Allright- Its Friday. I'm really starting to get a more than a little annoyed with this Tom Friend Crap, so I'd like to get a start on refuting the more 'important' points in the article. Of course this is from my perspective, but there's been a lot of Information out there so any help you can give me would be appreciated.
Let's start with the Friend article itself, and if I'm missing any of the bigger points, let me know your thoughts on that too.
Link to the Article: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1919246
On Academics:
Do we have a name for this Professor? Do we know what classes these were for?
Is this cheating? Anyone ever use an old test to study for a class. I was in a fraternity, and we had filing cabinets full of old tests. For large Math Classes and anything thats a Freshman levle course with hundreds of people, there were only a couple tests you need to study if you have access to them. Again can Maurice tell us what classes these were for?
Doesn't independant study mean independant study? If he worked for the last two weeks and got a C or a D, well, that's pretty doable.
Does anyone remember Sport for the Spectator? Did the 10 kids that weren't football players in the class fail? Its my understanding that as long as those students were held to the same standards then nothing here is against the rules. Also, note that Clarret admitted to cheating, and that he implicates no one else in his attempts to cheat.
Notice the lack of quotations around the phrase to keep him eligible. This is added by the author.
Also, not the use of the phrase :'How can I survive, how can I get a good grade on a test,'
Can anyone tell me who didn't use this philosphy in most any class that they found the subject material to be less than interesting?
Illegal Benefits Part One: The Staff
Before we get directly to the allegations, consider the following: as Tom Friend makes the assertion, "Clarett wasn't naïve. He had suspected before he arrived in Columbus that he'd have privileges"
If you replace the word "suspected" to "expected" then he was naive, and you can imagine that his initial reaction to everything that he was introduced to woudl amount to a handout....
...and we move forward.
"There were no unoccupied dorm rooms that day"
????
I'm a little confused. Maurice came to move into the dorms, but there were no dorm rooms? "Sorry Maurice, You'll have to wait until tomorrow. No Vacancy. What if Maurice came a day early, could the athletic department put him in a room for a night? Would it be that bad if they did? I don't know the answer.
Well- Mo Says one thing-
M/I Homes says something else:
http://www.dispatch.com/football/football.php?story=dispatch/2004/11/12/20041112-D1-04.html&chck=t
Maybe Dick Tressel did point him toward a job, but Maybe Mo didn't understand he'd actually have to show up.
[I know there are more links refuting this story, so if you guys can help me out, I'll put them in]
Illegal Benefits Part II: Boosters
Did Mo actaully show up to any of these people? Who set him straight? Did Mo Understand that sometimes that saying hello to a person might mean that they's be glad to meet him?
Any link to denials by Players would be helpful for this. (Other than Robert Smith)
Ahhh- Good old Mr Such and Such. I don't even know what to say about this, but Why didn't Maurice save some of his 'thousands' in case he needed an airplane ticket.
This is the one thing that might no t suprise me, sports hangers on abound, HOWEVER, there is no direct implication to the coaches, and even if there is, like the cheating, Clarret's arrogance and sense of self entitlement cause HIM to violate the rules. Do you think the idea of not taking money from someone ever crossed his mind? (Which we know he did, Bob Dullimuti?)
And if 175 v Texas Tech got him thousands... what about the 230 he put on Washinton State... should have been enough to buy a car... I guess it wasn't, as we move to:
Illegal Benefits Part III: Coach Tressel and Free Cars U
No doubt this actaully happened. The part that was left out, of course, is the fact that Maurice actually was supposed to PAY (what? crazy talk! Not Me, Maurice!) for this car. Didn't show up to do so. Car went home to McDaniels. They can explain it better than I can.
http://www.cleveland.com/sports/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/sports/1100169146227680.xml
You know- I always turn in my Lexus 430 before I'm going to break into a Monte Carlo and file a false police report. Wouldn't want my favortie car to get dinged.
As for the rest, we assume that the NCAA wasn't out to get him too, or that the prosecutors office didn't press cahrges n the false police report... but the odd thing is that Maurice feels like Ohio Stae Chewed him up and spit him out. ESPN is doing the same thing, and if he gets to play, so will the NFL.
Anyway, I'm going to keep looking for the links to support the section of this post, if anyone has some, go ahead and post them here and I'll update them, or if anyone wants to refute the 'side stories' like those on Marco Cooper, Sammy, misquoting Ropbert Smith, etc... that's cool too.
Let's start with the Friend article itself, and if I'm missing any of the bigger points, let me know your thoughts on that too.
