On Jim Tressel and Hating the Buckeyes

Yesterday, the debacle that has become THE Ohio State Football program came to a head with head coach Jim Tressel handing in his resignation. It doesn't really matter if that resignation was forced or voluntary, the important thing for the school is that he's now gone. What will remain, however, is the fallout of an investigation that gone gone much more deep than anyone at OSU would have liked.

When the news first broke in March that Tressel did, in fact, know about what was happening at his university and failed to inform the NCAA, the local radio shows around these parts were certain that his two game suspension and $250,000 fine would make it all go away. Nothing more would come out of it, they were sure. I knew better. These things tend to come to life once the first revelations are made public. Shortly thereafter, word came trickling out about shady car deals for athletes, one of them being a Chrysler 300 that sold for $0 according to the title transfer. A few days later, it was reported that that deal was actually for $13,000. This was a car that was two years old and had less than 20,000 miles on it. I work at a Chrysler dealership and I can tell you as fact that at the time of that sale, the car in question retailed for over $26,000. Whether the price was zero or $13,000, the athlete clearly received a deal that you and I could not get and that is a major NCAA violation.

Through all the tiny bits of news that trickled out about the car deals and the tattoos and who knew what and when, Ohio State stood by their embattled leader. All that changed when Sports Illustrated reported that the tattoo dealing were much more widespread and went back much further (as far back as 2002) than Gene Smith and Gordon Gee would acknowledge. If you haven't read the SI report, you should. It's an eye-opener for most, especially the fans that turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the rumbling about Tressel that went back to his days at Youngstown State.

There is no question that Tressel's reign at OSU would have gone down as one of the greatest coaching performances of all-time, at any school. But when you find out that he knowingly and willingly used ineligible player for an entire season, despite knowing full well the issues four months before the first game, the curtain is opened to reveal the scoundrel that Tressel truly is. Former players will come to his defense, just as Beanie Wells already has, but the verdict is already in and now OSU must pay the price for the callousness and carelessness with which Tressel ran his ship.

The NCAA committee on infractions won't have a ruling on Ohio State before the end of this coming season, in all likelihood, so they probably won't feel the pinch this year. Interim head coach Luke Fickel will get 12 games to make his case to retain the job. Ohio State fans are already dreaming of names like Urban Meyer and Bob Stoops as the next coach at OSU. You're kidding yourselves, folks. There isn't a respected head coach in the country that would willingly walk into a situation like the one facing that university. Sanctions will be coming and they will very likely include a loss of scholarships, a ban on post-season play, possibly even a ban on televised games. These sanctions will not only adversely affect the on-field product of the football team, but they will also be used by other schools when recruiting Ohio's best talent. Think about it: if you are a five-star recruit and you have coaches coming into your home to give their sales pitches, are you going to a school that won't have the chance to play in a bowl game, or one that will? Rival coaches will not only be pushing their schools on that kid, they'll be telling tales about the doom that faces Ohio State and about how that kid will be forgotten by scouts when they don't see him on TV.

I have lived my entire life in the belly of the beast, so to speak. I was born and raised in Lima, Ohio, surrounded by thick-headed buckeye fans. I have taken a fair amount of punishment for my allegiances to Penn State and the Detroit Tigers. But I never missed a chance to walk into a bar wearing my Nittany Lions jersey on game day. Sometimes the Lions would beat the Buckeyes, sometimes they would lose. I was always in the vast minority, but that was okay. It was always a good day when Ohio State would lose, no matter the opponent. Those days when Penn State would beat the Buckeyes were great days to sit in those bars, surrounded by the enemy.

Today is another one of those great days for me.

Where I've Been, Where I Am

I haven't posted here in almost two years now and I'm not entirely sure why I haven't just deleted the site altogether. I guess I've been waiting for this; my return to this humble forum, knowing in the back of my mind that someday I would need refuge from the grind that has become my online writing life. I don't know how much I will post here, this could very well be the last time I write in this space. Or it could be that I will use this area to covey my thoughts on all things in my life apart from baseball. I'd like that I think.

Lately, really over the past two months I guess, it has become a chore to continue to cover the Detroit Tigers for MCB. For those who may someday stumble upon this post have no idea what I'm talking about, I am the senior editor for MotorCityBengals.com, a position I have held for better than 15 months as of this writing. Prior to that I launched two independent Tigers blogs, including this one, which lead me to becoming a fairly successful writer in the online world. Not many "bloggers" earn a paycheck for covering the teams they love and I have been lucky enough to land a position that provides me some income. I guess that makes me a professional writer, which is a very cool thing to be able to say. I've even had a couple pieces published in print publications, so there is a legitimacy to it as well if you need that. I don't, but perhaps you do.

Anyhow, now there we are all on the same page, let's get to the purpose of this post. I've been wrestling with the idea of making some changes in my writing career, which is to say that I've been thinking of ending it. That really wasn't the plan originally at all. I talked to the higher-ups at the network last Monday (one week ago today) and asked for a brief leave of absence, which they granted me. I expected I would need a week to re-charge my batteries and to get my bearings before I would be ready to jump back into the daily lifestyle of researching and writing at least one post five days a week. In addition to the writing, I spend countless hours dealing with staff members as a co-director of the baseball side of the network. Don't get me wrong, I want to help them succeed, at least I want to want to help them. Lately, I don't want to. Lately, since we are being honest here, I don't have any motivation to help them, or to write anything.

