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NCAA investigating Tressel's days at Y-State

This is what the NCAA found out when nosing around Youngstown:

Former YSU players don't believe Clarett's story

By ED PUSKAS Tribune Chronicle Assistant Sports Editor

MATT Richardson is still rooting for Maurice Clarett to make it in the National Football League.
But Richardson, Clarett's position coach at Warren G. Harding High School in 2001, isn't buying the stories the former Ohio State tailback told "ESPN: The Magazine.''

"I don't know much about Ohio State, but I know Jim Tressel,'' said Richardson, the starting fullback on Tressel's last Division I-AA national championship team in 1997.

"The things being said about him don't make sense. I know what type of guy he is. He would never let one person dictate what happens with his team. He's a team guy. He's one of the greatest human beings I've ever met.''

If Clarett is to be believed, he was compensated handsomely for helping Ohio State win a national championship two years ago.

Money. Cars. Women. Clarett told "ESPN: The Magazine'' he had access to all three thanks to his impact on the Buckeyes' football program as a true freshman in 2002.

Class? Purely optional in Maurice's world, again if Ohio's Mr. Football for 2001 is to be believed.

Clarett said most of the extra benefits came with the blessing of Tressel and others within the football program and in the university's athletic administration.

Richardson and several other former YSU football players have come out in defense of Tressel, a man it once seemed would never need anyone to watch his back. Tressel became a god of sorts in Youngstown, where his Penguins won four Division I-AA national championships, played in two other national title games and made the playoffs 10 times in his 15 years at YSU.

Richardson, 28, played at YSU from 1995-98. He says he wasn't surprised when Tressel coached Ohio State to a 14-0 season and a national championship in just his second season in Columbus.

"When you have the right person leading and the right people following the person who is leading, that's what can happen,'' said Richardson, a Warren native and John F. Kennedy High School graduate who teaches and coaches at Harding.

Pete Superak, 27, is another former YSU player who dismisses the notion that Tressel runs a renegade program at Ohio State and did much the same with the Penguins. Superak, a product manager for Parker-Hannifin in Wickliffe, is a Warren native and, like Clarett, a Harding graduate.

Superak, who played at YSU from 1995-99, is back living in Warren and commuting to Wickliffe after spending three years with Parker-Hannifin in Chicago. The former YSU tight end telephoned a Tribune Chronicle sportswriter recently in an attempt to answer the charges Clarett made in ESPN: The Magazine.

"I could have just sat here and said nothing,'' Superak said. "But in certain situations, you can't just say nothing and let it fly by. You have to step up and air out what the real side of (Tressel) is.''

Superak, like Richardson, is unabashed in his admiration of his college coach.

"I was never in my life around a guy who consistently did the right thing like Jim Tressel did,'' he said. "The guy consistently always did the right thing. ... You have to understand who you're making these accusations against. Coach Tressel is the straightest arrow I've ever met in my life.''

Shawn Billker, 28, was a YSU offensive lineman from 1995-99. Billker, now a teacher and freshman football coach at North Canton Hoover, said Clarett's allegations have come up in conversations with former teammates.

"Every time another accusation comes out, it just makes us laugh,'' he said. "While Ohio State is getting smeared and Coach Tressel is getting smeared, from being on the inside of his program at Youngstown State, I have a tough time believing these accusations.

"I'm an ESPN: The Magazine subscriber,'' Billker said. "I'm disappointed about the fact the article was written. Those allegations of wrongdoing at Youngstown State ... I can honestly say I never saw anything like that and I would never expect anything like that happening on Coach Tressel's watch.''

Talk to some of Tressel's former players and it's clear they don't stop at simply not believing Clarett and ex-Buckeyes like Marco Cooper and Sammy Maldonado, who spoke to "ESPN: The Magazine".

They appear deeply offended.

"I feel like those guys are finished, so now they're trying to pull people down with them,'' said Pittsburgh Steelers defensive back Russell Stuvaints, who played at YSU from 1999-2002. "It hurts my feelings that all those accusations are coming out against Tressel.''

Stuvaints, 24, said Tressel had a good handle on most everything that happened within YSU's football program.

"He knew everything that was going on and if anything wrong was taking place, he put a stop to it,'' Stuvaints said.

