One Response to “Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked …

1. john "Barney" Barnes says:

   June 18, 2011 at 3:38 am

   Ole Ben had so many good things to say on so many critical issues and usually with very few words. “Observe all men, thyself most”, really speaks to the issue at hand, personal reputation. He, like most of the Founding Fathers, also knew that personal virtue was an absolute necessity for a free people to remain free. “There was never a truly great man that was not, at the same time, truly virtuous”, another Franklinism, is painfully true in 2011. The Founders actually linked virtue to liberty. King Solomon had an additional related comment recorded in Proverbs 4:23…”Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it.”

   Daily we see and read about famous folks who “quickly tarnish” a long standing “good reputation”. Just think of the numbers of “tarnished names” out there that we never hear about. All of this causes a raveling of the threads of our culture. Seemingly almost daily we have cases, like Jim Tressel, former Head Football Coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. For years there had been rumblings of “NCAA player violations” dating all the way back to Tressel’s days at Youngstown State. He had won a Division II National Title there just as he would later win a Division I Title at Ohio State. When confronted allegations of NCAA violations Coach Tressel always maintained that he “knew nothing”. His reputation for the time protected his programs from any real scrutiny.

   Now that he has resigned it is almost as if Jim Tressel was living a double life. On the one hand he was the epitome of good character and personal integrity, even having Bible studies with the team and texting scripture to players such as his star quarterback Terrell Pryor. Now, as the truth has been forced out, he was obviously aware of serious player infractions for some time. As the Head Coach, he is required to make any player violations known to the University as well as the NCAA.

   Now like one of his predessors, Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel’s name…his reputation has been cracked like precious china, never to be fully mended. Most of us will never be famous coaches, politicians or movie stars but our “good name” is just as precious to us and the ones we love and care for as the rich and famous. Jim Tressel seemed to seek the “loving favor” of success over the far more precious commodity of a “good name”. Because of his position and evidently long trail of folly there is the potential to sully the good name of Ohio State, college coaching, as college football.

   As the old saying goes “if you can’t trust the cops, who can you trust”! There really is a thin blue line woven through the fabric of our culture. It is intricatly woven into the base of each community and upward to the highest levels of government. Those who wear the badge are vanguards of our most precious traditions and values. Unlike Jim Tressel, anyone who wears the badge must never represent themselves when acting in their official capacity. The thin blue line must not be frayed. As Sheriff Nash use to tell each deputy…”when you leave this sheriff’s office down the road and turn in your badge I expect it to show some wear but never to be tarnished from unethical, illegal or immoral behavior”.

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