Link to the Article: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1919246
On Academics:
"The tutor is a professor at the school. I'd sit there with a notepad, and I'd be playing or talking on the phone, and he'd just outline everything in the book, and say, 'This is what you write for your paper.' He'd take a notepad and say, 'Write this, write that.'
Do we have a name for this Professor? Do we know what classes these were for?
"And they'd tell you like, the old test from winter '02 is going to be the test for January '03. Or the fall of '01 is going to be the next test. They tell you how the tests rotate."
Is this cheating? Anyone ever use an old test to study for a class. I was in a fraternity, and we had filing cabinets full of old tests. For large Math Classes and anything thats a Freshman levle course with hundreds of people, there were only a couple tests you need to study if you have access to them. Again can Maurice tell us what classes these were for?
If it wasn't tutors doing "research" for him, it was academic advisers registering him in courses friendly to the football program.
"My classes were all independent study," he says. "So I'd show up in like the eighth week of the quarter and do something for the last two weeks, and I'd be fine. A lot of times, during classes, I'd be in the weight room lifting. The coaches would be like, 'You get your class done?' I'd be like, 'I'll get it done the last two weeks.'"
Doesn't independant study mean independant study? If he worked for the last two weeks and got a C or a D, well, that's pretty doable.
Clarett says his adviser mapped out his course schedule, put him in easy classes and told him which teachers were on his side. For example, he says he almost never attended one African-American and African studies class, and when he did, it wasn't difficult to cheat. "It was probably like a 40-person class, and 30 of them were football players," he says.
Does anyone remember Sport for the Spectator? Did the 10 kids that weren't football players in the class fail? Its my understanding that as long as those students were held to the same standards then nothing here is against the rules. Also, note that Clarret admitted to cheating, and that he implicates no one else in his attempts to cheat.
A former member of OSU's academic support staff, who requested anonymity, confirms Clarett's initial grades were "in bad shape," and that Clarett was given a tutor who "only had a few weeks to get him ready for exams" and keep him eligible. "We helped Maurice with, 'How can I survive, how can I get a good grade on a test,'" the former staffer says. "We understand the system. But that doesn't mean we did his work. Players like to brag that people are helping them out. It's a sign of status."
Notice the lack of quotations around the phrase to keep him eligible. This is added by the author.
Also, not the use of the phrase :'How can I survive, how can I get a good grade on a test,'
Can anyone tell me who didn't use this philosphy in most any class that they found the subject material to be less than interesting?
Illegal Benefits Part One: The Staff
Before we get directly to the allegations, consider the following: as Tom Friend makes the assertion, "Clarett wasn't naïve. He had suspected before he arrived in Columbus that he'd have privileges"
If you replace the word "suspected" to "expected" then he was naive, and you can imagine that his initial reaction to everything that he was introduced to woudl amount to a handout....
...and we move forward.
But living it was another experience. The favors, he says, began his first day on campus, in January 2002. There were no unoccupied dorm rooms that day, he says, and a staff member told him to stay in a hotel. "I ain't got no money," Clarett said. He says the staff member simply put it on a credit card.
"There were no unoccupied dorm rooms that day"
????
I'm a little confused. Maurice came to move into the dorms, but there were no dorm rooms? "Sorry Maurice, You'll have to wait until tomorrow. No Vacancy. What if Maurice came a day early, could the athletic department put him in a room for a night? Would it be that bad if they did? I don't know the answer.
That summer, Clarett says, the staff began finding him phantom jobs to put money in his pocket. He says it was the responsibility of running backs coach Dick Tressel, Jim's brother and then associate director of football operations, to find jobs for guys on the team. "If you're a walk-on, you're going to get a real job," Clarett explains. "But if you're a player, you go water some flowers for like four hours, and they pay you like a couple hundred. Sometimes you don't show up and you still get paid.
"That was my introduction to 'here comes all the free money.' I did show up at first. But I was like, this is boring, I ain't doing this. I used to go watch 'em hang drywall or something. I'd just hang out, go to McDonald's, come back, watch, leave, be gone. I made a couple grand."
Well- Mo Says one thing-
M/I Homes says something else:
http://www.dispatch.com/football/football.php?story=dispatch/2004/11/12/20041112-D1-04.html&chck=t
Maybe Dick Tressel did point him toward a job, but Maybe Mo didn't understand he'd actually have to show up.
