The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football (47 page)

And then Smith said he never saw or heard from Bobby D. for almost five years.

It was listed in the Cornerstone of Hope’s Ninth Annual Benefit Gala program as live auction item number 1005.

The Disney on Ice package had already come and gone in spirited bidding in the ballroom at the Embassy Suites in Independence, Ohio. Tickets to Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw’s Brothers of the Sun Tour and the autographed Muhammad Ali boxing gloves had raised thousands more. Now auction paddles popped into the air chasing the OSU seats. A thousand. Two thousand. Twenty-five hundred. Three thousand. Thirty-five hundred … sold!

A guest from out of town turned to the man of the hour and whispered, “Those are your season tickets.”

“Yes,” said Bobby D. “They are.”

Or were.

Five months earlier, on September 21, 2011, Robert DiGeronimo had been banned from Ohio State athletics for ten years for providing $2,405 in “extra benefits” to a total of nine football players between 2009 and 2011. He was notified of his “immediate disassociation” in a letter from athletic director Smith. Smith cited DiGeronimo’s refusal to meet with NCAA and university officials in the “tattoo-gate” investigation; that DiGeronimo had “deliberately” not complied with NCAA rules covering money and extra benefits. Furthermore, six days earlier, DiGeronimo had been quoted in the Cleveland
Plain Dealer
saying, “Quite honestly, if there’s no tattoo-gate, this thing [the NCAA investigation] doesn’t come
out.” Smith admonished DiGeronimo for publicly implying he intentionally broke NCAA rules.

“The University is outraged and disappointed with this conduct,” wrote Smith.

During his interview, NCAA investigator Chance Miller had asked the AD if he had ever been invited to a Cornerstone of Hope event.

“Never, never even—never actually heard the term Cornerstone of Hope until our case,” Smith said.

Pity. The ninth annual gala was something to see. A sold-out, well-heeled crowd of nearly seven hundred had packed the place in support of a charity dedicated to love and loss. “Walking the journey of grief,” the co-founder Christi Tripodi described it.

Tripodi’s personal journey had begun on Mother’s Day 2000. Her three-year-old son had been running a high fever and had taken a turn for the worse. Tripodi and her husband, Mark, rushed their son to the emergency room at a local children’s hospital. They figured a couple of hours and he would be back home in bed. Mom and Dad didn’t come home until the next night. When they did, their son wasn’t with them. He had died from an infection caused by bacterial meningitis. Little Bobby.

“I’ll never forget when they came back and Mark, my son-in-law, had unhooked his son, held his boy,” the child’s grandfather said in the fall of 2012. Bobby D. took a deep breath. “And now you’ve got to understand, for the next six months Christi couldn’t get out of bed.”

Seven brothers and sisters essentially moved into Christi and Mark’s tiny house, staying night after night, never letting their sister out of their sight.

“Life was not the same for us anymore,” said Bobby D.

And then, one day, a father heard a sound he had not heard in eighteen months. “I heard her laugh,” he said. “And I said, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’ Because I didn’t know if I was ever going to hear her laugh again.”

Almost two years later Christi called her dad and said, “We have to own a place.”

“What do you mean?”

“A place where people can get help. Will you be on the board?”

Bobby D. figured his daughter was just talking. Two weeks later there was a board meeting. Bobby D. thought, Hmm, they’re serious.

“How will this be funded?” he asked his daughter.

A party center, she said.

No way, said her dad.

But word got out about the idea. Dino Lucarelli, the longtime director of public relations and alumni relations for the Cleveland Browns, called. Bobby D., you’ve helped a lot of people over the years, Dino said. You want to cash in some chips?

Yeah, said Bobby, I do.

In 2003, Cornerstone of Hope found space in a building DiGeronimo owned. It stayed in that space until a new place was built. The first real headquarters grew out of the converted old house on Brecksville Road in Independence where Sam and Mary DiGeronimo had raised their seven kids.

