(Clark started and writes for NFLsFuture.com)

The story of Jim Tressel’s demise will be forever linked to the grotesque sham known as the NCAA.   In an effort to not come off as a Jim Tressel-apologist, I will simply state that Jim Tressel deserved the punishment for an age old practice.

In a day and age, when leading sports stories on ES(EC)PN are marked by athletes with guns, PED’s, rape allegations, the major media markets have decided to chastise The Ohio State University and Jim Tressel for “violations.”

Sports Illustrated led the charge and ultimately took the credit for running Jim Tressel out of The Horseshoe.  After months and probably millions of dollars, SI got their dirt.  The dirt they needed to chalk up another Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism.  Congrats, SI you got your man.  I challenge anyone to the argument that given the resources used they couldn’t dig up dirt on every major collegiate program.  Tats don’t come cheap these days.  So turn on a game and ask yourself how your favorite, overexposed college athlete paid for that sleeve of tats.  Rich uncle, Right?

ESPN runs an all day Memorial Day marathon to depict Jim Tressel as the villain in an attempt to cover-up the corruption of the NCAA.  The sad thing is that most will buy it and move on thinking another dirty program has received the NCAA death sentence.

Only if that were reality.  The reality is the NCAA is perpetrating the biggest lie in all of sports and making billions while we are buying it.

Jim Tressel is not a bad man.  Like most NCAA coaches he did what he did to protect his program and win football games.  Show me a NCAA coach that hasn’t or wouldn’t do the same and I will show you a man looking for a new job in the next couple of years.  In the business of college football it is win or well, win.

The fact of the matter is that Jim Tressel ran a quality program.  He graduated players at a rate that makes higher academic institutions jealous, he preached paying it forward and his players consistently showed their faces at charitable events around the state of Ohio, he molded troubled boys into men.  Most will fall back on Maurice Clarett, Ray Small, or Terrelle Pryor.  But take it from someone in this business of molding teenagers into adults, it isn’t an easy task.  Jim Tressel believed he could mold all young men into men and that is what cost him his job.  He believed his own lie and took the sword for the program he protected against it.

The NCAA will have you believe come August when sanctions are taken that they take these matters seriously.  Serious enough to sanction a program that makes more money than the GDP of Bangladesh.

If we continue to buy the story the NCAA is selling we never get an answer to our age old dilemma and it’s only a matter of time for the next program to be paraded around as dirty.  They have gotten away with archaic rules for so long they are really starting to believe they are doing right by these amateur athletes.

What a sham, amateur athletes.  What is amateur about a stadium packed filled with $100 seats and selling the likeness, jerseys, and memorabilia of the athletes that pour their blood and sweat into ensuring a billion dollar industry.

Maybe SI or ESPN will pour the resources into investigating the NCAA one day and things will really change.  Oh wait, I forgot they are married to the same myth that is the NCAA.

Photo: AP

SCOTT JACOBS

On November 23, 2009 Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated wrote a very intriguing column entitled “The Discount Dynasty.”

Tucked away peacefully on the backpage of SI’s College Football Preview, Ballard proposed an idea so crazy, it seemed unfeasible:  LeBron James taking the minimum, donating it to charity, and forming a super-team, showing that winning comes first.

“So you tell me what’s more valuable to LeBron James Inc. in the long run—three years of max salary (around $50 million) or the cachet that comes from a) winning title after title as the linchpin of a superteam; b) being seen as the first star athlete to say, “It’s not about the money,” then back that up; and c) generating worldwide media buzz.”

Stop.

Re-read it.  Superteam.  Not about the money.  Worldwide media buzz.

And we’re back.

That’s precisely what LeBron did!  Okay, so he didn’t take the minimum.  But he took way less money, joined forced with two other phenomenal talents in forming a superteam, and the way he went about it created worldwide media buzz (don’t underestimate the NBA’s sway across foreign lands, they’re already talking about Heat overseas exhibition games).

When I read that column way back in November I thought it was a scary proposition, but something that seemed unrealistic from the current money hungry athletes we have today.  LeBron, or any  other superstar would never put titles ahead of money in their prime.  No way.  It just doeesn’t work that way.  Like all athletes say.  It’s business.  Or as Randy Moss once famously proclaimed “straight cash homey.”

