Long road back to college for Jim Tressel
December, 20, 2011
By Brian Bennett
Jim Tressel turned 59 earlier this month. If he wants to coach college football again, he will almost certainly have to wait until at least Dec. 17, 2016, when he would be 64.
The NCAA delivered, if not a fatal blow, then a serious setback to the idea that Tressel will ever step foot on a college sideline again by issuing him a five-year "show-cause" penalty. The disgraced Ohio State coach had been mentioned for the Akron job and other openings, though it was never clear if that talk was very serious. Now, he is basically radioactive to any school that might want to hire him.
While the show-cause doesn't specifically prevent a team from hiring a coach, it does effectively serve as a ban in practice. Any school that employs Tressel must go before the NCAA infractions committee as to why it should be allowed to do so, and it could face its own sanctions as a result. The school would also have to issue a report to the committee every two months during the show-cause period detailing how it is monitoring the coach. Any additional violations committed by the coach during that time could really bring the NCAA hammer down on that school. And suffice it to say that most athletic programs don't want to spend any more time than absolutely necessary talking to the infractions people.
No Division I team has ever hired a coach saddled with an ongoing show-cause penalty. Some coaches whose college careers were essentially ended by the show-cause include former Ohio State basketball coach Jim O'Brien, ex-Indiana basketball coach Kelvin Sampson and former Kentucky recruiting coordinator Claude Bassett.
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