Jim Trussel Coachin Ohio State Football Again
Jim Tressel embraces second career
— -- AKRON, Ohio -- Within the comprehend of Jim Tressel's class binder, on the heading of the first page, are 3 words in bold type: Coaching Is Teaching.
The terms are synonymous to Tressel. A successful bus must be a successful instructor. The link betwixt the two is the starting indicate for the "General Principles of Coaching" form Tressel is teaching this semester at the University of Akron aslope Jim Dennison, the former Akron coach who gave Tressel his first job in the business organization back in 1975.
Tressel is no longer coaching, at least non straight, afterwards a 36-year career. Nearly 3 total seasons have passed since he concluding led the Ohio Land Buckeyes onto the field. The Ohio State-Michigan rivalry, which Tressel dominated during a decade as Buckeyes coach, resumes Sabbatum at Michigan Stadium, but Tressel won't exist there.
His coaching career, which featured national championships at 2 levels of college football, ended on a sour note on Memorial 24-hour interval of 2011, when he resigned at Ohio State amid an NCAA investigation. His career is at to the lowest degree on pause and perhaps over for good. But Tressel, Akron's vice president for pupil success, is still educational activity and impacting immature people, maybe at present more than ever.
"Coaching is teaching," he said. "My division of pupil success is but the effort for us to be successful with 26, 27 1000 students, equally opposed to student success for 100 [players]. Recruiting is recruiting; it'south only a larger group of prospects. Advising is advising. Fiscal aid, not much different than where are we going to spend our scholarships when we had X number in football.
Jim Tressel is nigh young people. Is that football? I remember he misses the competitiveness of it, I'm sure, only I also recollect he enjoys what he's doing at Akron. It's a very big job. Sometimes you lot ask yourself, how many people can I touch on? 
--Michigan Country motorbus Marking Dantonio
"Everything in my past life, dealing with the public, dealing with schools, dealing with students, dealing with colleagues, really has been a tremendous grooming."
Tressel's influence can be seen throughout the Big X, where three of his former assistants -- Michigan State's Mark Dantonio, Illinois' Tim Beckman and Purdue's Darrell Hazell -- are head coaches, and many of his erstwhile aides are scattered throughout the league. Some members of his coaching tree call up he'll return; all think he withal has enough to offer.
Others betoken to his new role as a better fit for the lx-year-old, a platform where he tin do the work that, at its core, drives him the about.
"Jim Tressel is almost immature people," Dantonio said. "Is that football? I think he misses the competitiveness of information technology, I'chiliad sure, but I also think he enjoys what he's doing at Akron. It's a very big job. Sometimes you enquire yourself, how many people can I impact?
"Yous can impact a lot of people in what he'southward doing. He's in a expert place."
The plan chosen for a total yr off, to be spent mostly reading. It lasted 3 months before Tressel joined the Indianapolis Colts as a game-solar day consultant on replays. When the Colts dismissed their coaching staff after the 2011 flavor, Tressel needed a new door to open.
Akron president Dr. Luis Thousand. Proenza needed a football charabanc. He had to supervene upon Rob Ianello after two i-win seasons and approached Tressel, a northeast Ohio native, who had received his master's degree in educational activity from Akron in 1977.
"The message I got loud and clear when I was talking to him was he didn't want to go back to coaching," Proenza said. "He wanted to go back to his roots and focus on students."
If Proenza had been the only ane calling about an administrative position, Tressel might take passed. Only several headhunters had approached him about jobs in college teaching.
Tressel simply wanted to teach afterward he finished coaching. He had some not-coaching experience at Youngstown State, where he served as athletic managing director (in addition to football game coach) from 1994 to 2001, only "really didn't anticipate an administrative future."
He joined Akron in February 2012 equally vice president for strategic engagement, and eventually became VP of student success. It'due south non a cushy job to get a famous name on campus. Tressel oversees areas like admissions and recruitment, bookish support, retentivity, financial help and the career center.
He made major changes to the way Akron attracts, admits, educates and advises students. As of final week, Akron had received nearly iii,000 more than freshman applications than it had the previous yr, an increase of 52 percent. Tressel moved the career center from a far-flung location to the middle of the student union. He set the Roo Coiffure, which connects alumni and others effectually the academy community with current students to assist with job placement. More than 700 alumni are part of the group.
"He immediately saw our entire framework for recruitment and admissions and counseling and tutoring and advising with fresh eyes," Proenza said. "He has restructured the admissions procedure, the scholarship procedure. He has had a tremendous bear upon."