Ballard’s idea probably drew raves from sports fans at the time, who although skeptical of it actually happening, probably salivated over the idea of an athlete showing a little selflessness.  And then LeBron went through with most of Ballard’s master-plan and the end result has left him as the most villanized athlete in our sports world.

“Global icon? Champion for the ages? Consummate team player?”

That’s how Ballard opened up his piece.  LeBron would be the people’s hero.  He’d win multiple championships playing side by side with some of the NBA’s best.  He’d show how much of a team player he is.

That’s what LeBron did!

I guess the free agent charade he put on was tacky and over the top, and totally unnecessary.  It turned off a lot of people for sure.  And the ESPN Special, well that was outrageous and killed my IQ probably 30 points, but the point here is this:  LeBron did what Ballard said (he just didn’t take the minimum)

“By staying in Cleveland, James would be seen as loyal and inspirational while the Cavaliers stuffed themselves silly with big-name salaries—forget Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh, how about Wade and Bosh? But LeBron could just as easily join Dwight Howard and Vince Carter in Orlando, or Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol in L.A. Something tells me any of those lineups might just have a shot at winning a title. Or five.”

Stuff themselves with big name salaries?  I thought that was the cheap way out?  I thought it was all about legacies and winning it as the big kahuna.  The top dog.  But neither you, nor I probably would have blinked an eye in that direction back in November, when the idea of a superteam seemed like something straight out of a video game.

And that’s the hypocritical nature of people’s disdain towards LeBron.  Be upset at him for leaving Cleveland.  Burn his jersey if you feel that betrayed.  I almost did the same with my Ricky Williams jersey when he retired from the Dolphins to smoke pot.  Let him know you didn’t like his show.  His three ring circus.  But don’t fault him for taking the easy way out.  He didn’t.  He took the harder way out.  He sacrificed money, direct spotlight, and popularity.  He swung at conventional wisdom with a bat and was left with giant splinters on his hand.  The easy way out was going to Chicago or staying in Cleveland, where win a title or not he couldn’t fail.

In Miami LeBron can fail horribly.  The pressure will be unlike that which we’ve seen for a team in years.  Every night the Heat will have a target on their back.  They’ve accomplished nothing except on paper.  Yet, everyone hates him and his new team.  LeBron did what most would have deemed a heroic act in the sports world.  But he went about it poorly, and now everyone is taking the easy way out in bashing him.

“And for anyone who argues that James’s legacy would be tainted because he played on a stacked team, I ask you, Whose legacy was “tainted” more: Magic Johnson’s for winning with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy or Larry Bird’s for winning with Kevin McHale and Robert Parish?”

At the end of the day, people are just upset cause he didn’t pick their team.  The Cleveland thing is a copout.  New York wanted him.  New Jersey needed him.  Chicago put up billboards for him.  And yet methinks no one would have discredited him had he landed in any one of those places.  Let’s not make this about Cleveland.  Let’s just admit our hypocrisy.  It’s okay, we’re allowed to be hypocrites.

The first step is acceptance.

Photo: Getty

SCOTT JACOBS

Thanks to Coke Zero and their new basketball contest Fannovation (we’ll get back to that later), Juiced Sports had the opportunity to talk hoops and even a little BCS with college basketball do it all man Seth Davis, who writes for Sports Illustrated, and serves as an analyst for CBS Sports during their coverage of March Madness and the NCAA Tournament.

Seth was cordial and a terrific interview.  I had many more questions I wanted to ask him, but his answers were so in depth to my first few questions, that we went over the allotted time.  So I’ll have to save those questions for another day.  I did however get a homework assignment from Seth, one that would make for a very intriguing research project.  That said, here is my interview with Seth Davis.  It’s a Juiced Sports exclusive.  Enjoy!

Juiced Sports:  What would you say to people who argue that the NCAA Tournament renders much of the regular season meaningless?

Seth Davis: It’s completely incorrect.  The tourney enhances the regular season.  When you get into mid to late February every night of the week there are several game that have major implications in terms of the bubble.  Are those games as important as the NCAA Tournament games?  Of course not, but why would you want them to be. To me that’s like saying, ‘well let’s get rid of the NFL Playoffs and the Super Bowl’ because we want the regular season to be more meaningful. Division 1A college football in the United States is the only league on the planet that doesn’t have a post-season playoff.  I don’t know if it’s because those people who run that sport have figured something out that the rest of the world doesn’t know.

