About Me 0117: Whos Making Money

—Posey sold his championship ring and accepted discounted services.

—Adams sold his championship ring.

—Thomas sold both his championship ring and gold pants, and accepted discounted services.

As part of their reinstatement, the five Buckeyes are responsible for repaying the money they received from selling the awards and apparel, according to the release. Combined, the five must repay a total of $7,405, with Pryor responsible for repaying the most, $2,500.

As far as I’m concerned, the players have no one to blame but themselves. They know the rules. They were educated about them long before they arrived on campus.

By allowing the five to play in the Sugar Bowl, it seems as if the NCAA is making excuses for them at the expense of the Ohio State athletic compliance department.

To claim that the players were inadequately educated about athletic compliance rules during the time period of the violations is fine if the violations were something with a lot of gray area, and without proper education the players could think they were doing no wrong. But how does an intercollegiate athlete, even without the so-called proper athletic-compliance education, think that selling awards they received for their on-field performance is ok?

I bet a sixth-grader understands that concept, and they likely don’t even know what the phrase “athletic compliance” even means. I had never heard the phrase until I was in college.

The Ohio State athletic compliance department shouldn’t be let off the hook, after all it claimed to be squeaky clean since the whole Maurice Clarrett saga and that appears to be in jeopardy—where there’s smoke there’s fire—but it shouldn’t take the fall for its athletes.

The department, the university and the NCAA are not helping its athletes by patting them on the back and saying “it’s not your fault completely, we should have made that part more clear—our bad. Now go have fun in New Orleans.”

...the White House, the president spots his handpicked choice atop the RNC, as George W. Bush did with Jim Gilmore, Marc Racicot and others. But when one of those Democrats is in the Oval Office, the choice of the crucial national leader is left to the 166 state chairs and committeemen on the RNC.

In 2009, that led to a multi-ballot struggle won by Michael Steele, the 52-year-old first African-American chairman of the party of Lincoln. Steele's term expires in January. Within weeks of his installation, however, grumbling began among D.C. Republicans over Steele's RNC leadership, or lack thereof. There ensued numerous flaps over RNC healthcare provisions, operatives' expensed visits to a strip club, lavish meetings in Hawaii and fundraising tactics and results. Not to mention various media missteps and Steele's own book tour travels.

So severe was the concern over Steele's leadership that an ad hoc committee of party elders and former chairmen met secretly last spring to draw up a list of recommended changes, which were delivered to Steele by a delegation. He paid little heed. Meanwhile, Bush strategist Karl Rove, former chairman Ed Gillespie and others organized half a dozen outside fundraising committees to detour money around the ineffective RNC and take advantage of what appeared early on to be a propitious election year for the GOP.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, himself a former RNC chair, current chairman of the Republican Governors Assn. and a likely 2012 presidential candidate, has been actively seeking a powerful challenger to Steele.

Now, perhaps a final straw: The RNC's political director, Gentry Collins, resigned Tuesday and in a very un-country-club-kind-of-way issued a stinging, detailed four-page indictment of Steele's committee leadership, focusing especially on alleged organizational and fundraising lapses. According to Collins, Republicans' historic election gains on Nov. 2 would have been even greater with proper RNC leadership and better fundraising.

The detail-laden rebuke suggests that Collins himself may soon be joining the lengthening line of aspirants to the job that include Michigan party Chairman Saul Anuzis.

Steele himself has claimed to be undecided about seeking a second term, although in recent interviews he appeared to be making a case for it, citing among other things the success of his "Fire Pelosi" campaign bus tour this fall with Sarah Palin as headliner.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Whos Making Money

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