Jack Nicklaus defends former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel
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Jack Nicklaus, an Ohio State golfing legend, continued his support for ousted Buckeyes football coach Jim Tressel on Tuesday.
Speaking as he annually does before the Memorial, the tournament he hosts at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, Nicklaus said he feels "very bad for Jim. He's a nice man. I've said many times that if I had a boy at this age who wanted to play football, my grandson Nick up here was recruited by Florida State now, thankfully, but I would love to see him play for Jim Tressel. He's a good man."
Nicklaus, who had been publicly supportive of Tressel prior to Monday's resignation amid an NCAA investigation into improper benefits for players, certainly knew what to expect before the press conference. Indeed, the first question was about Tressel, who has admitted he withheld information about his players violations from the school and the NCAA. He has said it was to protect the players, but at the same time they remained eligible for last season despite breaking rules by trading memorabilia and awards for tattoos and cash.
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Said Nicklaus:
"Well, my take on it is that it was no different than a father trying to protect his son, and if I had one of my kids that did what I thought was a fairly insignificant thing, I'd probably say, you know, Hey, we're not going to worry too much about that. We're going to try to just forget that.
"Well, obviously the cover?up was far worse than the act. And once you got the cover?up, it became a situation where Jim had to say some things that turned out to be that weren't exactly truthful. And so that's where he got himself in trouble.
"I think unfortunately it's a situation they got caught in, and that's where they are. What's going to happen, I don't know beyond this point. The NCAA, it's more in their hands. ... Once one of these things happens, by the time they get through digging they're going to find whether somebody had a hangnail someplace or not, whether somebody replaced it improperly."
Nicklaus was then asked what Woody Hayes, the legendary OSU football coach who was fired after punching a player during a game, would have thought about this situation:
"I think Woody would have probably ended up doing exactly the same thing, but I think that maybe he wouldn't have had a news media that no matter what happens gets on the news. I mean, when I played ?? I was playing when Woody was coaching, we were not under a microscope. A little thing happened that passed. Today a little thing happens and it's all over the world. I mean, it's not an indictment of anybody, it's just what it is. I think Woody would have protected his kids. He probably did protect his kids. Woody was a good man. I think Tressel is a good man."
Nicklaus even suggested some blame could be laid directed at the NCAA:
"How could you possibly control what some kids do? It was a fairly innocent act. You want to get a tattoo? You're going to get a tattoo. Is that a big deal? Maybe to those kids it was. Maybe it's the NCAA's fault. Maybe the only way to pay for those tattoos was to do what they did. Is that a big deal? Probably not. It was theirs."
Contributing: Steve DiMeglio in Dublin, Ohio; the Associated Press.
See photos of: Jack Nicklaus, NCAA
Source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomSports-TopStories/~3/qW9aWyZxORo/1
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