Superak said it is inconceivable that Tressel would allow one player - Clarett in this instance - to operate outside the rules that apply to every other Ohio State player. Superak said that just didn't happen at YSU.

"It didn't matter if you were a player on the scout team or the starting quarterback - you were held to the same standards,'' he said. "I've seen him bench the starting quarterback and running back for missing meetings.''

Superak theorizes that Clarett's relationship with Tressel and his standing within Ohio State's football program began to erode when news of the running back's behavior came to light and the coach tried to discipline the player.

"This is what upsets me about Clarett,'' Superak said. "The guy has all the God-given talent in the world, but the first time someone tells that kid 'No' and stuck up for what was right, he tries to drag them through the mud.

"This was the first time a guy was able to say 'No' to Clarett. All the people in his past weren't willing to do that because of his talent. I know that's what happened.''

Billker said Tressel always made a point of stressing the importance of NCAA regulations.

"He was constantly reminding us, 'This is what you can do, this is what you can't do, this is who you can accept something from and this who you can't accept something from,' '' Billker said. "If they're doing that at Youngstown State, you can bet they're doing that even more at a place like Ohio State.

"I have a tough time swallowing the allegations that are being made. I know what kind of program coach Tressel runs and what kind of person he is and what kind of people his coaches are. I have a hard time believing he would let that kind of stuff happen.''

Mike Peterson, 38, was a junior linebacker at YSU in 1986 when Tressel was hired to replace the late Bill Narduzzi as the Penguins coach. He finished his college football career under Tressel and remains a staunch supporter.

"Jim Tressel showed me how to be a winner,'' said Peterson, a graduate of Warren's Western Reserve High School. "I sit in a Fortune 500 company as a senior manager and he's the reason. He sat me down and told me that we would graduate or we wouldn't play at YSU.

"He develops the individual. Winning is a byproduct of having a winning person on the sideline. He requires his athletes to be respectful.''

Peterson didn't mince words.

"I'm offended by what Clarett said,'' Peterson said.

Richardson, however, admits he is torn by the apparent friction between two people - Clarett and Tressel - he knows so well.

"It's hard for me,'' Richardson said. "I love the kid, but when you put your integrity against Coach Tressel's, you can't win. ... I just know it has to be hard on Coach Tressel, too, because he's not the the type of person that he has been portrayed in some of those stories. He's one of the greatest human beings I've ever met.''

That's why Superak says Tressel and Ohio State will be exonerated after the NCAA re-examines the Clarett situation.

"There's not even a grain of salt to it,'' he said. "It's so far from the truth. Tressel is such a straight arrow. When he'd go out, he'd drink O'Doul's. When he would swear, he'd say, 'Sugar!' It would be, 'Superak! Sugar!' And we'd know he was really p----- off.

"In my five years, I might have heard him swear twice.''

That's two more times than Stuvaints can remember.

"Tressel is such a good guy,'' he said. "I never heard him curse . ... There is no way I believe anything about what those guys say about coach Tressel and Ohio State.''

Even as Tressel's former players rush to his defense, most of them acknowledge the ability and potential Clarett had and hope he can put the last two years behind him and move on to a productive NFL career.

Billker said he agrees with McDaniels, who has said that Clarett has received bad advice from some people in his inner circle.

"I only wish him the best,'' Billker said. "I'd like to see him do well in the NFL.''

So does Richardson.

"I've got a lot of love for Maurice,'' he said. "I remember the kid I coached. I hope he can overcome all of this, but it's going to be a tough road.''

No matter what the future holds for all of the principals involved in Clarett's short-lived stay in Columbus, Billker said one thing is clear.

"Maurice is going to be forever linked to Ohio State, maybe not as a great running back who helped them win a national championship, but as a running back who was involved in a lot of trouble,'' Billker said. "It's a shame, because he had the speed, leg drive and desire to be great. All those things together are tough things to find in a running back. He had it all.''

And then Billker expressed a sentiment perhaps universal among those who know Clarett, Tressel or both men.

"I kind of wish none of this would have ever happened,'' he said.

[email protected]

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sports Editor Dave Burcham and sportswriter Jim Visingardi contributed to this story

YSU Players Defend Former Coach
 
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ESPN will take the quote that one player heard JT cuss twice in 5 years and use this tidbit in an upcoming piece of alleged journalism:

'Tressel swore repeatedly while at Youngstown St."
 
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