Do you smell that or is it just my nose?

I understand that this may be conceived as a bashing because of my loyalties to The Maize and Blue but even if I was an Alabama fan (not that there's anything wrong with that) I would still say the EXACT same things that I am about to now.

I just read an interesting article on Jim Tressel and the costly investigation surrounding the sale or barter of items that were given to players and the alleged cover up.

In the AP article there is a sort of timeline of events that occurred and I would like to touch on them.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said Tuesday (yesterday) that the $250,000 fine levied against coach Jim Tressel for violating NCAA rules may not even cover the cost of the investigation.
"It'll probably eat up the whole $250 [thousand]," Smith said. "I'm not sure. We haven't done any projections."

That's a lot of money to figure out what happened... is it fair to the University to not have done a projection? Why wouldn't you go figure out the logistics? Why WOULDN'T you figure out if the end justifies the means??? Why kind of business man doesn't do the simple things to find out if it's too costly to investigate something like that instead of taking another direction?

The article said this as well: "Smith would not say how much the investigation into Tressel's NCAA troubles would cost, although the university has hired two what he called "expensive" companies to help. He said Ohio State may have to make up the difference by dipping into the money the Buckeyes made from their appearance in the Sugar Bowl. "It's a nightmare," he said."

Wait, wait.... what? The money that the Buckeyes made from the Sugar Bowl? Can they do that? Isn't that $288,876 supposed to go to scholarships and/or used to benefit the program? I can't imagine that the NCAA would allow that money to be used for an investigation...

The article went on to say "In an interview with The Associated Press, Smith said Tressel was supposed to apologize in March at a news conference on the situation but failed to do so, and that only after meeting with Smith did the coach finally say he was sorry in a public forum."

REALLY? So you can be insubordinate if you are Jim Tressel and get away with it because why? Because you won a LOT of games in your tenure? Because you won a bunch of games against Michigan? Maybe!

At a news conference following the announcement of the fines and suspension, Ohio State president Gordon Gee joked that he had not considered firing Tressel, adding, "I'm just hopeful the coach doesn't dismiss me."

WOW.... talk about power! Who's running the ship down there in Columbus? Is Tressel so revered that the President of the University can joke that *wink wink* he's not going anywhere no matter what he did!?!?

Yesterday, Smith said he regretted that the hurried news conference did not go better and said there were a number of things he wished he had done differently.

Yeah... I bet he does!

I recently was "collateral damage" in something that was politically motivated and I wound up unemployed as a result of it. This "thing" just smells like politics to me.... it has the same "aura" to me! 

This whole thing stinks! Is the NCAA involved with damage control with Ohio State? Is Ohio State trying to smooth out things in the public opinion department? Everytime I read something about this I feel like the public is not being told everything that should be public knowledge... Is it just me???