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OSU AD attacks Clarett charges

When the New York Times reported in July 2003 that Maurice Clarett had received special help from tutors and professors to remain academically eligible, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said he couldn’t comment because he hadn’t read the story.

And that was 11 days after it ran.

When Clarett bashed the program last week in ESPN The Magazine, Tressel released a statement but declined to take questions.

So imagine the surprise when Tressel addressed Clarett-related issues at his weekly media luncheon just four days before the most important day on his calendar–the Michigan game.

Even more significant was that Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger went on the offensive Tuesday. Geiger said Clarett’s wide-ranging accusations of free loaner cars, bogus summer jobs, money from boosters and unethical tutors drove him over the edge.

“I’ve been an athletic director for 33 years and in the business for 43,” Geiger said, “and I have never seen an institution attacked in this way before.

“I can’t violate the things my lawyers have told me I can’t violate. But our university, our fans, our students and members of my staff deserve to have somebody stand up and say we’re doing well, we’re proud of our program and we’ll defend it.”

But defending it from charges levied by Clarett and a handful of other disgruntled former players is a challenge. Picture trying to block an all-out blitz with a center and a tailback.

And the attacks aren’t just coming through the media.

After meeting Monday with a representative from the NCAA, Geiger said it is his “hope and belief” that the association will find no violations.

“Is it your certainty, though?” Geiger was asked.

“I think I said hope and belief,” he replied. “I’ll stand by those.”

Geiger also has to defend himself from a $3.4 million lawsuit filed last week by former basketball coach Jim O’Brien, who said he was fired wrongly even though the coach apparently admitted having paid $6,000 to a former recruit.

No wonder Geiger’s attorney was seated in the back of the room Tuesday.

Geiger defended Tressel and the football program in every instance but did acknowledge a minor shift in policy. Tressel has admitted calling his car dealership, McDaniel Automotive, in an effort to help Clarett buy a vehicle. Geiger said Tressel chose McDaniel because he knew it was reputable.

“The call to the dealer was not a [NCAA] violation,” Geiger said, “but it will never be done again. It will now not be accepted practice to call a dealer.”

A closer look at the other charges:

– “Reward” money from boosters. Clarett told ESPN he was given thousands of dollars after rushing for 175 yards against Texas Tech in 2002.

Geiger said Ohio State educates its booster groups and questions players on their relationship to people who receive complimentary tickets.

“We’re going to have 105,000 people in the stadium on Saturday and probably another 20,000 or 30,000 milling around outside,” Geiger said. “Can I vouch for every one of those people? Obviously that’s impossible.”

– No-show landscaping jobs. Clarett said he got paid for doing nothing.

Geiger said athletes and employers have to fill out forms describing what type of work will be done.

“Compliance is a shared responsibility,” he said. “Everybody has to cooperate.”

– Free loaner cars. Clarett said at one point he was driving a Lexus coupe.

While acknowledging Clarett had “many, many cars–or drove many cars, let me put it that way,” Geiger said Ohio State already had been cleared when the NCAA, during a previous investigation, examined Clarett’s wheels.

Said Geiger: “He was treated in ways the dealer has treated other potential car purchasers, and they have documented this.”

– Academic fraud. Clarett said his academic advisers picked his classes and his tutors wrote his outlines for papers.

Geiger said tutors receive training and have to sign an academic-integrity statement vowing not to write outlines. He said students register for classes on their own.

Geiger defended Ohio State’s practice of giving academic credits for playing football.

“Several people at Ohio State receive participation credit,” Geiger said. “Band people, athletes, [students who write for school newspaper, the] Lantern, musical organizations, theater groups. We think the activities are valuable.”

As for Clarett, Geiger said the first signs of trouble came when he called school administrators “liars” for not letting him fly from Arizona, the site of Fiesta Bowl, to Youngstown, Ohio, to attend a friend’s funeral.

Geiger said Clarett failed to fill out the paperwork needed to qualify for a special NCAA assistance fund.

“He needed to do his part, otherwise he was not eligible for that money,” Geiger said. “I was not willing to risk his eligibility by letting him go without that being completed.

“The young man he wanted to visit had been dead for 10 days with 12 bullets in him. [Clarett] had five days off in the interim where he could have gone and paid respects to the family. Yet we were called liars and were pretty well whipped by him and we chose not to fight back.”

They are fighting back now.