This too for the job. Obviously dated.
The buckeye is a sight to behold, the swirling spires of white flowers like so many wedding-castle ornaments floating atop five-fingered leaflets. The problem is, the flowers bloom in the first flush of late-spring heat, and wilt only a couple of days later. You’ve got about a week, and they’re gone. One learns not to be bashful with the camera.
Highly successful (106-22) Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel resigned this week after allegations that he failed to report his players’ breach of NCAA rules, so, fittingly, he’s gone the way of the buckeye in springtime, a bright flourish, and an abrupt vanishing.
America loves this stuff. Hypocrisy. Just the idea of it drives us all crazy with rabid glee. The guy’s written reams on the importance of integrity in football, and alas, in life. Someone has contradicted his stated positions with his actions. But has he?
Does anyone know the content of the tattoos the players traded Buckeye jerseys for? Maybe they were team-spirited, or even integrity-spirited, so that when Tressel saw them, he was in fact flattered in a way; he saw these kids as true flesh-and-blood Buckeyes, not just some kids looking to jump start their NFL careers. Maybe the tattoos were inspired by the poise and dedication of their unsleeping coach. Maybe the jerseys had been freebies and the players had plenty of them already and decided against Salvation Army because they were so valuable and their buddy tattoo artist desired them.
And maybe, just maybe, after he found out about the trade-off, Tressel sat the students in question down in a semi-lit locker room long after a hard-fought victory, and gave them a stern talking-to, the kind that elicits integrity and dedication and a type of trust that cannot be swayed by even the immense bureaucratic and legal tides of the NCAA, the kind of bond uniquely forged among players and coaches, and especially among those who are supremely good at what they do.
This isn’t SMU. This isn’t Eric Dickerson driving around in a gold Pontiac. Some kids got inked in exchange for some jerseys. The coach found out about it, and didn’t report it, didn’t want to break that iron-clad trust. And sure, he wanted to win.
Which of course leads to another possibility, that he’s simply so dizzy from the high of success that he’s willing to break any rule or standard that gets between him and it.
But that is something we cannot know.
And though I hope he doesn’t bet too heavily on his claim that “God has a plan for us,” it’s hard to see this whole charade as little more than a chance for Americans to pluck the flower from the branch and watch it wither, looking over it with our predictable, sinister grin.
