tressel's decorous manner and his
appeal to area blue-chippers were just what the town craved. His first team
finished 2-9, but the next one went 8-4 and won the Ohio Valley Conference.
In 1990, with hometown hero Ray Isaac under center, the Penguins went
undefeated in the regular season. In '91 they won the Division I-AA national
title.
"The community took great pride in that team," says Leslie Cochran,
who became the university's president in 1992. It took equal pride in
Tressel. He wore his Christian values on his sweater vest and founded a
chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Tressel was especially
skilled at taking troubled kids and molding them into a team. "A lot of [
players] came from broken homes," Cochran says. "They'd see [Tressel] as a
fatherly model."
But there was a seamy underside to the Penguins' success. In 1988, according
to court documents from a jury-tampering trial involving Mickey Monus, a
wealthy school trustee and the founder of the Phar-Mor chain of drug stores,
Tressel had called Monus about arranging a job for Isaac. The player and
the CEO had never met, but Isaac told SI that he had heard of Monus's "
philanthropist-type hand" from two basketball players. At his first meeting
with Monus, Isaac received $150. According to the court documents, by the
time he left Youngstown State, in 1992, Isaac had collected more than $10,
000 in cash and checks from Monus and Monus's associates and employees.
In January 1994 the NCAA's director of enforcement sent Cochran an ominous
letter. It said that according to an anonymous source, Isaac had been
driving a car provided by a local business, which would turn out to be Phar-
Mor; 13 Penguins had had jobs with Phar-Mor during the season, in violation
of NCAA rules; and nonscholarship student athletes were being illegally paid
by the university's director of athletic development.
Over the next month Cochran quizzed football staff members in informal
meetings. He believed that if anybody was aware of what was going on in the
program, it was Tressel. But Tressel told Cochran that the tipster was just
a disgruntled former employee. Given Tressel's sterling reputation, Cochran
felt confident relaying a nothing-to-see-here message to the NCAA.
In 1995, Monus was convicted in federal court of 109 felony counts of bank,
wire and mail fraud, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and interstate
transportation of stolen goods related to his looting of Phar-Mor's
corporate coffers. Three years later Monus was on trial for jury tampering
in the government's first prosecution of him, which had ended in a hung jury
. During this trial (at which Monus was found not guilty) Monus and Isaac,
who had pleaded guilty to attempting to bribe a juror on Monus's
;behalf, disclosed their financial dealings while Isaac was a student and
alleged that Tressel had set these in motion with that first phone call.
A reporter covering the jury-tampering trial called the school and
reported Monus's and Isaac's testimony, prompting an internal investigation.
That probe revealed that Isaac's car was the worst-kept secret on campus.
According to NCAA documents, all of Isaac's teammates who were interviewed "
except one" knew about the car or had suspicions about it. Even people
outside the football family knew. Pauline Saternow, then the school's
compliance officer, had such misgivings about the car that she recused
herself from the investigation committee because, according to Cochran, she
did not feel she could be objective. Everyone raised an eyebrow -- except
Tressel.
Today Isaac runs High Impact Football, a quarterback-coaching business in
Cary, N.C. He is quick to call Tressel his "surrogate dad." The two were
once so close that Tressel invited Isaac to a football camp, even after
Isaac had been indicted for jury tampering. They text-messaged psalms back
and forth, according to Isaac, who says the coach taught him his most
important life lessons. "He never let me take the path of least resistance,"
Isaac says.
Tressel was aware of the car. At times, Isaac told SI, he asked the coach
for help in getting out of traffic tickets. "He'd slot out two hours to meet
and say, 'Ray, I need you to read this book and give me 500 words on why it
's important to be a good student-athlete,'" Isaac says. Afterward the
ticket would sometimes disappear, which, if Tressel intervened, would be an
NCAA infraction.