JSB: It’s an interesting point with those bubble teams, because as you get down to those games at the end of the season, they become these crazy free-for all who can get in tussles.  And the conference championship games– which have no where near the meaning in college football (with the exception of a few BCS Conferences) have the most meaning in the world to some of these smaller lesser known schools in college basketball.

SD: Where’s the meaning in college football’s post-season? There’s what, 31  bowl games, probably more? (Editor: 34 actually, but we stopped counting after 28). Most of them don’t even have any meaning. I just don’t see the great meaning in college football’s post-season.

JSB:  You get a lot of these teams –even the ones going to BCS games– and a minute and a half later no one cares (ala: Iowa beating Georgia Tech) because the games don’t have any real meaning (Editor’s note:  There’s a pair of new bowl games on the horizon next year we should add– because that’s just what we need, more mediocrity flooding the college football post-season).

“It should be hard to get to the NCAA Tournament.  I think those of us in the media don’t do a good enough job highlighting that.” - Seth Davis

SD: Right.

JSB: Some people have advocated that the NCAA Tournament go so far as to double the field, from 65 to a number potentially in the hundreds.  I personally think that’s crazy.  I would argue that by doing so, you would be diluting the field, but you’re the expert, so what’s your take?

SD: I agree with your take. I don’t think you have to be an expert to understand that it would dilute the field.  Back to your question, I always do feel like I’m defending college basketball’s regular season with the argument that you have a lot of meaningful bubble games.  If you expand the field to 96 then those games have a lot less meaning. I would also argue that it should be hard to get to the NCAA Tournament.  I think those of us in the media don’t do a good enough job highlighting that.  I don’t see why it would have a lot of meaning to make the NCAA  Tournament if basically everybody gets to play.  The fact that it is so hard to get in only enhances the value of actually making it.

JSB:  It almost makes me wonder if the same people who want the NCAA Tournament to expand are in favor of the bowl game type system where almost everybody gets a chance to get a game at the end of the season (as long as you win six games that is!)  I had a chance to talk to the founder of the Eagle Bank Bowl (the bowl game in Washington D.C.) when they first started, and she basically said it’s not about winning and losing, it’s about giving these schools and their fans an extra game at the end of the season– where people can say my team made the post-season this year, and maybe that would be their argument.  But I still think it’s ridiculous.

SD: Well again, they should have meaning.  If you take away the meaning of making the playoffs, then it’s just, look– I would never criticize anybody, much less the NCAA for trying to make more money. If they feel like they can make more money by expanding the tournament than I would never begrudge that.  But the main part of the argument is really coming from coaches.  It all comes down to job security.  They seem to be of the belief– and they may not be wrong– that if you expand the tournament, more teams get into the tournament and fewer coaches get fired.  I just don’t think that ends up being true, but I can certainly see where they are come from.  They are under enormous pressure and that’s why by the way, I also never criticize a coach, the occasional Lane Kiffin aside, which I think was a bogus move (Editor’s note: doesn’t matter what sport you cover, it seems like everyone hates Lane for screwing over UT) you’ll never hear me criticizing a coach for taking a job that pays more money, because fans can be upset and that he’s not staying at that school, but if he didn’t win, they’d fire him.  So if Brian Kelly didn’t win at Cincinnati they would fire him. So I have no problem with Kelly leaving Cincinnati to take the Notre Dame job.

JSB: It’s really funny you bring up coaching, because that was actually my next question. But before I ask about that, considering we’re talking about big time coaches in college sports, what did you make of John Calipari when he left Memphis– a perennial top 5, top 10 school that got some of the best recruiting classes in the nation despite being in Conference U.S.A.– for a program like Kentucky, which obviously is a bigger, more prolific basketball school?

