This is all very thought-provoking. As paladin said, Tressel is definitely a PR genious, but the question boils down to "Is that to promote something or to hide something?" I understand people asking this question seriously, as I have been in recent months.
To answer that in my own mind, I can only go by what my father in-law, who was also an Ohio HS coach, played for Jim's father, and is still close to his family, has told me, which is that his desire to create and foster a "football family" (and not "Win at all Costs, which implies Bellichek-like mercenarism) is 100% genuine, in part because that's the way his father was. So, that much, in terms of his motivation, I believe myself. However, I do think one can analyze and criticize the methods and criteria that he uses to foster this family. As Mili said, he worked at Youngstown, one of the toughest operations to run, for a long time, where you're going to get anything but "boy scouts". So one possibility is that Coach's philosophy revolves around taking "problem" players and turning them around, using the football opportunity to get them an education and turn them onto the correct path. Of course, this transition will not occur magically and definitively. It is a process, which requires a great deal of patience, and probably a great many screw-ups. We talk of these being "18-22 year old kids" but if they've had problems before college, then they're more like 15-17 year old kids, not beyond hope but in need of a real chance to straighten out. Perhaps Tressel feels it is his calling to use the football family to eventually get through to these kids and mold them into responsible adults...to be a stable family, something that a lot of these kids didn't have before they got to him. So, maybe he recruits some of these kids fully expecting they will run afoul at some point, but hoping that he can teach discipline, understanding consequences, and the personal responsibility necessary to make better choices. That way, by the time they're seniors, they leave his program as well-adjusted adults, having come from being problem children. I think everyone is so cynical these days that some refuse to believe that the coach cares at all for the humans they are molding...just for the yards they gain, which I refuse to believe, given the coach in my family and the other coaches I had and know.
Now, all that said, the circumstances are very different at OSU than they were at Youngstown, obviously. I care about our beloved university's reputation as much as anyone here, because I am taking my PhD and attempting to hit the "big time" job soon. Anyone who doesn't think that our university takes a PR drubbing with each passing incident has their head in the sand. Fair or not, the average person sees the atheletes, not the mathematics students, and that's how the university is judged by the casual observer. In this way, I question Tressel's methods, because as a PR genious, he has managed to deflect much of the criticism (until recently), but the program's and university's reputation has suffered significantly in the eyes of many outside Ohio. If Tressel wants to mold troubled young men, it is his right to do so (and I'm not rendering him "Saint Jim" because those troubled young men also help him beat Michigan, win bowl games, and weave his PR dream machine). However, I think more sturdy guidelines need to be set, and I think more tangible punishment needs to be enacted. It makes me sick to my stomach everytime I hear Bowden say "I won't punish the star player, because it isn't fair to everyone else that's trying to win". I don't want a program like that, and I hope Tressel doesn't, either. I think he needs to do more on the consequences end, but he won't kick people off the team for minor infractions, because it is against his philosophy, IMO, nor do I think he should. Parents won't send their kids somewhere they will be cut loose if the get a minor citation or get in a scuffle...but they generally do want their children to grow up and face consequences for their actions, and it is possible to discipline the players without resorting to cutting them loose, which would be the mercenary-like mentality that we really don't want in our college program. I am not excusing Tressel, or the players at all. We're never going to get 105 kids at once who never do anything wrong. We need to go down a path where players face consequences, but have a chance to learn from their mistakes. I hope Coach moves down this path immediately...for the good of our program, the good of the players, and for the good of the university.