Worse than that really, I don't have any motivation to read my site or anyone else's. I have used the past week as I had intended. I have been off-line for much of the week and instead have gotten quite a bit of work done at my "real" job. I've still been watching the games, by-and-large, but I have been able to do so without needing to find a storyline to talk about. I've been just a fan again and I certainly have missed that feeling over the past two years.

Two days ago, I made a five hour drive each way to go to Pittsburgh and watch the Tigers at PNC Park. The game was good enough I guess, but I was really there to see the stadium and it did not disappoint. I have a few pictures I took from my cellphone, and I had planned a post when I got back. This would be my re-entry to the blogosphere and would end my hiatus, at least that's what I had intended during my drive home.

This morning, when I signed into MCB for the first time in a week, I had the material ready to go. All I had to do was write the damn post and I would be back.

I stared at that blank page in front of me for a few minutes. Nothing happened. I felt no sense of relief to be back, no sense of anything but dread. I actually dreaded writing that post. It wasn't because I didn't have anything to say and it wasn't because I didn't think it would be good. I know I can write, I just don't think I want to anymore. At least not right now. So I closed the window and instead typed in this URL. I looked at a few of my oldest posts and I remembered the joy I used to have in doing this; in writing. When I started this blog, I wanted a place to talk about the Tigers. Everytime I would get a comment on one of my posts, it was like Christmas morning. I couldn't believe that there were people out there who wanted to read what I wrote and had the courtesy to leave me a note on it. As time has passed and my traffic has increased, I now find that I have lost much of the joy.

Last week I sent an email to a guy I "know" from our interactions in the blogosphere. I always find it amusing when I think of the "friends" I have never actually met, but whom I know online only. Anyway, this guy has been through what I am going through so I asked his advice. He sent me a detailed response that talked about all the various thoughts and concerns he had before he stepped away from his (very successful) site and left in another's hands. But he also told me this, and it's something I'm having trouble getting around, he said "if you are seriously thinking about walking away, it's probably time to do so."

The thing is, I know he's right. I don't want him to be right, but I know he is.

I love being Motor City Bengals. I love that my tiny little site on blogger has lead me to such heights. No, I'm not the biggest name out there by any stretch, but I am one of the names that most Tigers fans would recognize. That's so insanely cool to think about. But it also comes with a price. I have to spend so much time and energy building my brand and that of the site and even more energy building the brand of the network. It has always been a labor of love, one that I didn't have to think about doing. It was just a given that this is where my free time would be spent.

That price just seems a bit too high of late.

The funny thing is about all this that Zach and Adam both told me that if I needed more time, (another week, a month, whatever) I should take it. I thought it was funny they would say that since I had said one week should be plenty. Now here we are a week later and I'm not ready. These guys are the best in the business that I've seen. They've been doing this for a long time and they know the way things work. In this case, I think they knew my feelings better than I did.

The thing is, I think I started writing here because I needed to talk to someone about the Tigers. Nowadays my wife is every bit the fan that I am, so we have that connection (along with everything else in our lives) to talk about. I don't need the site anymore for that reason. Now, I need the site because it keeps my name out there and I like being as semi-important as I am. But that's a really bad reason to do anything, especially if what you're doing is supposed to be fun.

I'm not under any delusion that my writing career will ever become a full-time job. There won't be a point where I can list my occupation as "writer" without also listing a job that, you know, actually pays the bills. That's okay, I never expected to make a dime doing this. I'm not concerned about the money at all, more concerned about the future I guess. At this point it sorta seems like maybe I'm looking for reasons to move on from the blogging game, doesn't it? Maybe I am.

This post is being written as a way to organize my thoughts right now. I'm confused as to which direction I should go. I have plenty of options available to me, which I certainly appreciate, but I'm not sure that's making things easier. I could quit everything and go back to being a fan, I could get back on the horse and resume my "career" right where it was, I could back off the writing a bit and focus on the behind the scenes stuff at Fansided, or I could dive back into my writing and get away from the director stuff.

Obviously, there are always additional factors that play in as well. I have a very full family life with my beautiful bride and our four little ones. The house always needs work, the yard always needs tended-to, the kids always need something. Those things haven't always been my priority when it comes to the blog, but they always should have been. This past week, with no blog to operate, they have been my priority and I have enjoyed it. I have stresses in life the same as anyone else, and shouldn't we all do our best to eliminate the unnecessary ones?

But where am I right now?

Right now, I still want to do what I have done. I still want to be a recognized figure in the Tigersphere. I still want people to visit my site and know that while I have a staff of talented writers working with me, the majority of the content found there is mine. Right now, the biggest problem is that while I still want to do what I have been doing, I don't know how much I want to have to sacrifice in order to maintain and to build upon what's already there. But I also want to do it because I enjoy it. I want to look forward to writing my next piece. I haven't enjoyed it or looked forward to it for some time now and that's really the problem.

Regardless of what happens there, I think I'd like to continue sharing my thoughts here as well, but in a completely non-Tigers kinda way. As much as my wife might disagree, I do think about other stuff too.