SD: He’s an incredible coach.  When I say the word coach, I’m talking about more than just drawing up plays. The most important part of a coach’s job is recruiting, and for John Calipari to be able to recruit the way he did at Memphis, which doesn’t even play in a BCS Conference– he never got enough credit for that. It was assumed that he should be able to do that.  Then if the teams were good, he wouldn’t be considered for Coach of the Year because they’re supposed to be good, because he has such good players.  But why do they have such good players?  Because he recruited them there.  To me this is the easiest Coach of the Year race to handicap in over 10 years.  Look at what he’s done at Kentucky, it’s incredible.  That school was completely down in the dumps last year, and they missed out on the tournament.  They had a tumultuous two years with Billy Gillispie and they had to fire him, and in one cycle, Calipari has them undefeated and about to be ranked number one in the country.  He’s got an incredible record of success wherever he has been– his experience with the Nets notwithstanding, and he was a very smart hire by Kentucky.

JSB:  It’s funny you bring up the Nets, because they seem to be having trouble winning with anybody lately (Editor’s note:  Sorry, Nets fans, couldn’t resist).

SD: That they do, that they do. It’s more than about one coach.  I can tell you that.

JSB: That said, why doesn’t college basketball have the same kind of coaching carousel as college football?  It seems like there is much more stability in college hoops than there is in say a college football.  Also, you don’t see coaches constantly jumping from job to job.  Is that the way you see it?

SD: Not quite.  I’d like to see the numbers on that to be honest. It does sort of seem that every spring I want to say that there’s probably 30-40 coaches who change jobs, because they’re fired, they leave, or whatever.  Now that’s out of 340 division one schools, so I’d like to see what the numbers are in college football.  I know that there’s been a lot of turnover in the prominent programs in college football over the last several years.  Really, there’s more money in college football, and money does not lead to stability in most endeavors in life. It’s ironic.  Stewart Mandel who covers college football for us at SI.com made a comment to me recently, after he went to see the Blind Side, and I think he said if I’m not mistaken, that all those coaches who recruited [Oher] are no longer with their schools.  So I think that definitely speaks to what you’re talking about.

JSB:  I never knew that.

SD: Yeah, you should double check that.  I’d also like to see the numbers– maybe that’d be a good blog thing to write– over the last five years of how many coaching changes have there been in college football versus college basketball and then compare those percentages.

JSB:  I will do that (Editor’s note: we will try to do that, key word try)

SD: That’s your assignment.

JSB: I think that high school stars should have the option of going straight to the NBA if they so choose, however I also believe that if they choose to play college ball they should have to play at least two years.  My argument would be that it would strengthen the sport and allow these super prospects to develop even scarier skill sets, that would in turn help them even more at the next level.  Plus it would be good for the fans.  Do you think that would be a good rule?  Do you think we will ever see the NBA institute something like that?

SD: I think what you ought to do is set up a conference call with David Stern and Billy Hunter and give them that idea, because I think it’s a great one, and it’s one that a lot of people have been talking about.  I think people need to understand first and foremost that the draft minimum is not an NCAA rule.  The NCAA was not involved in that decision, they were not consulted in that decision, and they didn’t make that decision.  That was completely between the NBA and the players association.  It was basically the last key point in the last collective bargaining agreement to close the deal.  Billy Hunter told me that David Stern wanted a 20 year old minimum and the players association wanted no minimum, so they just flipped the baby and they made it 19. I think the biggest problem is that it’s created a situation in college basketball where you have a very, very small number– again, you’re talking about maybe a dozen or so kids who could even think about turning pro out of high school or after one year versus the 1000 kids who play college basketball.  You have in those situations, guys who basically go to school for one semester.  They tried to incentifize that with the Academic Progress Report and all that but, basically where I come down to is this:  if the NBA doesn’t want high school kids in their league than they ought to stop drafting them.  If there’s a market for their services and if guys like Kobe, LeBron, Dwight Howard, guys that have proven that you can have enormous success in the NBA coming straight out of high school then it should be up to the kids.  I had a great college experience. I don’t know what decision I would have made, but it’s not up to me to tell another kid that he can’t seize a tremendous financial opportunity that may not come around again.

JSB:  Speaking of financial opportunities, Brandon Jennings went overseas last year to play for a year, and despite being pretty mediocre over in Europe, he came back and was drafted by the Bucks, and now he’s having an incredible– potentially Rookie of the Year caliber– season at the NBA level.  Now that Jennings has been so successful do you think that this will become more of a trend, with more American high school basketball stars going overseas for a season or two and then coming back to the states to play in the NBA, instead of going to college?

