Former OSU wide receiver Ray Small told the school’s student newspaper that he got special car deals and sold Big Ten championship rings during his playing days. Why? Because everyone else was doing it. You’re killin’ me, Small. If Michigan jumped off a bridge, would … wait, don’t answer that.
Small said, ‘We had four Big Ten rings. There was enough to go around.’
He added that, despite Ohio State’s large and proactive NCAA compliance department, most of student-athletes ‘don’t even think about [NCAA] rules’ … ‘We have apartments, car notes. So you got things like that and you look around and you’re like, ‘Well I got [four] of them, I can sell one or two and get some money to pay this rent.’
Ohio State is investigating more than 50 transactions between Ohio State athletes and their families and two Columbus auto dealerships.
‘They have a lot [of dirt] on everybody,’ Small said, ’cause everybody was doing it.’
The entire Ohio State issue deserves a big press conference from the President of the United States where he throws up his hands, says “welp” and does his “now run and tell THAT” Osama Bin Laden death announcement walk down the hallway.
This interview is another in a string of weird situations where athletes don’t seem to realize how much money or opportunity they have. Football players are going broke and resorting to crime and celebrity boxing before we’ve even gotten to a locked out season, and now guys with college football scholarships have to sell championship rings to “make rent?” How does this work? Why are college sports turning into Dead Man on Campus?
[via CBS Sports]
