Buckeyes Banned

Building a big-time college football team is no job for amateurs. It takes ample funds and sharp-eyed recruiters to round up talent, a generous supply of jobs and scholarships to keep it. The ethics of the care and feeding of college football players are lenient enough, but teams that want to stay on top stretch them in continual and calculated risks. Ohio State University's energetic operators have done enough stretching to win the Big Ten title two years in a row, and the 1955 Rose Bowl game.

But Ohio State men broke the one inviolable rule: they talked too much about their rule-stretching. The talk brought Big Ten Commissioner Kenneth ("Tug") Wilson scurrying to Columbus to investigate. To no one's surprise, Tug discovered that Coach Woody Hayes was an open-handed friend who lent money to his players. No one was astonished when Tug learned that Buckeye players had been paid for off-campus jobs they have yet to perform. The big shocker was Tug's reaction. Angry because Buckeye officials refused to cooperate with his investigation, the commissioner last week banned the Buckeyes from Rose Bowl competition for at least one year, ordered the beneficiaries of Ohio State's job program to work off their salaries before turning out for practice.

Only once before has the Big Ten handed down a stiffer sentence: Iowa was suspended from May 1929 until February 1930 for violating conference rules. Ohio fans were quick to point fingers at other schools. And they took what comfort they could from the recent past: although Michigan State was banned in 1953 from Rose Bowl play, the Spartans got the ban lifted in time to travel west and whip U.S.C. in the Rose Bowl game.

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