The attorney who gave Jim Tressel a heads up about two of his players selling memorabilia now wishes he hadn’t.
Attorney Christopher Cicero told an ESPN reporter Friday that he regrets sending Ohio State coach Jim Tressel e-mails that alerted him to Buckeyes players selling some of their gear and awards.
When asked how Tressel should have handled the situation, Cicero said: “The heck with Coach Tressel. If I had to do it all over again at the end of the day, I never would have sent him the email.”
Why? Because he didn’t realize then that Tressel would sit on the information and fail to disclose to school officials that he had it.
… Cicero said when he asked Tressel to keep the e-mails confidential, he meant that he would not go to the media or the public, not that Tressel couldn’t inform the school or launch his own investigation.
“I wanted him to know that the kids had been hanging out with a person who was the subject of a federal investigation,” Cicero said when asked why he told Tressel about the players’ relationship with Eddie Rife, the owner of the tattoo parlor. “As a result of that, I also heard that they had been exchanging memorabilia with this particular person. And I outlined that in the e-mail. I threw it out there, quite frankly, it was just to tell him [Tressel] that that’s what it was.”
Just another ringing endorsement of Tressel’s character… the man wasn’t going to risk losing his star quarterback to start the 2010 season by telling anybody.
Get The Picture 
If Tressel keeps his job and the NCAA doesn’t wreck the havoc of hellfire on tOSU’s program, I’m calling for a jihad on the NCAA.
Who’s coming with me??
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Give me a minute to wrap the towel around my head and grab the AK47 and I’ll be there. Allah is great! Wait a minute, I don’t own an AK. Do ya’ll know any UF players? How about a tech Jihadist?
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I agree. This whole deal has really gotten under my skin. The arrogance. The lies. The holier than though attitude come from OSU. They can ram the “THE” OSU right us their ass.
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I don’t understand why the request for “confidentiality” serves as any sort of defense for Tressel. Tressel owed no duty to this lawyer, but did owe a duty to OSU and the NCAA to report the information. For him to suggest otherwise is beyond absurd
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He’s putting the “F” in F’d. He has no real defense. He compromised the program by failing to act AND , by signing the the NCAA disclosure statement in September, gave the NCAA tangible evidence of his willful cover-up.
The one possible defense I can see is Tressel saying he didn’t want to interfere with a federal investigation. That might hold a little bit of water, if he can come up with a lawyer who advised him to stay silent. He’d still be guilty but, it might be a mitigating factor in the eyes of the NCAA (he’s still F’d six ways to Sunday, IMO).
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If Tressel was concerned about jeopardizng a federal investigation, he could have reached out to the top attorney for the University and/or the Athletic Department and provided the information to them so that it was documented, but not out in public. At the very least he could have reached out to them for counsel without even disclosing the information. Tressel did nothing.
If he was truly afraid for his players safety and well-being in the federal drug investigation, he could have discussed with the players, their parents, law enforcement, etc. But he did not – he just sat on the information and hoped it would never see the light of day.
If Buddy the Elf saw Jim Tressel on the street, he would walk right up to him and call in a “cotton-pickin’ ninny-muggins.”
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It’s going to be fun watching the NCAA Kabuki dance around this one. You know they will interpret an obscure rule to let OSU off the hook for the 2010 season, like vacating 4 non-conference games. The real bitch will be if they punish OSU for the 2010 season then say because OSU vacated games in 2010 the suspensions for the first 5 games of 2011 are no longer necessary. Melt down coming to the NCAA soon.
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“We can find no evidence of impropriety concerning the Ohio State University football program.” – future quote from the NCAA
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Awlah Akbah!! Sure, Tech should be included. They are more deluded than anyone.
Yes, JTU should be shut down hard. Tried to interest some lawyahs into sueing them in the name of AJ and the team screwed over for the Sugar Bowl. As a guardhouse lawyer I see no reason why we can’t sue them for screwing over the member schools, why they can’t be sued by the team that should have taken their Sugar Bowl place when they had to forfeit all games for knowingly playing ineligible players during the season and for watching us do without the best receiver in college ball. What think you , one and all? Can we get a “Heyal Yeyah” from a jihadist lawyah?
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DEATH TO THE INFIDEL!
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Uh, in case there are any NSA, CIA, or any other assorted spooks reading this blog, JUST KIDDING! My name is Jaihidi Patel and I am a Ga Tech grad living in Jersey City, I am just using Shane’s laptop. Yeah, I stole the laptop, yeah thats it! Oh crap, a black chopper is landing by the pool. Damn, those guys are good! Senator, so you have any buds in the JAG Corps?
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The NCAA will do NOTH-HING, NOTH-HING.
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