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- Thread starter jwinslow
- Start date
The real loser in this tale may be his son. Those pictures that surfaced with the son at Ohio State suggest he was used as a prop in this.
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For continued developments, see the main thread.
Talk about a self-made man.
Four days ago, a simple question was posed to a small (but committed) community of Ohio State football fans.
Did anyone among them remember Giovanni Strassini?
Oddly enough, no one did. It was odd because the most readily available information indicated that Strassini had achieved so much in his career. Initial research revealed that he had been a tight end for the Buckeyes from 1973 to 1977, an All-American in both football and baseball, had shared in the 1974 Rose Bowl win over the USC Trojans, was drafted by the Cleveland Browns before leaving the NFL to play minor league baseball, and eventually named to the Ohio State All-Century Team.
Quite a guy. No Chuck Csuri or anything, but still--pretty impressive.
As many former star athletes do, Strassini found a way to generate some discretionary income simply by being himself: showing up at organized events in and around Charlotte, North Carolina, signing autographs, glad-handing. Nothing wrong with that.
Within an hour of the original post, the jig was well on its way to being up. There was no record of him in the available Ohio State football record books. Nothing about his All-American status. Certainly nothing about him scoring that famous touchdown in the '76 Rose Bowl versus UCLA (apologies to Pete Johnson).
Amazingly, even the Ohio State University Archives office came up empty.
By e-mail, archivist Lindy Smith noted, "[Strassini] also doesn't appear in any of our campus directories, the campus newspaper, or the yearbook."
That's right. There is no record of a Giovanni Strassini having even been enrolled as a student at Ohio State in the mid-1970s.
At the same time that he kept coming up absent from the archives, the community kept finding more and more erroneous claims on Strassini's Facebook page, Twitter feed, and various other outlets. Pictures of a '74 Rose Bowl championship ring with the number 89 on it surfaced immediately (apologies to Lenny Willis et al).
Even a snippet on the Internet Movie Database listed Strassini as 'Himself - Ohio St. Buckeyes Tight End' in the 1976 TV Movie, 1976 Rose Bowl. For a guy with such a flair for the dramatic, you'd think he'd have starred in more pictures. Fakin' 2: Electric Google-oo, maybe.
In a wonderful turn of irony, the tool Strassini appeared to have used to pen his own legend - the internet - was exactly what looks to have exposed him as a charlatan.
One has to wonder where and how it all began. Was Strassini in a bar, spinning a drunken yarn of football glory that never was, when it occurred to him that there might be a future in that? Preposterous. But then, it's hard to come up with an explanation that isn't.
The ring is especially peculiar. It shows his name on the side next to a number that almost certainly wasn't his and is different in a number of specific ways to other images of rings from that game. A knock-off for sure, but close enough that the intent is clear: it was ordered as a custom replica. And a poor one at that.
The only purpose for a ring like that is to fool a person into thinking you're someone that you're not. Even if that person is yourself.
The more you dig, the more it appears that while Strassini may not be an evil man, he has certainly faced his share of challenges and hardships. How a person reacts to adversity, of course, can be very telling, and reacting with fraud is typically frowned upon.
Now, we don't truly know if Strassini is the one behind these fabrications. As it turned out in the Manti Te'o/imaginary girlfriend hoax, the principal character in the ruse was merely an accomplice--not the evil mastermind. But unlike Te'o, who was simply trying to conceal an absurd prank and spare his team the inevitable media feeding frenzy, Strassini has been posing falsely as this legendary athlete. If the players involved in the recent memorabilia-for-tattoos exchange program scandal faced public scorn, you can imagine what the popular reaction will be if this narrative stays on its current arc.
The silver lining so far in this silly story is certainly that it has nothing to do with the current Ohio State football team. Strassini has no connections to the program and is therefore unable to further pollute the well--or even to stand idly by why someone else pulls the strings.
The flip side is that until Strassini himself comes forward, it's unlikely that questions remaining about Strassini the human being will have concrete answers.
Then again, the internet is a hard hound from which to hide.
- V. R. Bryant
Talk about a self-made man.
Four days ago, a simple question was posed to a small (but committed) community of Ohio State football fans.
Did anyone among them remember Giovanni Strassini?
Oddly enough, no one did. It was odd because the most readily available information indicated that Strassini had achieved so much in his career. Initial research revealed that he had been a tight end for the Buckeyes from 1973 to 1977, an All-American in both football and baseball, had shared in the 1974 Rose Bowl win over the USC Trojans, was drafted by the Cleveland Browns before leaving the NFL to play minor league baseball, and eventually named to the Ohio State All-Century Team.
Quite a guy. No Chuck Csuri or anything, but still--pretty impressive.
As many former star athletes do, Strassini found a way to generate some discretionary income simply by being himself: showing up at organized events in and around Charlotte, North Carolina, signing autographs, glad-handing. Nothing wrong with that.
Within an hour of the original post, the jig was well on its way to being up. There was no record of him in the available Ohio State football record books. Nothing about his All-American status. Certainly nothing about him scoring that famous touchdown in the '76 Rose Bowl versus UCLA (apologies to Pete Johnson).
Amazingly, even the Ohio State University Archives office came up empty.
By e-mail, archivist Lindy Smith noted, "[Strassini] also doesn't appear in any of our campus directories, the campus newspaper, or the yearbook."
