Does former Ohio State player Ray Small have an axe to grind?

Former Ohio State wide receive Ray Small claims to have received car discounts and sold Big Ten championship rings as well as other memorabilia for cash.

“Everyone was doing it,” Small told The Lantern, the OSU student newspaper.

Now one would have to wonder if Small has an axe to grind. After all, Small spent much of his college football career being benched, suspended or disciplined for various team violations.

Many OSU fans will recall Small, who had 61 catches for 659 yards and three touchdowns with the Buckeyes, was suspended from the 2010 Rose Bowl and was not permitted to travel with the team to the BCS game. Academic issues crept up on him again, keeping him off the team.

Then there was the threat leaving the Buckeye football program he and his father tossed out when Ray was given an indefinite suspension in 2008 for violating team rules.

“I couldn’t leave as the bad guy,” Small, a Glenville High grad, said Friday. “I wanted to show the world I can do it. I didn’t want to go out on that note.”

“That note” concerned Small’s suspension late last season for repeated violations of team rules that focused on missing class. Small’s father, Ken, publicly voiced his complaints about the coaches’ treatment of his son, claiming they were intentionally blowing his career. Small sat out against North western and Illinois, then barely played against Michigan,

Is he speaking out because he was denied a chance to play in the Rose Bowl? Because he was in Coach Tressel’s dog house more than not?

Maybe it’s because Ray couldn’t cut it in the NFL either?

Ray put time in on the practice squads of the Indianapolis Colts, Minnesota Vikings and Washington Redskins.

The fact is Ray Small left Ohio State a disgruntled player who just could not get a grip on his own actions no matter how many chances he was given.

And how ironic that Small has now returned to Ohio State to get his degree in sociology.

Chimdi Chekwa chimes in on Twitter about Ray Small's statement that "everyone was doing it"