Ohio State is SOOOO screwed

This keeps getting better and better. According to this outstanding article by SPORTSbyBROOKS, more sniffing has uncovered the fact that Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith redacted specific emails to exclude the name of Ray Small, a former OSU player that received extra benefits similar to the Tat 5.



"Why would he redact Small's name?" you ask? Simple. Small had graduated recently enough that his improper benefits would still fall under the statue of limitations for which OSU could be punished, BUT as he had already left school, the NCAA has no subpoena power over him. The only way the NCAA could have busted OSU on this was if they somehow got their hands on the original, unedited emails. Which they did. Ouch.

Ohio State continuing to redact Small’s name from the complete set of emails is all the more troubling (for them) considering the comments made by Smith in announcing penalties against the football program on Dec. 23, 2010.

At that time, six Buckeyes were cited by Smith for taking extra benefits. But those players did not include Small, who had also committed violations that the NCAA could consider actionable. Despite that fact, Smith said at the time:

“There are no other NCAA violations around this case. We’re very fortunate that we do not have a systemic problem in our program. This is isolated to these young men, and isolated to this particular instance.”

Smith knew of Small’s NCAA rules-violating activities involving Rife, which were inside the NCAA’s statute of limitations, when he made that statement. If Smith believed that Small’s actions were not subject to NCAA penalties, why did Ohio State redact Small’s name from the later-released, complete Cicero-Tressel email correspondence while revealing former Buckeye T.J. Downing’s name?

Clearly Smith misrepresented the situation within the Ohio State program with his comments on Dec. 23, 2010, to the media - at the very least as it pertained to Small.

Put more bluntly, he lied.

So now this isn't just a case of a "rogue coach" or a a few "bad seeds." This is--plain and simple--systemic cheating at the highest level within the athletic department at Ohio State.

Grab your popcorn, kids. This is getting fun.

First (and last) thoughts on Tiger Woods

As some of you know, I play golf sometimes. I'm not very good but I enjoy it tremendously.

For the last ten years I have given nary a thought to Tiger. When he was on his game, he was unstoppable. He had this squeaky-clean image of an All-American white kid that just happened to be black and asian by birth, complete with suburban Connecticut accent. He's got a Stanford education. He's a billionaire. He married a supermodel. Basically he's been the paragon of success, and the hero of hypercompetitive malcontents everywhere.

To me, he's just been boring. Uninteresting. Boring because he didn't seem real. I don't mean that in a "I knew it all along--he was too good to be true!" sort of way. I mean that in that way that people that I find interesting are usually layered and flawed; Tiger seemed the opposite of that. In an odd way, this "scandal" actually makes me pay attention, because I am starting to find him somewhat interesting.

The people that I find hilarious in this situation that are cheering his downfall. Like, "Oooh! Tiger's gonna get his now! Did you see Gatorate pulled his product line? He's gonna lose all his sponsorships, the dirty cheater!" Ummm, no. Fucktards.

Let's do a little math here: Eldrick Tiger Woods is a fucking billionaire. Let's be very conservative and assume he's only 10% liquid. Now lets be even more conservative and assume that $100M is only earning him a 5% rate of return. Simple math tells you the man will continue to earn at least $5M a year for the rest of his life if he never swings a club or signs another endorsement deal ever again. And that's a very conservative estimate; in reality it's probably closer to $20M annually.



Tiger doesn't give a shit what you think, or what I think. Nor should he. He doesn't give a shit what Gatorade or Phil Knight or Tim Finchem thinks either. More than likely, the only people who's opinions matter to Tiger are those of his wife and kids, family (his mother and his three siblings) and his close friends.

Regardless of levels of success in any (and every) other aspect of life, from here on out people will be judging Tiger for this indiscretion. That's his business. Not yours and not mine. All the same, I can't but help and find the whole thing...interesting. Finally.