Sean did get screwed, as Pat puts it.

As Sean confesses and as the police records confirm, the substance abuse began after he was fired, not before. The semi-official innuendo that such took place prior to and was the cause of his termination is slanderous spin.

Sean's termination had everything to do with completing the purge within the Athletic Department on the heels of the hostile takeover that put Holder on the Throne and the delusional belief that Bill Self was "dying to return to oSu, if only there were an opening".

The $2mil paid Sean at his termination was hush money... silence as a condition of the payment.

Who picked up and handed Eddie the fumbled keys to the oSu vehicle in the GIA parking lot that fateful evening knowing that he was far too inebriated to drive... and why did they do so? Where is that assistant AD and oSu police officer today?

Where was the Press that had the peanuts to look beyond the superficial... to look past the junkie to the enabler and to the sting.

No one forced drugs/booze into the Suttons, they exercised free will to feed their addictions.Neither had any business being around college kids. Sean may say he wasn't a druggie while coaching but his glassy-eyed, sweaty, mumbling (nearly incoherent) after game press conferences would indicate otherwise. Neither went to jail. Obviously, they weren't "screwed."

Well, NN, we know for a fact that an Associate AD and and oSu Police Officer not only allowed an inebriated Eddie to get into that oSu vehicle in the GIA parking lot but picked up the dropped keys and handed them to him as well.

Opportunity and Mean's!

That only leaves Motive.

Vengeance for the Miles hire and consolidating all power is considerable incentive.

Probably just coincidence... where is that Associate AD and that Police Officer again? What were the details of the oSu settlement with the crash victim?

If your going to pile on by stirring up dirt on the Suttons... let's go ahead and stir up ALL the dirt.

Pat Knight can have his opinion but the truth is, Sean was an apple that didn't fall far from his tree. I thought he should have been fired after Eddie crashed into that poor woman during his drunk driving rampage. I doubt seriously if Eddie himself was walking into liquor stores buying booze considering his history at Kentucky. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess that Eddie's son Sean was most likely supplying his dad.

SixGunSam - your follow up posts go deeper into lala land.

I love the Suttons, and I wish what happened had not. My wife cried the night Eddie had his press conference after the crash admitting his problems and stepping down as coach. I was choked up as well. He and Sean led our team to such great times and through such tragedy. They felt like family to a lot of us that didn't know them personally beyond a casual hello a time or two.

I wish that Eddie had got back surgery earlier, stayed clean and won his 800th game while at OSU. I wish that Sean had stayed focused on the team, stayed clean, commanded the respect of his players, and was still leading our team today.

Both men are wonderful people who I respect and admire. But that doesn't make Holder or anyone else a bad person for making the difficult decision that had to be made.

Sam,

I get your overall point- it's hypocritical to demonize the Suttons for substance abuse when most everyone else does it too, and to a point I agree. I still like both Sean and Eddie and feel bad about what happened.

But the facts are: Even if someone had taken Eddie's keys that afternoon and driven him, he was on his way to coach a game against a division rival (Texas as I recall) and he was hammered. For a highly paid, high profile D-1 coach that is unacceptable.

As for Sean, I have no personal knowledge when his drug problems started, but I do know he had two pretty talented teams that he couldn't even win a NIT game with and while an argument could be made that he deserved one more year, I don't think there necessarily had to be a "personal vendetta" involved for the school to make a coaching change.

Bottom line; I don't think either guy should be vilified or demonized for having the same kind of struggles many people have had, but they did need to be held accountable for their actions and job performance and were. .

BTW, WillyJ... talk about not doing much with talent...

Future NFL Tackles, Charlie Johnson and Corey Hilliard on the OL... along with David Washington, David Koenig, and Kellen Davis...

Future NFL, Brandon Pettigrew at TE... D'Juan Woods at WR...

A returning starter from the Alamo Bowl team the year before at QB (Donovan Woods) and the highest ranked QB recruit in the schools history (Bobby Reid)...

Future NFL, Ryan McBean on the DL along with the highest ranked DT recruit in the schools history (XLK)...

Nathan Peterson, Victor DeGrate, Maurice Cummings, and Rod Johnson at the DE's...