Tressel's by life pays off in his new role, especially with recruitment.
He knows every high school in Ohio. When he walks into the guidance counselor'south function, he gets extra personal attention.
-- University of Akron president Dr. Luis Chiliad. Proenza
"He knows every high school in Ohio," Proenza said. "When he walks into the guidance counselor'due south function, he gets actress personal attention."
Tressel's days are filled with meetings and emails. Rather than 18-hour shifts with the coaching staff, he interacts with many unlike groups both inside and outside the university.
There's no offseason, either.
"You certainly don't get bored," said Tressel, who volition earn a base salary of $210,000 at Akron this year. "I was teasing Dr. Proenza, I promised him I'm going to work for no less than two years and I'chiliad going to work every solar day, 24 hours a day. Out of those 600 and some days, I've been on the job most of them."
If Tressel honors his two-year commitment to Akron, and there'southward no reason to think he won't, a render to coaching likely wouldn't come until the 2015 season.
The consensus among the coaches who know him best is that his return would be good for the sport, and whichever schoolhouse hires him. Marcus Freeman, who played linebacker for Tressel at Ohio State and at present coaches linebackers for Hazell at Purdue, admitted it's "odd" non seeing Tressel in his familiar role.
But there's inappreciably a consensus on whether Tressel will coach again.
"He will exist dorsum," Hazell said this summer, earlier catching himself. "I shouldn't say that. He'south never said that. He's never mentioned that to me and I've never asked him, but my gut feeling is that he'southward likewise good at what he does."
Tressel received a five-year prove-cause penalty for his function in Ohio State's NCAA violations, but it likely wouldn't continue schools from pursuing a coach with a career record of 229-79-2.
"College football misses Jim Tressel," said Beckman, who worked for Tressel at Ohio State from 2005 to 2006. "My dad [former autobus Dave Beckman] used to say, 'Yous can't keep the great ones out.' I hope Coach Tressel has an opportunity to go dorsum, if that's what he wants to do."
What Tressel wants to do long term is a mystery. He'southward famously tough to read and keeps things close to the (sweater) belong.
Even the coaches in Tressel'due south family aren't sure what his hereafter holds.
"Every once in a while, nosotros'll say, 'Do you lot think he wants dorsum in?'" said Tressel'due south nephew Mike, a Michigan State assistant. "And usually the answer is, 'Man, he's so good at it, y'all'd think. Only he'south happy.' We bring it up. I'd exist lying if we didn't. Simply he doesn't give united states of america any clue."
Tressel spends his autumn Saturdays watching football. He attends all of Akron's home games. When the Zips are abroad, he usually drops in on his former players or coaching colleagues.
Last month, he watched Hazell's Purdue team take on Dantonio's Michigan State team. Earlier this month, he drove to Hamilton, Ontario, to watch former Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith compete in the Canadian Football League playoffs. He attended the Youngstown Land-North Dakota State game on November. xvi, during which he was inducted into Youngstown State's Hall of Fame. Next month, he hopes to catch Terrelle Pryor and the Oakland Raiders when they visit the New York Jets.
Tressel misses parts of coaching -- the bonds formed with the staff, evaluating his team's progress on Saturdays -- but his current chore keeps him interested.
He has been consulted on several college coaching searches when he knows the candidates beingness considered. Purdue able-bodied managing director Morgan Shush talked to Tressel several times earlier hiring Hazell, a Tressel banana from 2004 to '10. Shush also brought Tressel to Purdue's coaches' retreat in June, where he led a one-half-twenty-four hour period evolution session.
It would have something pretty earth-shaking to get me out of the mode I'grand in.
--Jim Tressel
"He didn't ask for whatever kind of compensation," Burke said. "The only thing he really wanted to do was meet our president [erstwhile Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels] because his new role is in student affairs."
What would it take for Tressel to return to the sideline?
"It would accept me coming to the decision that that's the best way I tin serve at the moment," he said. "I tell young coaches all the time when they're thinking nigh their aspirations and their goals that what'southward most important is who you're working with and not necessarily where it is. I know that's easy to say because I've been at all levels and I had the visibility of being on the largest stages.
"Information technology would accept something pretty all-important to go me out of the mode I'grand in."
Tressel doesn't experience compelled to end his coaching career on a more positive notation. He has no regrets or complaints. If he's biting toward Ohio State, he hides it well.
His function on the top floor of celebrated Buchtel Hall holds few reminders of his fourth dimension in Columbus, other than a ruddy binder containing "The Winners Manual," the volume Tressel wrote that outlines his principles for success. He nevertheless refers to Ohio Land equally "nosotros."
