O’Brien Can Return to Coaching Ranks: Former Ohio State coach Jim O’Brien can return to the sidelines as soon as he can find a team to hire him after March 10. The NCAA decided to lift a ban on O’Brien that would have kept him out of the profession until May 2009. Ohio State fired O’Brien in 2004 for paying a recruit in 1999. O’Brien won a wrongful termination lawsuit against Ohio State, which the school has appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.
O’Brien said he gave $6,000 to recruit Aleksandar Radojevic as a humanitarian gift — the native Serb had significant expenses caused by a family illness in the midst of a war in Serbia. Radojevic later committed to Ohio State but never played for the Buckeyes because the NCAA rules that he had received payments as a professional player. [1/31/08]
