Ohio State's final hearing at NCAA headquarters on the scandal that led to Jim Tressel ouster is likely to result in only light penalties. But in reputation, the damage has been done.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Judgment Day for Ohio State will arrive in the weeks after Friday's meeting with the NCAA Committee on Infractions in Indianapolis. All signs point to light penalties for the school, despite the fact that its leaders seldom led, and the coach of its flagship program behaved counter to the high values he espoused.
It will be a surprise if the Buckeyes receive a bowl ban because they avoided a finding by NCAA investigators of lack of institutional control over the football program in the scandal that involved players receiving discounted tattoos and cash payments for football memorabilia.
Ethical flexibility is seemingly one of the requirements of leadership around college football. OSU president E. Gordon Gee, when not joking that he feared former coach Jim Tressel would dismiss him, was up to the challenge, as was athletic director Gene Smith.
Last December, the NCAA, after lobbying by OSU, Big Ten and Sugar Bowl officials, kept the five players in the scandal eligible for the Sugar Bowl game. The NCAA's rationale for carrying the players' suspensions into the 2011 season instead was that "the student-athletes did not receive adequate rules education during the time period the violations occurred."
In other words, with OSU's acquiescence, the NCAA threw the school's compliance staff under the bus.
By the time the smoke cleared, Ohio State, despite earlier lauding Tressel's "body of work" as a principled man, sacrificed him for covering up the violations last season. The 12 victories in 2010 were voluntarily vacated, too.
"Considering the institution's rules education and monitoring efforts, the enforcement staff did not believe a failure to monitor charge was appropriate in this case," the investigators said on July 19, in accepting the punishment Ohio State had imposed on itself.
In other words, the NCAA said the OSU compliance staff did a darn swell job.
There is no consistency to the NCAA's view of OSU's compliance department at the scandal's beginning and at its virtual end. The expedient thing to do, because Ohio State football is so important to the Big Ten, the bowls, and the television networks' revenue, was to see no evil.
If the NCAA's integrity was impugned by its own words, though, so was that of Tressel.
"The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour," wrote Tressel, citing a Japanese proverb, in his book "The Winners Manual for the Game of Life."
Neither Tressel, nor officials of the Big Ten, nor of Ohio State, nor of the NCAA, nor of the Sugar Bowl emerged from the scandal as the men of the hour.
The punishment Gee and Smith handed down on March 8 was a wrist slap for a wealthy coach -- a two-game suspension -- when the guilty players were serving five games, and a $250,000 fine. This was despite the fact that Tressel had twice been reprimanded in yearly evaluations by Smith's predecessor, Andy Geiger, for lack of timeliness in reporting violations and for failure to monitor automobile purchases by his players. (There is no written trail under Smith, who issues oral evaluations.)
On March 17, after the NCAA rejected OSU's appeal of the players' sentence, the suspension for Tressel grew to five games. Still later came, in chronological order, the resignation/forced resignation/retirement of Tressel.
On Memorial Day, the coach said he resigned.
"Jim Tressel decided to resign," said Smith then.
"Tressel was not told he would be fired if he didn't quit," Gee said on June 12. "He was not given an ultimatum."
OSU revealed that Tressel was forced out as part of its official response to the NCAA allegations on July 7.
In its "introductory statement," Ohio State argued that "the institution has imposed significant corrective and punitive actions upon itself and sought and received the resignation of Tressel."
The statement later added, "The institution is embarrassed by the actions of Tressel in this matter."
This is known as scapegoating.
The statement added, "... the university also said it is waiving a $250,000 fine imposed on Tressel and changing his resignation to a retirement."
Ka-ching.
Ohio State also agreed to pay Tressel $52,250 -- the equivalent of the salary and benefits he would have earned through the end of June. Tressel also will collect his unpaid sick and vacation time up to 250 hours and will be eligible for health insurance coverage for himself and his family under the plan available to all state retirees.
Ka-ching-a-ling. This is known as hush money.
Many will say, when the verdict comes down, that Ohio State did not get hammered because it is too big to fail. True, except in matters of integrity, conscience and leadership.
On Twitter: @LivyPD