Terrelle Pryor’s Complicated Legacy at Ohio State

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Winning has a weird way of framing perception in sports, whether it’s what we’re willing to put up with, what we’re willing to forgive or what we’re willing to roll the dice on.

A mere bounce of the ball can make a player an instant legend, while a shoestring tackle can render him a goat. A championship campaign can erase past sins, or a string of losing seasons can increase the perceived value of a player twofold.

Either way, it’s the outcome of games that ultimately determines how we view players—both in their present and their past.

Nobody should know that better than Terrelle Pryor.

It was just four years ago that the former Ohio State quarterback’s legacy found itself in limbo as he opted to leave school amid the same scandal that forced Jim Tressel to resign after 10 seasons in Columbus. In the four years sandwiched between the end of Pryor’s college career and Monday’s news that the Cleveland Browns had claimed him off waivers, so much has changed for both Pryor and the Buckeyes that our memory of his time at Ohio State remains just as complicated, but undoubtedly changed by the paradigm-shifters that are wins and losses.

“If you really knew what happened, there was nothing evil,” Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer said of the memorabilia-for-tattoos scandal and subsequent cover-up that led to Pryor’s and Tressel’s departures. “A couple mistakes, terrible mistakes were made, but it was not with intent.”

It’s easy to nod…

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