Hlog Digest: Jim Tressel a school president?

Last week's news that Jim Tressel had been named president at Youngstown State University struck me as a little bizarre.

Where was the disgust, I wondered. Tressel's career as Ohio State's head football coach ended in what objective people would call disgrace. You go from that to the president of a university? In what world?

Then came David Jones of the Harrisburg Patriot-News on Monday. Jones is one of the best sports columnists in the country, period. He's extremely smart, direct, and isn't a panderer to his province, or anyone else. That's never been easy in the heart of Penn State country, before or after the Jerry Sandusky debacle.

Jones laid out Youngstown State for the hire in this column, which I and many of my print-media brethren strongly recommend. Excerpts:

Everyone makes misjudgments in life and usually must be held accountable. But Tressel is one of those people who simply skates around the mess he's made. It's a way of life for him. You probably know of such people in your own life.

They couldn't do it without other people there to allow it.

In retrospect, the Ohio State 'Tattoo-gate” scandal of 2010-11 seems tame now. Players selling their OSU gear for tattoos and dope at a local parlor? And? Is that it?

But the NCAA violations were hardly what was notorious about the event. It was the way Tressel pretended he didn't know when he did, the way he repeatedly was dishonest, lied to his bosses and played out the string in order to keep players eligible and win games.

Click the link and read the entire essay.

A few days earlier, Sports Illustrated's Michael Rosenberg wrote about the same topic. Like Jones, Rosenberg is one of the best.

Rosenberg's piece isn't exactly a love letter to Tressel or Youngstown State, either.

Now Tressel can talk about 'helping young people” (one of his favorite phrases), and he can unite a community (something he does frighteningly well), and maybe nobody will notice how absurd this is. I mean, the man is so ethically sketchy that he would have to beg the NCAA for permission to coach a team, but running a university is just fine.

Who else would even try this? Most disgraced coaches would either go into TV (like Bruce Pearl) or try to find another coaching job (like ... well, also like Pearl). But Tressel is different from most coaches. He wants to be seen as a mentor with bigger priorities than winning football games. This would be admirable if his actions backed it up.

A person who describes himself as Tressel's most-passionate supporter said the following in this story by John Harris of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

'Some will ask, ‘What happened at Ohio State?' I can only give my opinion as a business leader, but what research I have done and communication I've had with others, there's no such thing as a perfect candidate. You can have a high level of academia to be president, or you can come from a different area such as fundraising and hire people to help you in the academia department.

'That's where president Tressel will come into play.”

That supporter is Bruce Zoldan of Youngstown, the president and CEO of the B.J. Alan Co., one of the nation's leading fireworks import and distribution companies in the nation, and the owner of the Youngstown Phantoms of the United States Hockey League.

Zoldan is a big donor at his alma mater, Youngstown State.

Universities are no better than the athletic-department machines they sort of oversee. It's all about the money.

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And Now for Something Completely Different:

Paul Myerberg of USA Today has a daily countdown ranking the FBS teams, 128 through 1. He has reached No. 106 (counting down).

The only team on Iowa's 2014 schedule that is listed so far is from Indiana. It is not Ball State, which plays at Kinnick Stadium on Sept. 6. Rather, it's No. 108 Purdue, which hosts the Hawkeyes on Sept. 27.

How many of Iowa's 11 FBS opponents will be in the preseason Top 25? Two tops, Nebraska and Wisconsin. No one else will be in the first poll. No one.