SD: I definitely do not see a larger trend developing.  Brandon Jennings was not academically eligible to play college basketball, and if he were he would have spent one year at the University of Arizona and not in Europe and then gone onto the NBA.  So, I don’t see that trend developing. I’m glad that kids have the option if they want to take it.  I’m personally quite surprised that Brandon is having  immediate success in the NBA given the lack of success that he had in the one year he was over in Italy.  But I think that speaks to the competition in Europe.  But again, I think it should totally be up to these kids to decide what is best for them, but I just don’t feel that a lot of American kids at the age of 18 or 19, picking up and moving to a foreign country– with all the adjustments you have to make, playing against men, and dealing with all that– as supposed to playing in their home country, near their family, near their friends, and on television, which they grew up watching the NCAA Tournament– I just don’t think that at the end of the day that will prove to be the wiser option for them.

JSB:  Okay, finally let’s talk about Coke Zero and their Department of Fannovation.  Tell me a little bit about that.

SD: It’s a great promotion for me to be associated with.  It’s being put on by Coke Zero which has pushed the limits of what’s possible by combining real Coke taste with zero calories.  So now they’re giving fans the chance to do the same thing with college basketball.  So what you do is you go to www.cokezero.com/ncaa and you submit your best idea to enhance the college basketball fan experience.  It can be something simple like a concession cup that turns into a megaphone or a pair of pants that has seat cushions built into the legs, or a mascot cam for the viewers at home.  So think about thundersticks or the wave or all these things that we’re used to seeing around games.  So you submit your best idea, they come up with 64 and they’ll put them in a bracket around selection Sunday and then they will do a survive and advance bracket style format where the fans will vote.  If you reach the Sweet 16 they give you a 1000 bucks.  If you win the whole thing they give you $10,000 and a trip to the Final Four. So all that’s available at www.cokezero.com/ncaa.

I also would like to add real quick that beginning this Friday you can join Coke in helping out Haiti by going to www.mycokerewards.com and donating points which Coke will match and donate to the Red Cross.  Coke has already donated 1 million dollars to the Red Cross. So that’s available as well to help out our friends over in Haiti.

JSB:  Thanks so much for your time.  We will definitely spread the word about Haiti and Coke Zero’s Fannovation.  It was a pleasure speaking to you, and good luck covering the NCAA Tournament this year.

SD: I look forward to you completing my assignment.

JSB:  I’ll get back to you on that.

SD: Yeah, I’d like to see that.  Thank you.

SCOTT JACOBS

Cornell rolled to an Ivy League championship last year.

This year wasn’t nearly as easy.  To claim their fourth NCAA Tournament berth the Big Red just needed a loss from second place Princeton, which fell earlier in the day to Columbia.  Cornell (20-9, 10-3 in Ivy League play) is projected to be a 15 seed in the Midwest region according to our friend and SI Bracketologist Andy Glockner.  Who does Mr. Glocker have them facing?  None other than Duke, which he has as a projected 2 seed.

Last year if you recall, a fiesty and game Belmont squad nearly pushed the number 2 seeded Blue Devils to an epic first round defeat, before flaming out in the waning seconds of an agonizing 71-70 loss.  So does Glockner see history repeating itself should this matchup come to fruition?

“No, this isn’t a very good Cornell team, he said. “Duke should handle them comfortably if that’s the matchup.”

Now the Ivy League conference is interesting in the fact that they award their automatic tourney berth to the winner of the regular season champ.  Most conferences, even one-bid conferences like the Ivy League, put their automatic invite in the hands of a post-season champ, thus making it more likely that some mediocre or less deserving school can come out of nowhere and steal a spot.  I asked Andy if he thought this was fair.  I’d say his answer was pretty straightforward:

“All small conferences should give the auto bid to the regular-season champ,” he said. “Tournaments make no sense in one-bid leagues.”

It’s hard to disagree.  What kind of value does a regular season have for a one bid conference when some undeserving team can get hot and win a few games in a row? I guess that’s the Ivy League’s logic as well.  No wonder they’re the smartest~

Photo: AP