In February 2000, 11 months before Ohio State hired Tressel, Youngstown
State acknowledged numerous football violations and announced self-imposed
sanctions, including the loss of two scholarships. Because it was satisfied
with those steps and its statute of limitations on the violations had run
out, the NCAA allowed Youngstown to keep the '91 national title, one of four
Tressel won with the Penguins. Cochran, who is now retired, still shakes
his head over Tressel's contradictions. There was the Christian who lifted
kids out of troubled neighborhoods and built a football "family," Cochran
says, and there was the coach who claimed to have been kept in the dark
after he had assiduously avoided the light. "What bothered me was that the
family knows," Cochran says. "Inside the family everyone knows what's going
on."
***
Columbus may be north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and Ohio State may be a Big
Ten school, but the manner in which the city's inhabitants seek to associate
with members of the football team is seen more often in Southeastern
Conference towns such as Tuscaloosa and Knoxville. The legendary Hayes had a
group of boosters -- initially called the Frontliners -- who scouted and
courted recruits. There was also a Columbus car dealer who gave Hayes's
players generous discounts in exchange for tickets to games. But the NCAA
ban on such assistance in 1983 marked the end of such groups, though some of
the former Frontliners kept their sense of purpose. They continued to do
favors for recruits and players a free dinner here, some cash there. "In
this town there almost needs to be, like the security screening at the
airport, something that beeps and lets you know that a booster has a bad
moral compass," says Columbus lawyer Geoffrey Webster, an Ohio State alumnus
and donor who was given a 2002 national championship ring by Tressel.
Stepping into that environment in 2001, Tressel had two options. He could
set a hard line with his players and the boosters, or he could go with the
flow. The first indication of Tressel's choice came in 2003, when the NCAA
investigated Clarett for receiving improper benefits. Clarett was evasive,
answering "I don't know" to many of the investigators' questions. The NCAA
and Ohio State eventually ruled that he had received improper benefits,
including taking money from and allowing his cellphone bill to be paid by a
man who lived near Youngstown. Ohio State suspended Clarett for the '03
season.
A year later, after he left the university, Clarett told ESPN that he wasn't
forthcoming with the NCAA because it would have meant ratting on teammates
and coaches. He alleged that Tressel had arranged cars for him to use
and that the coach's older brother Dick, who was then the Buckeyes' director
of football operations (he is now the team's running backs coach), arranged
lucrative no-show jobs for players. (Jim and Dick Tressel have denied the
allegations.) Clarett added that coaches connected him with boosters who
gave him thousands of dollars.
The NCAA never sanctioned Ohio State for any of those allegations. Clarett
didn't respond when investigators tried to contact him after the ESPN story,
so they weren't able to proceed. Like the Youngstown State whistle-blower
years earlier, Clarett was dismissed as disgruntled.
Now NCAA investigators and Ohio State are both looking into the use of cars
by several current Buckeyes, including Pryor, who, a source close to one of
the investigations told SI, might have driven as many as eight cars in his
three years in Columbus. (Ohio State declined to make Pryor available for
comment.) Former Buckeyes basketball player Mark Titus posted on his blog on
May 24 that it was common knowledge among students that football players
were driving cars too pricey for their means. "You'd have to be blind to not
notice it," he wrote. Former wide receiver Ray Small confirmed last week to
The Lantern, the Ohio State student newspaper, that he got a "deal" on a
car from a Columbus dealer, but he did not provide the terms.
"As fans we always write off what goes on behind the scenes," says Webster.
"We say it is no big deal because we so enjoy watching these fellas play.
But maybe we need to pay more attention to what is going on behind the
curtain."
Webster got a peek in 2004 while working as an attorney for Poly-Care, a
Columbus-based supplier of health-care products. He says an employee
informed him of a phone conversation involving Poly-Care cofounder Robert Q.
Baker during which Baker talked of a payment to Smith, the Buckeyes'
quarterback, and said, "Now I own him."