"Anyone that grew up in Ohio and followed Ohio State and so had the privilege to be at Ohio State," Tressel said, "you're always part of 'We.'"
Tressel thinks fondly of Ohio State, but he has turned the folio to Akron. Blue sweater vests take replaced scarlet ones. Organizational charts have replaced recruiting boards.
He's in a new world, and he's all in.
"Jim's a lot more comfortable in a shirt and tie than about coaches," Akron coach Terry Bowden said. "I don't think in that location are many coaches in the country that are every bit comfortable in the authoritative side of colleges every bit Jim Tressel. Then I wouldn't be surprised if that's where he finishes his career."
Victor Pinheiro, chair of Akron's sport science and wellness education department, knew Tressel's decades of coaching feel could benefit undergraduate and graduate students in the "General Principles of Coaching" course. But when Tressel started dropping names of academics who Pinheiro knew and worked with -- men like Herbert Simon, the Nobel Prize-winning scholar -- Pinheiro's "jaw simply dropped."
"I never knew he was so well-read," Pinheiro said. "I knew he was a very effective coach. When he started quoting that, it gave me a unlike appreciation for what an bookish guy he is."
Pinheiro had to expand the class when students found out Tressel was teaching it.
"The blazon of exposure he brings to our institution, money cannot buy," Pinheiro said. "People think he'south only Ten'southward and O's and a motorbus. Remember, a coach is a teacher, and a skilful coach is a skillful instructor. It'due south synonymous. People forget that part."
Approximately 75 students fill the lecture room at Leigh Hall. It's an eclectic mix, from freshmen to graduate students to middle-aged men and women auditing the grade. Tressel and Dennison arrive early and conversation with that night's guest speaker, Larry Kehres, the former Mount Union coach who won 11 Segmentation III national championships.
Several students take the class from remote locations, and before starting class, Tressel checks in with them on an overhead monitor, identifying them by the town or county where they're located.
"Hello, Lorain, tin can y'all hear us? Medina? Is Wayne here?"
The two-and-a-half-hour session begins with the "game plan" for the night and ends with a game-plan review. There'due south a section for guest speakers, which have included Akron coaches like Bowden and men'southward basketball motorcoach Keith Dambrot.
Dennison and Tressel each tackle topics, which range from staff philosophy/arrangement to team-building to using the offseason to preparing for a rival. They besides utilize real-earth examples: Afterward Akron nigh trounce Michigan in September, Tressel began the following class by asking what students would tell their squad in the wake of such a tough loss. When Bowden came in to speak, the students got the reply directly from the source.
"I wish when I was going to schoolhouse, we had a grade like this," Dennison said. "We had coaching courses on the individual sports, but to have a course on principles of coaching, overall philosophies, attitudes, merely things that we discuss in here every week, these kids demand to hear information technology."
On this night, Tressel starts by introducing Kehres, noting his 332-24-3 tape at Mountain Matrimony.
"Remember when we talked about bear on players earlier in the course?" Tressel says. "He has been an impact player at Mount Union."
Kehres addresses the need for coaches to honey "the idea of planning," non just the game days. Mount Union in one case won a championship and couldn't notice the trophy, realizing it had forgotten to take it home.
He too promotes positive reinforcement of players. Coaches should make at least four positive statements for each critical ane. "Why would a charabanc not deliver positive reinforcement when it's a great motivator to go the skills we desire?" he says.
Before Dennison'southward portion, Tressel reviews the group final examination, which he will class. Groups of six students will design coaching plans, based around a sport.
Subsequently some painstakingly specific instructions for the project, Tressel turns to Dennison.
"Autobus D, what'south our topic? Motivation," Tressel says. "Permit'southward get motivated."
Dennison echoes Kehres' theme of positive reinforcement.
He outlines four keys to motivation: conventionalities, advice, common goals and a family concept. He recalls a time when he had to tell a player that his father had died, noting that coaches often accept to fill the parental role for their players.
"The player must be the system; the passenger vehicle is not the arrangement," Dennison says. "I firmly believe if yous take intendance of your student-athletes, they will take intendance of your career."
Tressel begins his portion by mentioning Kehres and the standards he set at Mountain Marriage.
"You lot never want to be the jitney where the people come back to the reunions and say, 'You know what, the coaches didn't have high enough expectations for u.s.a.. We could accept been practiced, but they didn't demand it,'" Tressel says.
