Plain Dealer cover sums up Ohio State fans' feelings today

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No matter the nuances or blame, all Ohio State students, alumni, and fans feel sad today.  And the Plain Dealer sums it up precisely.

No matter what, The Ohio State University is bigger than one coach, or however-many players.

O-H.

ESPN manages to kick Cleveland again, includes C-bus and Cincinnati too this time

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What is it about ESPN?  You don't have to be an aguished Clevelander to wonder why the hell ESPN feels the need to rub salt in the wound any time they can regarding painful Cleveland Sports moments.  Not a Cavs playoff game passed by without showing The Shot repeatedly.  No elimination game could happen without mentioning John Elway or Jose Mesa.  But today is ridiculous.

Jim Tressel quits, Ohio State, and ESPN continues the "Why is Ohio so miserable" invented storyline with a graphic instructing Ohio to "shake it off."

"_______ Off" is my only response.

Oh, and this:

Indians:  Best record in the American League.  Crushing expectations of everyone at ESPN, and they can't stand it.

Browns:  Peyton Hillis gets Madden cover, to the dismay of ESPN SportsNation hosts.

Cavaliers:  Pull off amazing odds for two top 4 picks in next month's NBA Draft.

Reds:  Hanging tough at .500 in the weak NL Central.

Akron Zips:  National Champions.

--thanks to @TheRealCWilson for the picture on Twitpic.

Tressel out at Ohio State, and it's his fault

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The other shoe has dropped this morning.  Jim Tressel has resigned from Ohio State in the wake of the cover-up scandal that seemed to me to doom him from the start.  News reports will be coming from all sides, and opinions from even more.  But to me, there was no other way.  The old adage is that the "coverup is worse than the crime"--look at Nixon and Clinton for that proof--and that is especially true here.  The actual "crimes" by Pryor and cohorts were so minor (and debatably "wrong"), but Coach Tressel knew about them, and purposefully failed to do his stated duty, to report the potential violations to the school.  That is what obviously and inevitably brought the Tressel era to a close.

The minute I saw this press conf, I knew it was over.

Yet some in Buckeye Nation are failing to see this.  Blame Pryor, blame Herron, blame Ray Small, blame the "mainstream media".  But at the end of the day, you have to really be inventive to think that Jim Tressel did not deserve the fate that eventually befell him.  It is beyond implausible to think that by him "reporting" what he knew to an FBI agent and to a lawyer, and NOT to the school, Coach Tressel was doing anything further than trying to protect the 2010 season, and to make sure the Buckeyes were sufficiently stocked to make another Big Ten run.

The mood in Ohio has been described as "shocked" this morning.  I can't believe that is true.  (As I write this, Aaron Goldhammer is on ESPN saying that very thing.)  A more apt description would be "saddened."  Jim Tressel was a great Ohio State coach, and is a good man.  But he broke the rules, and not just a little bit.  And so this had to go the way it did.

"Nobody is bigger than Ohio State."  That's a hollow, Texas-like statement full of bravado, but also true.  And the football team will certainly survive.

Go Bucks.

It took a little over an hour for ESPN to link this to LeBron James in the finals.  Uggh.  Is that in every reporter's contract?

OSU's Neverending Story: Ray Small drops a dime

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It seems every week there's some new dirt burying the Ohio State football program. The latest verbal soiling came Wednesday when former wide receiver Ray Small said the memorabilia sales and car discounts now alleged against a handful of players were a widespread issue when he was playing.

Ray Small small won't be getting an X-mas cards from Buckeye nation.

Small, who played with the team from 2006-2009, told OSU's student-run newspaper The Lantern  that he sold Big Ten championship rings while other players received discounts from car dealerships. Small further suggested that many more of his teammates flouted NCAA rules than just the six suspended for selling or trading memorabilia in 2009.

"They have a lot (of dirt) on everybody," Small told The Lantern, "because everybody was doing it."

Thoughts with Jim Donovan today, and memories of my tv childhood

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Courtesy Canton Repository/Stan Meyers

Jim Donovan's surprising announcement yesterday that he will be leaving WKYC Channel 3 for an extended time has left many Cleveland sports fans in shock.  He apparently has been battling leukemia for over ten years now, and will be taking the next few months to undergo the very difficult process of a bone marrow transplant.

I was raised on NBC news--my dad favored Tom Brokaw, and so I did too.  And so that meant Channel 3 News as well.  My main news interest, however, centered around sports, and I spent my time flipping between Jim Donovan, Casey Coleman, and Nev Chandler to see the same (often tortuous) sports news, night after night.  And like many Clevelanders, I felt a great kinship with them.  And not just them, but Chuck Galeti, Bob Stevens (I was legitimately excited when he got that job on some network called ESPN2), Gib Shanley, and more.

Nev's voice will never be forgotten

When Nev Chandler died, a little bit of my childhood died with him.  His voice will always be the Cleveland Browns to me, like Joe Tait is for the Cavs and Tom Hamilton is for the Indians.  Sundays were often spent with the television volume turned down, and the radio turned up.  As I cut out the Plain Dealer's Browns posters from the Sunday paper, I listened to Nev set up the game to come.  When the Browns returned in 1999, Jim Donovan had the unenviable task to have to fill a legend's shoes, and he did his best.  It took a while for me to warm up to Jimmy Donovan's exciteable calls, but he's now cemented himself as the new Voice of the Browns.

[Note: the column originally mistakenly omitted the fact that Casey Coleman was the original successor to Nev Chandler after his passing, as the Browns' play-by-play announcer]

Jim's goal, which I think can be extrapolated for every Clevelander for 2011:

...to come back, healthier than I am right now, and by the time I come back, the Indians hopefully will be back in the playoffs, we'll be watching the Browns play football, and I'll be calling the games, and the Cavaliers will be all rebuilt, and it will be all better."

To echo Ramona Robinson, "hear hear"!

Good luck Jimmy, we'll miss you and hope to see you (and hear you) soon!

You can send Jim Donovan get well wishes at getwelljim@wkyc.com.

His video statement after the break.