If you're wondering whether the Ohio State "story" would ever die down, you're not alone.  It seems like too many folks just aren't as satisfied as they thought they'd be taking down Jim Tressel.  They want more bodies as they look for more people to blame for their own loss of innocence.

The story is no longer Ohio State.  It's all the sanctimonious hand wringing taking place by self-appointed moralizers in the media who are getting a unique thrill dragging the lifeless corpse of Tressel through the streets again and again.

We've seen it from the dullards at Sports Illustrated to the dimwits at Yahoo Sports to the empty heads at ESPN.  If that isn't enough for you, then you probably haven't picked up your local paper in awhile (and you wouldn't be alone on that count) because the locals aren't going to miss an opportunity to jump in, late as usual.

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I think Coach Tressel had to go. The minute a head coach becomes a liability to the team or program he’s leading- for whatever reason, be it the win-loss record for, well, what we have here- that coach needs to move on, one way or another. That minute arrived for Woody Hayes when he landed the punch to Charlie Bauman’s facemask late in the 1978 Gator Bowl, it arrived for Earle Bruce and John Cooper at their own times; it arrived for Jim Tressel this spring. It was time for the coach, the football program and the university to move on.

I think it would be satisfying emotionally to blame this entire mess on the so-called Tat 5- particularly Terrelle Pryor, who at this point seems like an undercover agent recruited for the express purpose of destroying the Ohio State University football program. But you don’t blame Terrelle Pryor, you blame the man who sustained him- and that man is Jim Tressel. That having been said, I don’t think I will shed crocodile tears if Terrelle Pryor never again puts on an Ohio State uniform. As many games as won, as many spectacular plays as he’s made, he has been a net liability for the program- and it’s long past time for him to seek his fortune elsewhere. The same goes for the rest of the “Tat 5.”

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Let’s approach the Jim Tressel conversation in a little different manner. I have an overwhelming range of emotions and thoughts running through my head so I’m going to use this forum (because I can and because it’s healthy for all of us) to express those thoughts and emotions and attempt to sort them out.

I am not going into some lecture or soap-box rant about all the reasons why what Tressel did was wrong and how stupid he was to think he could continue to sweep the Tat5 wrong-doings under the rug.

Instead I will use this as a vent session for our emotional and mental health. I am taking the approach of sorting through the emotional spectrum that one faces when someone you care about passes away from something they could have truly prevented.

WAIT…..WHAT THE *%$*%... DID HE JUST???.

I know... I just compared someone dying to a football coach resigning and I get how ridiculous that sounds, but I am not really comparing the two at all. I am simply trying to communicate to you the mindset the article is coming from.

The range of emotions someone goes through usually starts with being mad or upset and thinking angry thoughts and heads toward recalling great memories and finding appreciation for the departed person. This is exactly what I went through Monday as I drove to work….so here is the deal.

To preface the story, when I go to New York to work, I work there for 7 straight days. That’s working 12 hours shifts from 6pm to 6am and at the end of those seven days I come home for 7 days

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Maybe if Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel had been more like University of Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun, the Buckeyes wouldn't have an interim coach for the upcoming season. But instead, as Memorial Day dawned, Tressel showed himself far more sensitive to the criticism and damage to his program than Calhoun ever could for his. And so, as Memorial Day dawned, Tressel held an early morning meeting with his players and his coaches and announced he was resigning.

The timing of Tressel's resignation could have been the impending story that George Dohrmann wrote for Sports Illustrated but if it was it's not necessarily for what the story contained but what it represented. This was a story that wouldn't end no matter how long Tressel had remained with the program. You can't move on until you move on.

With each passing day until the next media target emerges, and one always does, bits and pieces of the Tressel resignation story will emerge. Already it's being said that university officials encouraged him to resign and that's probably true. The only way to quit worrying about what's around the next corner is to start walking a straight line.

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