The Man in the Sweater Vest

Jim Tressel as Coach, Teacher and Bearer of Buckeye Tradition

By Josh Katzowitz

His dad was a hall of fame coach at Baldwin-Wallace College. He was born into a family that ingested a side of college football along with its Saturday afternoon oxygen. In fact, he played a little bit of quarterback himself in college and was good enough to earn the starting spot his senior year. Jim Tressel, as you might imagine, was born into college football.

And if you’re born and raised in northeast Ohio, whose presence do you detect more than anybody else on a day when college football is to be played? You sense the spirit of Ohio State coach Woody Hayes, of course. Tressel, though, more than sensed it. He read about it.

His father, Lee Tressel, was a big fan of the Buckeyes leader, and when Jim Tressel cracked the book in his football coaching class at Baldwin-Wallace – a course taught by his father the coach – it was Hotline to Victory, the book written, naturally, by Woody Hayes.

Yet, following Hayes’ path into coaching history at Ohio State wasn’t necessarily what Jim Tressel wanted for his life. This is what he says now, anyway, as he sits in a comfortable chair in the middle of the Buckeyes football complex. This building bears Hayes’ name now, but these days, it’s Tressel’s domain. He’s living the Ohio State dream he says he never thought much about.

But if we’re talking about the kind of coach that Tressel dreamed he could be, well, that’s different. For that, he can thank the man who was Ohio State football for 28 years, the man who showed Tressel what it takes to be the man who should head the Buckeyes program. “The one thing that came across to anyone who was paying attention was that Woody Hayes was a lot more than a football coach,” Tressel said. “That came across crystal clear to our family.”

Allow Tressel a brief story. After leading Baldwin-Wallace to the NCAA Division III national title in 1978 and retiring two years later, Lee Tressel was dying from the cancer that would kill him by April of 1981. One of his former players found himself talking to Hayes at a luncheon one day, and the Buckeyes coach asked about Lee Tressel. The player conceded his former coach was not faring well. The cancer was winning its battle.

“Woody was the kind of guy who would drive over and sit and talk with my dad for a couple hours,” Jim Tressel said. “Woody said, ‘Let’s go see him.’ You knew first-hand that coach Hayes was way more than a football coach. To me, that’s what Ohio State and the state of Ohio deserves.”

Tressel is determined to be that kind of coach as well. You might hear him described as senatorial or professorial, and that’s not incorrect. You might poke fun at the man walking the Horseshoe sidelines in his now-clichéd sweater vest, and it’s still kind of amusing. You might not like Tressel because he’s a tad boring and yet, almost always takes up residence in the winner’s circle. But that’s how Tressel believes the dean of Ohio football should act.

“I think I’m pretty focused and pretty serious about what I do,” he said. “I’m pretty in-the-moment and obviously, I’m seen. Most people go to a football game to be wild and crazy. I go to work. It’s a little different. But the Ohio State head coaching position deserves focus. It’s not something I take lightly. It’s a tremendous responsibility. If you are the head coach of Ohio State, you don’t want to let down the Buckeye Nation and the entire state of Ohio.”

Catch him off the field, though, and he might drop his guard ever so slightly. He can be funny, but he’s not too funny. He’ll talk up his daughter’s photo internship at Rolling Stone magazine, but he doesn’t do so with braggadocio.

It’s obvious the 55-year-old works to keep his physique in check, but he complains about a gut that’s not really there. Like any successful politician, he plays to the center.

“When he came here early on, his answers almost came off like canned answers,” said Bob Hunter, sports columnist for the Columbus Dispatch. “He is a guy who is very much in control, and he is always prepared. He’s maybe the best I’ve ever seen as far as not saying things off the cuff that will get him in trouble. He’s really, really good at that. That’s why a lot of people have said he’s going to be governor some day.”

Don’t count on it, though.

He’s a coach who might be successful on the field and media savvy off it, but most important to him, he’s a teacher. In fact, if you want to describe Tressel as a man and a coach, the moniker of educator is probably the best description.

“There’s no question education is a fundamental piece of our family’s puzzle,” said Dick Tressel, Jim’s older brother and the Ohio State running backs coach. “Mom and Dad’s goal always was to help somebody learn something. It wasn’t always about the end. It was about the process and the means. That caught all of our attention. We sort of enjoyed it. My brother, Dave, just retired this year after 35 years of teaching. I have three sons in education. It’s an interesting dynamic.”

University of Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly spent some time with Tressel when the two coached at the Hula Bowl in 2004. He saw the teacher that resides in Tressel. “What I see is his ability to communicate at all levels to all people of all ages,” Kelly said. “Sometimes you get this picture of Jim and he’s got the sweater vest and he looks like an academician. What people don’t see is that his ability to communicate is as good as anybody I’ve been around. That, to me, is a mark of a great teacher. We only see one side of him on Saturdays.”

That side, though, probably would compel people to vote for him if Tressel actually decided to give up coaching for politics. He could run for governor, and depending on how the Buckeyes are playing, have a good chance to win. Perhaps, he could make like former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne and win a bid to the U.S. Congress.

Ray Miller – the Minority Leader in the Ohio state senate – acknowledged as much last March when, with Tressel receiving a resolution that honored the Big Ten champions, Miller said his seat would be vacant in 2010. Hint, hint.

Tressel is not interested.

“I’m a teacher by trade,” Tressel said. “What I’d like to do when the folks at Ohio State think they need to make a change, I’d like to end up teaching. I enjoy teaching. That’s what I went to school for. It’s ingrained in our family. My dad was not only a coach, but a professor. I do want to serve. I think that it’s important to be a servant, but chances are, I’ll do it in a different way.”

All this, and we haven’t even talked about the performance of his Buckeyes since he replaced John Cooper in 2001.

A quick refresher: By 2002, he helped lead the Buckeyes to a national title, beating Miami in the Fiesta Bowl. In 2005, Ohio State took a share of the Big Ten championship, and during the next two seasons, they won two more outright and advanced to the national championship game in both years.

That’s three national title games in six years. That’s pretty impressive. “There’s no question he’s the dean of college football in the state of Ohio,” Kelly said. “He’s the boss. Because of that, that comes with a responsibility to lead by example. There are only two BCS schools in Ohio, but at the University of Cincinnati, I look to him as being the dean. The way he’s transformed Ohio State football back to its national presence, he’s obviously the reason for that. It doesn’t come with being the head coach at Ohio State. It comes with the person.”

The teacher. The proud father. The funny guy. The coach in the sweater vest who, more often than not, is going to pound your team and look only mildly interested while doing it.

The one – who, like Lee Tressel and Woody Hayes before him – is more than just a football coach.