When the scandal at Ohio State involving football coach Jim Tressel and a number of high-profile players began to escalate back in March, I had posted about the importance of Christians in prominent positions contemplating the impact of their day to day actions on the impact of their witness. As the process that culminated in Coach Tressel’s resignation unfolded, another reality for publicly identifiable Christian leaders emerged…There’s no shortage of people looking to take advantage of  any misstep to label prominent Christians as hypocrites and impostors.

Don’t get me wrong. At best, Tressel is guilty of very poor judgment when he failed to pass on information about potential NCAA rule violations. At worst, he lied to the NCAA.

“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”

John 8:7 (NIV)

Check out the Sports Illustrated article that reportedly led to Tressel’s resignation from Ohio State. Here are a few selected quotes from the article:

For more than a decade, Ohioans have viewed Tressel as a pillar of rectitude, and have disregarded or made excuses for the allegations and scandal that have quietly followed him throughout his career. His integrity was one of the great myths of college football. Like a disgraced politician who preaches probity but is caught in lies, the Senator was not the person he purported to be.

Cochran, who is now retired, still shakes his head over Tressel’s contradictions. There was the Christian who lifted kids out of troubled neighborhoods and built a football “family,” Cochran says, and there was the coach who claimed to have been kept in the dark after he had assiduously avoided the light. “What bothered me was that the family knows,” Cochran says. “Inside the family everyone knows what’s going on.”

Says the former colleague, who asked not to be identified because he still has ties to the Ohio State community, “In the morning he would read the Bible with another coach. Then, in the afternoon, he would go out and cheat kids who had probably saved up money from mowing lawns to buy those raffle tickets. That’s Jim Tressel.”

Fortunately, God believes in offering us second chances. I suspect that many Christ-followers are afraid to take their faith public because of choices or decisions that they’re less than proud of. All of us screw up sooner or later. All of us have made mistakes. Who would want to face the type of public scrutiny that Tressel has faced?  I’d go so far as to argue that many in the media have made the scandal at Ohio State a bigger deal than it would have been anywhere else and Tressel is being singled out  because he has been so open about his Christian faith.

What can the rest of us learn from this incident? Think about the impact of your actions on the folks around you who are impressionable about Christ and Christianity. Assume that you’ll be judged by the world with a different standard than the standard applied to everyone else.  Treat others with grace when they desire to honor God but screw up. And don’t be afraid to respond boldly when God puts opportunities to share your faith in front of you. You’ve already been forgiven by the only One whose opinion really matters.

Best Wishes to Coach Tressel. I pray that God has an better plan in mind for how he can best contribute to His team in the future. Here’s an aspect of his legacy at Ohio State that you don’t see many folks in the media talking about this week.