Tressel closes by reminding students that a class volition be held the post-obit week, the dark before Thanksgiving, even though the university is closed. He receives the inevitable question -- Is that actress credit? -- and a debate ensues about whether or not students should bear witness up.
"Nosotros'll exist here, even if we're talking to each other," Tressel says, nodding toward Dennison. "I want to give you your money's worth. Nosotros have very high expectations of ourselves."
Matt Rembielak, a freshman at Akron who plays on the school'due south baseball team, which his dad coaches, didn't know Tressel would be teaching until Tressel's name appeared on his grade schedule. Tressel'due south sense of humor and rapport with students -- he knows each past proper name only repeatedly butchers Rembielak'due south -- has stood out, along with his detailed approach.
"A lot of people's expectations were he was going to be so serious, talking nearly something that he'southward very good at," Rembielak said, "but from Day 1, he fabricated everyone experience very comfy. He's funnier than you think."
Tressel'due south interaction with students also impressed Craig Haworth, a youth sports omnibus from Hudson, Ohio, taking the grade. Haworth, an Ohio Country graduate who wore a Buckeyes cap to last week's form, had read Tressel's books and admired the coach from afar.
"For the most part, he's who I thought he was," Haworth said. "He'south a phenomenal public speaker. It's unbelievable the network he has. One-half the [students], when they introduced themselves, he knew their dad or their uncle."
Rembielak and Haworth both wondered before the semester how Tressel would accost his time at Ohio State, including his controversial divergence. Turns out, Tressel often refers to his Ohio State days and brings upwardly players like Pryor, who many blame for Tressel'southward downfall.
"He's talked about Pryor a lot in this class," Haworth said. "He's like, 'I but talked to him on the phone yesterday, he asked for some advice.'
"He's just a relationship guy, fifty-fifty if that person hurt his career."
While coaching Ohio State, Tressel drew a crowd everywhere he went. He still does, admitting on a smaller calibration.
Walking through Akron's student union before course for "pregame meal" at Subway -- a 6-inch turkey and ham on honey wheat -- Tressel exchanges pleasantries with students. He asks one educatee wearing an Akron shirt if she's ready for finals. He shakes easily with a fellow member of the catering staff.
On his way to form, a worker at the spousal relationship market asks if Tressel will fill up out a survey to get 50 percent off of his purchases.
"Anything for yous guys," he replies.
"I got Jim Tressel to practice it!" the worker tells his colleague, as another student takes a pic with the onetime charabanc.
"He stops and talks with students, 'What'due south your name? Where are you from? Oh, yep, we met. Isn't your female parent so-and-so? Your dad played for me,' and so along," Proenza said. "That has been a tremendous nugget to the university, and it'southward brought him a lot of personal satisfaction."
In many ways, Tressel has come full circumvolve. He'south at the school where it all began, living close to his childhood domicile in Berea, Ohio, and education with Dennison, the coach who gave him his start.
Tressel had the chance to bring together Joe Paterno at Penn State afterwards college, only his begetter, Lee, the longtime Baldwin-Wallace coach and athletic manager, steered him to Dennison.
"That's the biggest compliment I think that's ever been paid to me," Dennison said. "He's the only graduate assistant I e'er gave a position to, and you lot know what it was? Quarterback. No one gives their graduate assistants quarterback. He was special.
"Nosotros had some skillful times."
Tressel thinks his father would be pleased with how he has responded to the "next set of realities" in his life. He doesn't spend much time reflecting on how long he has been away from football, nor does he think much nearly the next step. Equally an assistant coach, he idea most becoming a head coach, simply he'south now at a different stage.
Others see bigger things for Tressel in university assistants. Proenza is stepping down as president in June, and the search for his successor is under way. If Tressel threw his hat in the ring, he would have support.
"In that location have been people talking to him almost possibly applying for the job," Dennison said. "I'm not too sure he wouldn't like to do that. He's very intelligent. I don't know if he'll get back into coaching or non, which would exist a shame, but he'south got talent to work with immature people."
He'south working with more young people at present than ever, whether he'southward recruiting at high schools or teaching the form or meeting with individual students. He misses the weekly evaluations that football provides, but his competitive drive still burns in a new realm.
"We're mediocre in the globe in educational activity," he said. "Nosotros're non at the height of the heap. I don't like beingness mediocre. I want every kid to get that job they're looking for. It drives you every day to figure out how we can get 26, 27 thousand kids to succeed.
"That's as tough of a game as there is."
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/jim-tressel-embraces-career/story?id=21032466
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