Sports Illustrated: Jim Tressel’s history of NCAA violations started at YSU

Yesterday Jim Tressel was forced to resign/stepped down as Ohio State's head football coach. Tressel leaves OSU amid allegations that he lied to NCAA investigators about violations from a tattoo-parlor scandal.

Being the Marshall Thundering Blog I have no interest in further exploring Tressel’s wrong doings at Ohio State. What I am interested in is Tressel’s history of deception at Youngstown State.

In the early 90’s their was no bigger rivalry in division I-AA football than Marshall and Youngstown State. In a span of seven years (1991-1997) either Marshall or Youngstown State appeared in the I-AA title game. During those years Marshall won two NCAA championships while Youngstown captured four. Jim Tressel was the coach of those YSU teams and lead the Penguins to three championship games against Marshall, wining two of them.

According to Sports Illustrated those Youngstown State teams committed numerous NCAA violations. Most of those violations center around former Pengiuns star quarterback Ray Isaac and prominent YSU booster Mickey Monus.

From SI:

In 1988, according to court documents from a jury-tampering trial involving Mickey Monus, a wealthy school trustee and the founder of the Phar-Mor chain of drug stores, Tressel had called Monus about arranging a job for Isaac. The player and the CEO had never met, but Isaac told SI that he had heard of Monus's "philanthropist-type hand" from two basketball players. At his first meeting with Monus, Isaac received $150. According to the court documents, by the time he left Youngstown State, in 1992, Isaac had collected more than $10,000 in cash and checks from Monus and Monus's associates and employees.

For more on Jim Tressel’s history of NCAA violations at Youngstown read the entire Sports Illustrated report here: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/magazine/05/30/jim.tressel/index.html#ixzz1NwLxGZ94