Some have portrayed Baker as a rogue booster who committed a single
forbidden act. But Tressel and Ohio State had reason to suspect that Baker
had violated NCAA rules almost a year earlier. The Dayton Daily News
reported that Chris Gamble, a cornerback and wide receiver who now plays for
the NFL's Panthers, was paid by Baker in the summer of 2003 for a job that
consisted of little more than showing up and signing autographs. The
Columbus Dispatch wrote that Gamble accompanied Baker on golf outings and
even called Baker at halftime of the '04 Fiesta Bowl.
Baker isn't an Ohio State grad, but he owned a share of a luxury box at Ohio
Stadium. On the wall of his Poly-Care office, Baker hung a picture of Lee
Tressel, for whom he played at Baldwin-Wallace.
Ohio State's investigation of Gamble's relationship with Baker found no
wrongdoing; school officials accepted Gamble's explanation that his job
included tasks other than signing autographs. Still, Tressel could have
forbidden his players to interact with a die-hard booster such as Baker.
Instead, about a year after Gamble's relationship with Baker was brought to
Tressel's attention, Smith went to Poly-Care looking for a job and left with
$500. After a tip from Webster, the university investigated and suspended
Smith for the 2004 Alamo Bowl; the NCAA later banned him for a second game.
The Clarett and Baker scandals were further evidence that Tressel was, at
best, woefully ignorant of questionable behavior by his players and not
aggressive enough in preventing it. At worst, he was a conduit for improper
benefits, as Clarett alleged. The latter interpretation is suggested by a
story that has long circulated among college coaches and was confirmed to SI
by a former colleague of Tressel's from Earle Bruce's staff at Ohio State
in the mid-1980s. One of Tressel's duties then was to organize and run the
Buckeyes' summer camp. Most of the young players who attended it would never
play college football, but a few were top prospects whom Ohio State was
recruiting. At the end of camp, attendees bought tickets to a raffle with
prizes such as cleats and a jersey. According to his fellow assistant,
Tressel rigged the raffle so that the elite prospects won -- a potential
violation of NCAA rules. Says the former colleague, who asked not to be
identified because he still has ties to the Ohio State community, "In the
morning he would read the Bible with another coach. Then, in the afternoon,
he would go out and cheat kids who had probably saved up money from mowing
lawns to buy those raffle tickets. That's Jim Tressel."
On the corner of West Broad Street and Rodgers Avenue in West Columbus
, in a neighborhood appropriately called the Bottoms, sits a shuttered
storefront. It has been vacant for some time, but a spray-painted board
still hangs above the door, informing passersby that the building was once
home to Dudley'z Tattoos & Body Piercing.
Ohio State fans are more familiar with another tattoo parlor, Fine Line Ink,
a few miles west. That is where Pryor and several current teammates traded
signed memorabilia for tattoos and cash. Buckeyes supporters have been led
to believe that the wrongdoing was limited to Pryor and his five suspended
teammates and took place only at Fine Line Ink beginning in 2008. "We're
very fortunate that we do not have a systemic problem in our program," Ohio
State athletic director Gene Smith said last December. "This is isolated to
these young men and isolated to this particular instance."
In reality, Ohio State players have been trading memorabilia --
including items bearing Tressel's signature -- since at least the
coach's second season, according to multiple sources. The number of
players involved is also much higher than what has previously been
disclosed.
Dustin Halko was an artist at Dudley'z from the fall of 2002 until early '04
, and he says that players regularly visited the shop and handed over signed
jerseys, gloves, magazines and other goods in exchange for tattoos. Halko
says he personally inked at least 10 Ohio State players -- he clearly
remembers tattooing guard T.J. Downing, tight end Louis Irizarry and wide
receiver Chris Vance -- and in return he was given autographed memorabilia.
(Downing denies ever entering Dudley'z and says that if his memorabilia was
there it had been stolen out of his locker; Irizarry and Vance could not be
reached for comment despite extensive efforts to contact them.) Halko says
that more players, including Clarett (who declined to comment), traded with
other artists, and he estimates that at least 15 players violated NCAA rules
at Dudley'z just as Pryor & Co. did at Fine Line Ink. Two associates of
Halko's who hung out at the shop -- they asked not be named because they
fear reprisals from Ohio State fans -- confirmed Halko's account that
players commonly swapped memorabilia for tattoo work. One said he saw "at
least five" Buckeyes conduct such transactions; the other said "at least
seven."