3 Senior Starters returning at the LB Corps (Pagitte McGee, Lawrence Penson, Paul Duren)...

Jamie Thompson, Daniel McLemore, Martel VanZant, Grant Jones, and future NFL All-Rookie, Jacob Lacey in the secondary...

On the heels of 3 consecutive Bowls that included the Cotton and Alamo Bowls...

4-7... last place????

Different standards!

Think back to 2008...

Holder and Boone go to the Final Four in San Antonio to "quietly" show their support for Self in the Final Four...

Sean has already been fired and they're looking nowhere else...

After winning the Championship and returning to Kansas, Self announce's he's staying at Kansas and it's later revealed that he got a huge pay increase...

Holder then goes about seeking advise on who to hire because he has no other candidate on his list nor on his mind...

I can assure you that they thought that they knew that Self was "dying to return". The evidence is overwhelming.

pennpoke, I have it on personal knowledge and experience that the belief that Self was "dying to return to oSu" not only drove much of the criticism directed at Sean but much of the criticisms directed at Eddie before he stepped down too.

I have friends that are among the many donors that wanted Self hired instead of Eddie way back in 1990... friends that were disgruntled that he wasn't and friends that were Sutton detractors from day one ala those upset that Miles was hired over Gundy in 2001. Naming Sean the HC Designate in waiting not only enraged these friends but strengthened their resolve to see the Sutton's removed and the power structure within the Department realigned... coincidence again.

The "high possibility" that Self would take the job if asked is exactly the point. That is the context in which Sean was judged and the climate in which he was fired.

BTW, a candidate is someone seeking the job not person's that refuse it when offered.

Sam, your delusional "knowledge" is specious and asnine. You sound like, and have all the credibility of the National Enquirer with all of their "sources". All culminating with your absurd assertion that "your donor friends" wanted Self in 1990 instead of Sutton. In 1990 Self was a pimple-faced 3-year assistant with no track record, no history and working for an average coach on an underperforming team. It is ludicrous to think ANYONE would have considered Self as a Big 8 coach in 1990, no matter how poor OSU was at the time. It was not until 1993 that he finally got a shot and ORU was hardly a Big 8-caliber school.

Sean Sutton was fire for two reasons. One, he (just like Self in 1990, or more relevant to this story, Pat Knight) had no reason to be even remotely considered for the job in the first place. He had no experience and no skill has a head coach. All he had was a last name and an ace-in-the-hole....Eddie. A good recruiter, but that is due to the fact he was selling a good product...playing at a historic sold-out arena, for a legendary coach, at a school which had been to recent Final Fours and was a yearly participant in the Dance. A trained monkey could have sold recruits on OSU during this time. Recruits did not come to Stillwater because Sean recruited them or was on staff, they came because of Eddie, GIA and OSU. Sean was simply a vehicle for getting there.

Second, he was fired because he was a HORRIBLE coach. His track record speaks for itself and only a myopic "Suttonite" could not see that. It was his horrible coaching, SIGNIFICANTLY declining recruiting "skills" (ONE RECRUIT HIS LAST YEAR????), and current management immediately seized the opportunity to correct a situation that never should have transpired in the first place.

By the way, your understanding of what a candidate is simply WRONG, apparently just like your understanding of what a donor is. Giving a couple of bucks to your alma mater hardly makes you a donor, and certainly does not give you any say as to what goes on or who gets hired.

All said, you are amusing to read. Sort of like grafitti on a bathroom stall or headlines at the checkout line. Keep it up. Good works of fiction are hard to come by and you might get yourself a job working at the Onion some day. Please make your first article your explanation of how OSU politics/coaching/management "subverted" Promise Keepers. I await with bated breath.

lets cut to the chase all, it's this simple...booner owns the university,,,booner hired gumby, holder all the while hated the suttons with a passion, all the rest fits into place
booner wins OSU loses

pennpoke, did some oSu boosters consider Gundy a "serious" candidate back in 2001... booster such as Boone Pickens?

There's little doubt that you, OSUinTX, and I have different friends and hear different opinions on the subjects... I guess you two would've had to be here in Stillwater after each and every game through the years instead of being in Pennsylvania and Texas where oSu coaching talk is more the exception rather than the rule.