A needle pierced his skin, ink flowed, and Mike Adams became a marked man.

Contrary to popular opinion, he paid for the tattoo, the one on his huge left forearm bearing the name of a beloved cousin.

Adams is indeed one of those “tattoo guys,” one of the five Ohio State football players suspended by the NCAA last December in a scandal that rocked the program, led to the end of Jim Tressel’s tenure as Buckeyes coach, and contributed to this season’s 6-5 record.

But that tattoo reading “LeLe” on Adams’ arm was not provided for free, as many assume, although the senior offensive tackle has since paid for the ink-job in more ways than the initial monetary transaction.

“It’s always the elephant in the room,” he said.

Adams, a huge target at 6 feet 8 and 320 pounds, knows he’ll probably pay some more today for his role in the tattoo scandal in the form of heckling from Michigan fans when OSU ends its disappointing regular season against the Wolverines in Ann Arbor.

The NCAA actually suspended Adams for the first five games of this season because he sold his 2008 Big Ten championship ring for $1,000 – a deal related to the tattoo in a way known by few, especially those who have only marked him by Tattoogate.

All of this is complicated beyond the boilerplate story, but then there hasn’t been much simple about Adams’ four seasons at Ohio State since he joined the Buckeyes as a much ballyhooed recruit from Dublin Coffman High School.

He has endured wins and losses, championships and controversy, injuries and criticism.

“I’ve had some of the best times of my life here and some of the worst times of my life,” Adams said. “But at the end of the day, it’s all made me better.”

He came to OSU as a self-described baby but will leave next spring as an NFL prospect with a degree in criminology. College, he found through ups and downs, is about learning far beyond the classroom, about discovering who you are and what’s important.

“I’ve learned accountability, punctuality, how to be a man in general, how to care about people, and how to work,” Adams said.

Ohio State has taught him the value of friendship, experienced by the support of close teammates during his most difficult times, especially in the past 11 months.

Four years of football in a national spotlight also reaffirmed to Adams that family means more than anything, much more than winning a Big Ten title or being named first-team all conference, as he was a year ago.

And so he treasures his tight relationship with his mother, Heidi Davidson, his grandfather, Earl Adams, and the relatives in and around Farrell, Pa., where Adams was born and raised before moving to Dublin with his mom at age 9.

In that western Pennsylvania area, across the state border from Youngstown, lives Alyssa Norris, a 22-year-old cousin of Adams who has been more like his sister. Her own sister, Alessa, is the “LeLe” tattooed on his arm.

Alessa, 16, was riding in a car about 11:15 p.m. on Jan. 18, 2009 when her friend Joshua Thompson, the driver, lost control on a wet curve on U.S. Route 62 in Hubbard Township in Trumbull County. The 1995 Chevrolet Cavalier went off the left side of the road into the median and struck a metal pole.

Thompson survived. Alessa Norris, 16, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Adams was visiting family in Sharon, Pa., at the time and broke the news at 2 a.m. to her sister, Alyssa.

“It was the worst moment of my life – 20 times worse than anything like getting into trouble with the NCAA,” Adams said. “It really messed me up. I was pretty depressed.”

A counselor helped Adams, who missed school for a couple of weeks around the funeral. The freshman felt needed by the Norris family, whom he lived with as a child, and decided to make several trips to visit and comfort them.

“I was driving to Pennsylvania pretty much every weekend,” Adams said. “I used most of the money for that.”

He said that money was the $1,000 he was paid for selling his championship ring a short time after Alessa’s death.

“He said, ‘She means more to me than this ring,’ ’’ said Heidi Davidson, his mother. “He thought in the back of his head that one day if he really wanted to he could buy the ring back. It was such a bad decision. He knows that now. But I don’t think he’d change that decision even today.”

Nearly two years after Adams sold his ring, he was pulled out of a practice last December and told by OSU that he was in trouble with the NCAA.

“Immediately my stomach dropped,” Adams said. “It was like the world just stopped.”

Five months later, the burgeoning scandal caused Tressel to give up his job as Buckeyes coach.

“I found out on TV,” Adams said. “I came here to play for Coach Tressel. He’s a man who broadened my horizons as a person and a player. It hurt me to know that I had part to do with what caused it. I felt bad because I knew how much he loved the school and us and how hard it would be for him to stop coaching.”

Tressel met the players a day after he quit.

“It was kind of rough,” Adams said. “I was in tears. A lot of guys were. I remember saying, ‘Coach, I’m so sorry.’ He said, ‘Mike, just go out and play the game you play and keep the team going. Get your heads up. I’ll be fine. Go out there, win games, and beat Michigan.’ That’s what he cares about more than anything.”

Bad looks and comments from strangers have since occasionally come Adams’ way, but he remained positive and practiced hard throughout his five-game suspension.

“It was probably the longest five weeks of my life,” he said. “It was nerve-wracking.”

Adams has started every game since returning to play Oct. 8 at Nebraska, and although that game and season in general haven’t gone as he had hoped, he takes away life lessons learned from his much-publicized tribulations.

“It definitely taught me that being at Ohio State, your actions affect more than just you,” he said. “We’re here representing the people who played here before us and the people who are going to play after us. Don’t take anything for granted.”

A week ago today, his cousin Alyssa Norris gave birth to a daughter. She named her after her dead sister, Alessa, whom everybody knew as LeLe.

The same LeLe that is tattooed on Mike Adam’s left forearm.

The same tattoo that means much more to him than Ohio State fans could ever imagine.