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He had a chance to do the right thing but decided against it.
First, understand that "the right thing" and "the right thing in his mind" were two different things. Only he didn't know it.
Jim Tressel isn't a punk. He isn't a coward, a turncoat, afraid or a wolverine in buckeye clothing. Or all the other things he's been called the past two days. Far from it. Tressel is a football coach who had a decision to make – one that included his national championship-bound school. And when it came time to decide whom he had to vote for as the second-best team in the country, he simply decided against it.
He decided to pull a Duran, "No voto, no voto."
See, Tressel is, as Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr referenced, "slick." By deciding not to vote for the team his team eventually would play in the BCS Championship Game on the eighth day of 2007, Tressel turned in one of the most egregious acts of disloyalty seen in college sports since Rick Pitino went to coach Louisville. No doubt, the move not to vote was slick … but not that slick.
Although his vote void might pay dividends for his Buckeyes by not providing bulletin board material – and it would not have made a difference in the outcome of whom Ohio State would have played (the 44-18 second- to third-place votes for Florida over Michigan in the coaches poll secured that) – the fact that Tressel refused to acknowledge his own conference and how good Michigan is will prove to be an indictment of his character and will be viewed as an indication of where his loyalties are when it comes to the Big Ten and big-time football.
"I didn't think it was the right thing for Ohio State," he said of casting a vote, "and [Gene Smith] my athletic director felt the same way. I don't think my vote would have made the difference."
True. It wouldn't have. But that's not the point.
As the coach of the school that has represented the Big Ten the past five years as the football prima donna, Tressel had an obligation to negate the perception of how his vote would have looked in print – USA Today published every coach's vote – and showed the same solidarity every other coach in the voting scheme seemed to show. He could have stayed true.
Blue state or orange state. Stand for something or fall for anything. All for one, one for all. Vote or die. All probably ran through his head like visions of Mike Hart running through his defensive line if given another chance. But Tressel took the easy route. He decided not backing either Michigan or Florida was the safest, least confrontational, least-chances-of-getting-scrutinized thing to do. In his mind, it was either the smartest or the slickest. Or maybe a combination of both. Either way, now the BCS knows how Maurice Clarett felt.
With every coach seeming to vote beyond his conscience and along "party lines" (Florida State's Bobby Bowden and Auburn's Tommy Tuberville voted Florida No. 2, and Michigan State's (former coach) John L. Smith and Notre Dame's Charlie Weis voted Michigan No. 2) of who's in their conference, who they played, who they're closer with as friends or which school is closer in proximity, it would seem Tressel would do the same. Protect his people. Protect his conference. Do something .
Instead he froze. Fridgitte Bardot. He didn't make a move because he basically said in so many words that he didn't have to. His comments of "I didn't think it was appropriate that Ohio State would cast a ballot one way or the other" came off as genuine, but the action overshadowed the questionable sincerity.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he really didn't have any choice. Maybe he had to do what he did.
Maybe in this abstinence of voting I/we forgot or lost focus of the one reason Tressel was hired in the first place: to beat Michigan in the final game of the Big Ten season. Every year. Maybe in Tressel's mind, now that he has done that this year – and five of the last six – there's no need to do it again.
At least not this season.
Maybe that's the way he honestly feels. But he was smart enough (or "slick" enough) not to vote, because although the rest of us/I would look at it as a show of solidarity for his conference, in actuality it would be a sign of weakness in the eyes of all in Ann Arbor. Maybe by putting in a vote Tressel would have caused a problem on so many layers that onions and Gap models would be proud.
Because casting a vote for Michigan would have shown he doesn't despise the school as much as we like to think he does come every conference title game. Voting for U of M would have exposed vulnerability and signs of generosity and loyalty – all things one cannot have or display in a legendary rivalry.
Or maybe he couldn't put a vote in for FLA because the second it got revealed that Tressel voted against U of M, Carr would have had that vote displayed on bulletin boards (in locker rooms) and on T-shirts (on coeds' chests) all over Ann Arbor beginning in August.
Just maybe none of us/me understands the situation he was in and that his "right thing" was actually the right thing to do. Maybe if we look at everything, all circumstances and outcomes, he was in one of life's ultimate no-win situations – because think about it, if he voted for one team and the other team was voted into the BCS championship, it would have had 35 days to use that as its motivational shorthand.
Maybe Tressel just played it perfectly.
Um …
Nah. Don't think so.
It was a punk move. Weak. A noodled-vertebrate act. A character exposé. One that will play out in his favor sooner rather than later (unless he loses the game), but haunt him forever.
Tressel knows what he is doing. It's something he won't regret because, as the great Willie Hutch preached, Slick ain't got no regret. Even when Slick ain't as slick as he thinks he is.
To the game of football, Tressel owed more. He needed to vote to show or remove the impression that he's becoming bigger than the game. That he's not really the next Steve Spurrier. To the Big Ten, Tressel owed more. He owed it more than not casting a vote. He should have shown the conference that much respect – especially when a team in your conference just lost to you by three at home.
He owed Michigan more than doing nothing.
To vote or not to vote? That was his question.
He didn't vote.
Jim Tressel didn't necessarily change the way the national championship game will be played, but he quite possibly changed the way his colleagues and the rest of us view him and how we evaluate his character.
He simply might have – by trying to be slick – played himself in the process.
Scoop Jackson is a national columnist for Page 2 and a contributor to ESPN The Magazine. He appears regularly on "Quite Frankly" and other ESPN shows. He resides in Chicago. Sound off to Scoop and Page 2 here.