Bobby cashed in a lot of chips. Construction buddies, a big mechanical contractor, electricians, plumbers, the union guys, all anted up, donating about $600,000 in time and material. DiGeronimo personally put in $400,000 of his own money. And there it was: a rambling, warm, welcoming “Home for the Grieving.” Bright, airy rooms upstairs for art therapy right next to a padded room where kids could untangle their emotions and let off steam; private counseling offices; a prayer garden. And the Mary DiGeronimo Chapel right as you walked in. Bobby D.’s mother’s wedding dress preserved with honor in a back corner where parents and friends sat and prayed.

“Saint Mary,” said Bobby D., “for putting up with Sam.”

Former Buckeyes star running back Robert Smith served as the master of ceremonies for the 2012 gala. A college football analyst on ESPN, Smith left Ohio State as one of the Buckeyes’ all-time greats and went on to set the Minnesota Vikings’ career rushing record with more than sixty-eight hundred yards before Adrian Peterson eclipsed it in 2012. The room was loaded with men who had proudly worn the scarlet and gray: another great running back, Beanie Wells; quarterback Troy Smith; wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr.; and linebacker Tom Cousineau, another certified legend, still cool as can be, rockin’ an Elvis Costello look.

At DiGeronimo’s table sat another proud Buckeye. Jim Conroy was a successful Cleveland attorney who toiled on the offensive line on the 1968 national championship team under Woody Hayes. He and his wife had recently lost their twenty-seven-year-old son to suicide. Cornerstone had helped them deal with unimaginable grief.

“Everybody in this room loves Bobby,” he said.

Two chairs away Troy Smith sat down and quietly started talking to
DiGeronimo. Bobby D. just listened. In person, he bore more than a passing resemblance to the actor James Caan. He had on a black velvet jacket, creased pants, a striped shirt and a muted tie. His shoes sparkled. His dark, slicked-back hair defied Father Time.

You could tell by the look on Smith’s face that he was in need of some kind of help. Bobby D. had done a lot of listening and a world of good for Ohio State athletes over the years. “Bobby, can you help?” they asked. And he did. Not because he had to. Because, he said, it was the right thing to do.

“Now, you lose a grandson, it’s about giving back even more,” he said. “Now you want to do more.”

Before the dinner began, a steady stream of well-wishers had stopped by the table for a handshake, a hug, a “How ya doing?”

“Thank you, thank you for coming, for your support,” said Bobby D.

DiGeronimo’s ban seemed to add a sense of urgency to the auction. When the night was over, the 2012 benefit netted a record $350,000—nearly half of Cornerstone of Hope’s annual budget.

At a press conference dealing with additional charges against the school relative to employment and gala violations, Gene Smith made clear exactly who this “rogue” booster was, as if everyone in the state of Ohio didn’t already know. Smith mentioned DiGeronimo’s name at least three times when talking about the school’s banning him from the athletic program for ten years. In large part, he explained, due to DiGeronimo’s decision not to cooperate with the school or the investigation.

“We realized that wasn’t going to happen,” said Smith, “so we ultimately disassociated.”

In his press conference Smith took great pains to point out that the failures at OSU were not institutional but rather “failures of individual athletes, a previous coach and a booster.”

“So it’s not a systemic failure of compliance,” he said. “I’m optimistic and I’m confident that we will not have those charges.”

Longtime observers of college sports saw Smith’s presser for what it was: a systematic attempt to turn Bobby D. into the designated fall guy; to toss him on the altar of the powerful NCAA Committee on Infractions to avoid the dreaded “lack of institutional control” charge; to protect a cash-cow football program and the Ohio State brand at all costs. Thirty-five years of faithful support jettisoned almost overnight, a month
before
the NCAA released its official report.

As a college star, Robert Smith had seen a previous model of the system at work. He had openly tangled with the athletic department and head coach, John Cooper, for not allowing him to spend more time on academics in order to pursue a career in medicine. He knew full well what had happened to Bobby D., and he didn’t like it one bit. That’s why Smith welcomed the crowd with an impassioned speech praising a man who, few knew, had helped Smith during a particularly difficult period. They continued to speak every couple of weeks.

“I love you like a father,” Smith said, looking directly at Bobby D. “You did more than my father did for me, more than any father could.”