[I know there are more links refuting this story, so if you guys can help me out, I'll put them in]
Illegal Benefits Part II: Boosters
By the fall, he says, the staff was "aligning" him with boosters who'd give him money for food, or for the shopping mall. He says coaches would tell him, go eat here and say hello to this person, or go to this school and talk, or go to this event and speak. Do this and when you leave, someone is going to set you straight.
Did Mo actaully show up to any of these people? Who set him straight? Did Mo Understand that sometimes that saying hello to a person might mean that they's be glad to meet him?
Any link to denials by Players would be helpful for this. (Other than Robert Smith)
"They got a little thing where you read books every Friday for kids. And you'll magically meet somebody there. Mr. Such-and-Such will be there. And then you meet Mr. Such-and-Such, and Mr. Such-and-Such becomes your friend for a while."
And how much cash would Mr. Such-and-Such pass along?
"Depends how you played that week," Clarett says.
After a 175-yard game? "It was in the thousands," says Clarett, who had 175 yards in the 2002 season opener against Texas Tech. "That was cool."
How would the cash change hands? "It'd get filtered down," Clarett says. "Me and a player would go into a coach's office. And the coach would be like, 'You met my friend Such-and-Such? He's a good friend of the program. You should check him out sometime.' You go over to his house, you meet him for dinner. You go play with their kids, meet their kids. The boosters know you're in college and need help. They're like, 'You got any money in your pocket?' They make sure you're straight."
Ahhh- Good old Mr Such and Such. I don't even know what to say about this, but Why didn't Maurice save some of his 'thousands' in case he needed an airplane ticket.
This is the one thing that might no t suprise me, sports hangers on abound, HOWEVER, there is no direct implication to the coaches, and even if there is, like the cheating, Clarret's arrogance and sense of self entitlement cause HIM to violate the rules. Do you think the idea of not taking money from someone ever crossed his mind? (Which we know he did, Bob Dullimuti?)
And if 175 v Texas Tech got him thousands... what about the 230 he put on Washinton State... should have been enough to buy a car... I guess it wasn't, as we move to:
Illegal Benefits Part III: Coach Tressel and Free Cars U
Clarett lived 15 minutes from campus, so he also needed a car. He says he took that request right to the head coach. "My transmission blew in my car, a Cadillac. So I'm like, 'Coach Tressel, I can't get back and forth to campus.' This is probably after practice, 6 o'clock, 5 o'clock one night. He gets on the phone and says, this is where I get my car from. He called the man from McDaniel Automotive. He's like, 'I got a player here, Maurice Clarett. He needs a car. Do you have a car out there he can use?'
"So the man gets on the phone with me and says, 'What kind of cars do you like?' I say, 'Got any trucks?' He says, 'Yeah, I got two trucks. I got an Expedition and I got a Tahoe here right now.' He's like, 'I'll be there tomorrow morning.' They drove down to give me the car."
Clarett says he kept the Tahoe for 11 days, then switched to the Expedition. NCAA Rule 16.12.2.3 states that an institutional employee or representative of the institution's athletic interests is not allowed to provide a student athlete with the use of an automobile. According to Clarett, that is exactly what his head coach did. "This is what Jim Tressel arranged," Clarett says.
No doubt this actaully happened. The part that was left out, of course, is the fact that Maurice actually was supposed to PAY (what? crazy talk! Not Me, Maurice!) for this car. Didn't show up to do so. Car went home to McDaniels. They can explain it better than I can.
http://www.cleveland.com/sports/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/sports/1100169146227680.xml
He says he'd keep the cars "for weeks, until I got tired of 'em." His favorite was the Lexus SC 430 sports car, but he tried to borrow anything that was new at the time. "Put it like this," he says. "There's a dealership on Morse Road, The Car Store. They've got a used car lot. You just go to the dealership, and go and go and keep on going. That's the car dealership Coach Tressel introduced me to, that and McDaniel Automotive. Both places set me up. I wouldn't have known these places if it wasn't for Ohio State."
You know- I always turn in my Lexus 430 before I'm going to break into a Monte Carlo and file a false police report. Wouldn't want my favortie car to get dinged.
As for the rest, we assume that the NCAA wasn't out to get him too, or that the prosecutors office didn't press cahrges n the false police report... but the odd thing is that Maurice feels like Ohio Stae Chewed him up and spit him out. ESPN is doing the same thing, and if he gets to play, so will the NFL.
Anyway, I'm going to keep looking for the links to support the section of this post, if anyone has some, go ahead and post them here and I'll update them, or if anyone wants to refute the 'side stories' like those on Marco Cooper, Sammy, misquoting Ropbert Smith, etc... that's cool too.