It would have been funny if it weren't so sad. Right up front, I will own up that serious mistakes were made, and we need to pay whatever price is fair and appropriate, and also that the opinions herein are my own and not the institutions. But as I read the headlines around the country screaming at Ohio State yesterday, and then the NCAA report and sanctions announced, I just shook my head. Especially when the NCAA went back some 20 years and brought in some food provided by a booster to substantiate part of the failure to monitor charge!

Like I said, I had to laugh, right before I cried, on that food crap. The reason? Let me share a couple of true experiences I have had and people I have met in the course of research for this book. These illustrate how ironic so much of this whole sordid affair has been, and you surely won't ever read this in the national media. The first example is a story of a farmer and good friend right down the road from me - as honest and straight arrow as they come. The gentleman grows sweet corn - hundreds of acres of it - and it happens to taste, I think, the best in Ohio. He has roadside stands around Northwest Ohio, including several in Columbus, to which he hauls corn fresh every morning when in season. If you have ever grown sweet corn, you know it is feast and famine. Even though you stagger plantings, use varieties of different maturity, now matter how much you try to get a consistent supply all season, well Mother Nature is going to throw you a curve. So every farmer in this gentleman's business has times that he is short corn, and times he has way more coming on than he can sell. A couple of years ago, during one of these gluttons, this guy told me he got the idea, "Hey, why don't I donate some to the OSU team. I'm going to throw it away otherwise, I am hauling to Columbus anyway, and in the midst of a grueling August camp, surely the guys would enjoy some roasting ears on the training table." The guy didn't want access. He didn't want tickets. He didn't want to hob knob. He was way too busy that time of year to even meet anybody! He isn't an alumnus. Rather you would call a casual fan. I bet he hasn't been to more than a handful of OSU football games in his life. He was just a caring guy who wanted to drop off some corn that would otherwise go to waste.

So he contacted the University with his offer, and they played by the rules. Bottom line. Once he found out how much unbelievable paperwork it would take - all the things he would have to attest to, all forms, all the little rules like he couldn't be there when they ate it for one example (not that he wanted to) - well, he decided it was way more hassle to him than it was worth just to give them this corn. He just gave up on the idea.

The second example is an elderly couple I met by chance. Turns out one time several years ago, after a tough loss, they came to the airport (or the Woody Hayes maybe) to welcome the team home. They were the only ones there. "My gosh," they thought, "win or lose these kids need some encouragement. Someone should be here for them." So they started showing up after every game. Soon it was after every practice too. It became their mission to give love and encouragement, just by showing up, and day by day, there was no shortage of that. They didn't want autographs. The didn't want to brag to their buddies. They didn't want anything but to provide love and encouragement to our young Buckeyes. But when practices were closed, out went this couple too. They were allowed to be outside the stadium after games, outside the Woody after practices, but they also went over with me all the things the university made sure they couldn't do - couldn't even give a kid a homemade cookie was one example. The list was long and they followed it to a T. When you got down to it the only thing they could give was love. One late autumn afternoon after a home game, as the shadows lengthened, I watched the players emerge one by one from the 'Shoe. More of them than not sought out this self-proclaimed Buckeye Grandma and Grandpa. All they got in return was a hug, a kiss, a word of encouragement, or maybe a question - how's your grades, how's your girlfriend, how's your mother? To some of these kids far from home though, it was evident that someone caring and giving a hug was worth a million dollars to them. I hope no one tells the NCAA, because they will probably nail this old couple for unfairly giving love to a student athlete!

As I read some of the crap printed yesterday, and listened to some of the same broadcast, I pondered how wide the gap this past year between the hyperbole of what the media reported or implied went on, and what I personally saw from a University that paid enough attention to detail to monitor sweet corn and a few chocolate chip cookies! I pondered how hard a job the compliance people have, and how hypocritical the NCAA rules are. I thought about how hard the Ohio State I see works to get things right, compared to the claims people who have never even been here make about them.

It is clear what's done is done, that the university is moving on, Coach Meyer is moving on, the NCAA is moving on. So I am too. I hope this is the last you will hear on this from my pen.

As I go, my faith in my alma mater is unshaken, my respect for this university diminished not one bit. As for the NCAA, the national media, even some of our locals, well that is a quite different story and I never again will see them in as bright a shining light. We deserved a lot. But in the words of Gene Smith, "We didn't deserve this." And when those sappy commercials come on during March Madness to make the NCAA look all altruistic, I'll spit and say "Bah Humbug."

One of Coach Hayes assistants told me Woody once said, "It they aren't shooting at you, you aren't on top." Well said WW. That's the real reason we got the hammer.

Go Bucks!