"What they brought in depended on the kind of tattoo they wanted," says
Halko. "If it was just something small, it might be a signed magazine or
something like that. If it was a full sleeve, they might bring in a jersey."
(Tattoos range in price from less than $100 for simple designs to several
thousand dollars for more elaborate ones like the full-sleeve inkings of
some Buckeyes.) Halko says those working in the shop preferred receiving
items with multiple autographs. His most memorable acquisition was a scarlet
-and-gray training jacket with between 10 and 15 signatures on it, including
Tressel's. Halko says he also traded tattoo work for a magazine bearing the
coach's autograph.
According to Halko and both of his associates, Dudley'z became a social hub
for the athletes. On a Friday or Saturday night a dozen or more Buckeyes
could be found in the large back room of the parlor. They danced to music
spun by a deejay and sipped drinks or smoked marijuana that was provided by
people at the shop.
Darrell (Dudley) Ross, who owned Dudley'z, initially told SI that Halko was
lying in saying that Ohio State players were tattooed there and partied
there, and that Halko was "just trying to get his name in the paper." Ross
later acknowledged that he might have tattooed some Buckeyes but said that
Halko did not and that the players always paid for the work. Ross said that
Halko worked at Dudley'z for "three or four days" and said of himself, "Look
, I am a career criminal, but I've only been convicted of one felony. I'm
not a drug addict like [Halko]."
Megan Zonars, who says she lived in an apartment above Dudley'z for about
six months beginning in June 2003, contradicts Ross's account that Halko was
employed only briefly at the tattoo parlor. She told SI that Halko worked
at the parlor "every day" while she lived there. Like the two associates of
Halko's who spoke to SI, she also confirmed Halko's account that many
Buckeyes frequented the shop. "I met Chris Vance and Maurice Clarett and
others," she said. "And it wasn't just [Halko] who needled guys. A lot of
people worked on Buckeyes."
Halko does have a troubling background and, like Clarett, is easily
impeached by those unsettled by his allegations. In 2005 he was found guilty
of assault and sentenced to 180 days in jail. In '08 he was convicted of
misdemeanor theft and possession of drug paraphernalia, and last year he
violated a protection order. In March he was sentenced to a year in prison
after being convicted of three felonies: attempted burglary, breaking and
entering, and domestic violence. He spoke to SI in a series of phone calls
from Noble Correctional Institution in Caldwell, Ohio. He said that in
addition to his legal trouble, he has had a drug problem in the past, "but I
'm not lying. Why should I lie?"
After Halko left Dudley'z in 2004 he opened his own shop, which he operated
for about a year. Then he pleaded guilty to assault and served time in
prison. After his release, he bounced around, eventually landing a job at,
of all places, Fine Line Ink, in 2009. Halko was at first surprised to see
Ohio State football players regularly come through the door, but it made
sense. Dudley'z had closed, and the Buckeyes needed a new hangout.
Halko worked at Fine Line Ink for only a few weeks and says he did not
witness the transactions involving the six Ohio State players who would be
suspended. Nor did he see the drug trafficking that would lead federal
prosecutors to indict owner Edward Rife. In a plea deal last Friday, Rife
pleaded guilty to money laundering and conspiracy and possession with intent
to distribute 100 kilograms or more of marijuana, offenses that carry a
maximum sentence of 60 years in prison and a fine of up to $2.5 million.
In its letter to Ohio State, the Department of Justice linked Rife, 31, to
Ross, the Dudley'z owner. The letter listed transactions between the two
involving six pieces of signed memorabilia. There was also a footnote: "Ross
is a friend of Edward Rife, who deals in sports memorabilia." Asked about
his relationship with Rife, Ross told SI he knew him but couldn't comment
further.
