The members and associates of the 2010 Ohio State football team, which beat Michigan for the Buckeyes’ seventh straight win in the series, have yet to receive their traditional gold pants charms, but it’s not because they are lost in the mail.
Besides, even with gold trading at about a $1,500 an ounce, there’s not enough of it in the charms to fill a tooth.
With Carioti Jewelers doing the work, each pair is sold to the university-licensed Gold Pants Club for about $50 apiece.
Usually by now, the charms would have been distributed to the players, coaches and support personnel from the previous season as the traditional award for beating Michigan.
So what’s the holdup?
Gold Pants Club president Jim Lachey, a former Ohio State All-America offensive lineman and a current radio analyst during football games, said the pants aren’t ready, but he didn’t mean they haven’t been molded and dipped.
“We’re dealing with some outstanding issues that we’ve never had to deal with before,” Lachey said.
He was referring to the current NCAA investigation of coach Jim Tressel and the football program. That won’t be settled until after Aug.12, when the coach and school administrators go before the NCAA Committee on Infractions.
The gold pants are sort of at the heart of the case. It was learned in December by a letter from the U.S. Attorney’s office to Ohio State that six players had bartered those or other memorabilia for cash and/or deals on tattoos with Ed Rife, owner of Fine Line Ink Tattoos and Piercings in Columbus.
That is against NCAA rules that prohibit improper benefits for players who still have eligibility remaining, even though most of the memorabilia exchanged had been awarded to them. Five players - quarterback Terrelle Pryor, receiver DeVier Posey, running back Daniel Herron, offensive tackle Mike Adams and defensive end Solomon Thomas - must serve a five-game suspension to start the 2011 season, and linebacker Jordan Whiting must sit out the opener.
Tressel became the focal point of the controversy in March when the school said in a letter to the NCAA that he had been made aware of the memorabilia bartering by Columbus lawyer Christopher Cicero in April 2010, but that Tressel had not shared the information - as required by his contract - with the university’s compliance office. It is a major violation, as the NCAA stated in its notice of allegations last month, and could lead to the vacating of wins from last season, along with other penalties.
And it’s the tenuous nature of those wins, most notably the unprecedented seventh straight over Michigan, that has the gold pants in a bunch.
“If they vacate the win, it makes no sense to award the gold pants, at least in our minds,” Lachey said. “And if you hand them out and say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll need to get them back if the win is vacated’ - I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be a smart way to go.
“And I’ll be honest: We don’t want to see any 2010 gold pants on the market right now.”
The gold pants are worth well more than their minimal gold value. For example, a pair that was awarded to a nonplaying member of the 1968 team after its seminal win over Michigan is for sale on eBay with a minimum asking price of $1,500.
Read more of this article at dispatch.com.
First Published May 15, 2011, 4:13 p.m.