That's right. There is no record of a Giovanni Strassini having even been enrolled as a student at Ohio State in the mid-1970s.
At the same time that he kept coming up absent from the archives, the community kept finding more and more erroneous claims on Strassini's Facebook page, Twitter feed, and various other outlets. Pictures of a '74 Rose Bowl championship ring with the number 89 on it surfaced immediately (apologies to Lenny Willis et al).
Even a snippet on the Internet Movie Database listed Strassini as 'Himself - Ohio St. Buckeyes Tight End' in the 1976 TV Movie, 1976 Rose Bowl. For a guy with such a flair for the dramatic, you'd think he'd have starred in more pictures. Fakin' 2: Electric Google-oo, maybe.
In a wonderful turn of irony, the tool Strassini appeared to have used to pen his own legend - the internet - was exactly what looks to have exposed him as a charlatan.
One has to wonder where and how it all began. Was Strassini in a bar, spinning a drunken yarn of football glory that never was, when it occurred to him that there might be a future in that? Preposterous. But then, it's hard to come up with an explanation that isn't.
The ring is especially peculiar. It shows his name on the side next to a number that almost certainly wasn't his and is different in a number of specific ways to other images of rings from that game. A knock-off for sure, but close enough that the intent is clear: it was ordered as a custom replica. And a poor one at that.
The only purpose for a ring like that is to fool a person into thinking you're someone that you're not. Even if that person is yourself.
The more you dig, the more it appears that while Strassini may not be an evil man, he has certainly faced his share of challenges and hardships. How a person reacts to adversity, of course, can be very telling, and reacting with fraud is typically frowned upon.
Now, we don't truly know if Strassini is the one behind these fabrications. As it turned out in the Manti Te'o/imaginary girlfriend hoax, the principal character in the ruse was merely an accomplice--not the evil mastermind. But unlike Te'o, who was simply trying to conceal an absurd prank and spare his team the inevitable media feeding frenzy, Strassini has been posing falsely as this legendary athlete. If the players involved in the recent memorabilia-for-tattoos exchange program scandal faced public scorn, you can imagine what the popular reaction will be if this narrative stays on its current arc.
The silver lining so far in this silly story is certainly that it has nothing to do with the current Ohio State football team. Strassini has no connections to the program and is therefore unable to further pollute the well--or even to stand idly by why someone else pulls the strings.
The flip side is that until Strassini himself comes forward, it's unlikely that questions remaining about Strassini the human being will have concrete answers.
Then again, the internet is a hard hound from which to hide.
- V. R. Bryant
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"That's right. There is no record of a Giovanni (or John) Strassini having even been enrolled as a student at Ohio State in the mid-1970s."
Lest that gem is lost on anyone. 'Giovanni', let's talk.
Lest that gem is lost on anyone. 'Giovanni', let's talk.
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It appears they quitely removed any reference to Strassini from their site:MaxBuck;2338646; said:
Has anyone else noticed that Charlotte Buckeyes is giving us the finger?
http://www.charlottebuckeyes.com/article.html?aid=252
http://www.charlottebuckeyes.com/images.html?view_album=19&view_image=true&offset=4&count=1
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Awesome stuff. Amazing when you realize that this site evolved from a bunch of goat herders.
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New BP Advertisement?
"For a small nominal Spring Drive donation, this site will carry out your own internet investigation. Reputation.com's got nothing on BP!"
"For a small nominal Spring Drive donation, this site will carry out your own internet investigation. Reputation.com's got nothing on BP!"
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Not sure of this connection. Mistake was noted that he was on the wrong address.
http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/...onating-1976-all-american-24.html#post2338412
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muffler dragon;2338718; said:
Screw that. For $1000, we'll make you a walk-on. We'll seed your name around the internet, maybe have BB73 include your name in a trivia contest. cinci and ScriptOhio can post about having seen your exploits on the field, by the time your kids are born, they'll think dad was a superstar ...
$10,000 gets you AA status. For $1M we'll make you a Heisman winner. Not sure what we should charge for autographed bowling pins though.
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Buckeneye;2338372; said:
Nope. I only heard that he was a taxi squad player for Cleveland. He's not old enough to play in super bowls 1 & 2
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I just did something I have never done before - read 32 pages of a thread - and was entertained all the way through. Hey, it's the off-season. We need a good diversion.
Lesson for all: do not bull shit on this forum or BP'ers will expose you. Plus, there are some really hilarious posts mixed in amongst the detective work.
Really awesome that the great Giovanni Strassini decided to show up himself. I was 10 years old in 74. Seems like I remember hearing the chant of "Gio, Gio" through the TV from the Buckeye fans in the Rose Bowl.
This is a case of the truth about this guy's fiction being stranger than any conceivable fiction.
He and Art S should form a partnership.
Lesson for all: do not bull shit on this forum or BP'ers will expose you. Plus, there are some really hilarious posts mixed in amongst the detective work.
Really awesome that the great Giovanni Strassini decided to show up himself. I was 10 years old in 74. Seems like I remember hearing the chant of "Gio, Gio" through the TV from the Buckeye fans in the Rose Bowl.
This is a case of the truth about this guy's fiction being stranger than any conceivable fiction.
He and Art S should form a partnership.
Upvote
0