On what would be his last day at Fine Line, Halko says Rife accused him of
stealing some cameras, which Halko denied. He also says that Rife, the man
who would become close with many of Ohio State's best players, then pointed
a gun at him and ordered some of his associates to take him outside and beat
him. Halko says he ended up in Mount Carmel West Hospital with multiple
injuries, a description confirmed by one of Halko's associates. Rife's
lawyer, Stephen Palmer, told SI that Rife denies pulling a gun on Halko or
having him assaulted.
***
On the second floor of the nondescript building that houses Fine Line Ink,
Rife created the ultimate Ohio State-themed man cave. Huge photographs hung
on walls painted scarlet and gray. Images of Hayes and former Michigan coach
Bo Schembechler sandwiched a picture of Ohio Stadium. There were shots from
the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, where the Buckeyes won the national title, including
one of Tressel. Signature-covered jerseys were displayed, and on a small
table was an autographed helmet encased in glass. A large sectional couch
sat in front of a big flat-screen television that was hooked up to a
PlayStation3.
"It was a cool place to hang out," says a former Rife employee. "Everybody
could just relax and have a good time. The players were catered to. Eddie
would tell people, 'Go get them some chicken' or 'Run to the store and get
them something to drink.' Whatever they wanted." The former employee, who
worked for Rife from the fall of 2008 until last summer, agreed to speak to
SI on condition that he remain anonymous; he fears that Rife or one of his
associates will seek retribution for his disclosures. He will be referred to
in this story by the pseudonym Ellis.
Ohio State has conceded that six current players committed an NCAA violation
by trading memorabilia for tattoos or cash at Fine Line Ink: Pryor, tackle
Mike Adams, running back Dan Herron, wide receiver DeVier Posey, defensive
end Solomon Thomas and linebacker Jordan Whiting. Ellis, who spent time in
and around the tattoo parlor for nearly 20 months, says that in addition to
those six, he witnessed nine other active players swap memorabilia or give
autographs for tattoos or money. Those players were defensive back C.J.
Barnett, linebacker Dorian Bell, running back Jaamal Berry, running back Bo
DeLande, defensive back Zach Domicone, linebacker Storm Klein, linebacker
Etienne Sabino, defensive tackle John Simon and defensive end Nathan
Williams. Ohio State declined to make any of its current players available
to respond to SI.
Ellis claims that two players whose eligibility expired at the close of the
2010 season -- safety Jermale Hines and cornerback Devon Torrence -- also
conducted at least one transaction with Rife involving memorabilia or
autographs before the season ended. When asked by SI to respond, Hines, who
was picked by the Rams in the fifth round of April's NFL draft, said, "I did
nothing illegal." Torrence's agent, Jim Ivler, said his client "is adamant
that the allegations are false. ... He can tell you where he got all his
tattoos and it was not [at Fine Line Ink]."
From the 2008 team, Ellis alleges that cornerback Donald Washington traded
memorabilia for tattoos. Washington now plays for the Chiefs; his agent,
Neil Cornrich, did not return SI's calls requesting comment.
Ex-OSU defensive end Thaddeus Gibson has tattoos down both arms and is one
of the players accused of receiving improper benefits.
Ex-OSU defensive end Thaddeus Gibson has tattoos down both arms and is one
of the players accused of receiving improper benefits.
Matthew Emmonds/US Presswire
Among those whose Ohio State careers ended after the 2009 season, Rose,
Small, defensive end Thaddeus Gibson, running back Jermil Martin, wide
receiver Lamaar Thomas and defensive lineman Doug Worthington made trades or
sold memorabilia before their eligibility expired, according to Ellis.
Gibson, now with the 49ers, and Worthington, now with the Buccaneers,
declined comment through their agent. Repeated attempts to locate Martin,
including calls, Internet searches and Facebook messages to past friends and
coaches, were unsuccessful. Thomas, who now plays for the University of New
Mexico, said in a statement from that school's athletic office, "I'm aware
of the investigation at Ohio State. I have not been implicated for a reason |
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