A Coaching Legacy: How Jim Tressel Built a Championship Culture at Ohio State
/From Youngstown to Ohio State, Jim Tressel won championships with faith, focus, and a steady hand—leaving a legacy both on and off the football field.
By Michelle Segrest
Originally published in Lindy’s Sports Annuals Special Edition, The Championship Season 2006
He’s known as The Senator. But in the political arena that is college football, this year he may as well be Commander-in-Chief.
Jim Tressel stalks the Ohio State sidelines with an unassuming aura. His leadership is quiet and calm, but there is no question who is in charge. He peeks through his spectacles as though they were crystal balls -- communicating in poetic sync with his Heisman Trophy quarterback -- brilliantly calling the perfect play at just the right time.
He sports a conservative, if not boring, gray sweater vest and has a temperament to match. But his blood runs a deep scarlet.
He’s a man of few words, and he chooses each one carefully.
Buckeye fans heard him speak for the first time as the new Ohio State head football coach on Jan. 18, 2001, when he addressed a home basketball audience and declared, “You’ll be proud of our young people in the classroom, in the community, and most especially in 310 days in Ann Arbor, Michigan on the football field.”
Ohio State National Championship 2002
The thunderous crowd -- hopeful to have found the right leader for one of the most storied programs in college football -- believed him. He delivered on that promise.
Two years later, he hoisted the Buckeyes’ first national championship hardware in 32 years.
And now that he’s gunning for the top college football prize for the second time in his six-year tenure at Ohio State, the football empire that Woody Hayes originally built now belongs to Jim Tressel.
Though Tressel’s first season was a tough one, he was the perfect choice to lead the Buckeye football program, says Jim Heacock, OSU’s co-defensive coordinator. “He is so very consistent and remains calm through all the highs and lows and the ups and downs. He can handle the good and bad equally. When he was named head coach at Ohio State, I was pretty certain he would be very successful here and that he was exactly what Ohio State was looking for.”
Ohio State Football Legacy
Six years later, history would have to agree.
The Buckeyes won 50 games during Tressel’s first five seasons as head coach, the most in any five-year period in 116 years of OSU football. And 2006’s perfect season, combined with almost complete annual domination of hated rival Michigan, only adds rows of Buckeye-leaf stickers to the helmet of Tressel’s growing dynasty.
Tressel has his own style, but a gift for coaching is in the genes. His father, the late Lee Tressel, played briefly at Ohio State. World War II cut his playing career short. He coached a 34-win streak at Massillon High School before compiling a 155-52-6 record at Baldwin Wallace, which included the 1978 Division III National Championship.
The Tressels are the only father-son coaching duo to both win national championships. Tressel’s older brother, Dick, was the Division III National Coach of the Year in 1984 and now coaches running backs for his kid brother at OSU.
Many of his lessons in the fine art of coaching were originally life lessons taught by his father.
“My dad taught me the first thing to know about working with young people is that they know you care about them as people,” Tressel says. “Don’t try to dazzle them with your knowledge or the nuances of the sport. Make sure they understand you care about them as people. Then teaching them will be easy once they realize you care about all phases of their life.”
The Only Coach to Win Titles in Two NCAA Divisions
Before becoming OSU’s 22nd head football coach, Tressel spent 15 years building a Division 1-AA program at Youngstown State that won four national championships and went to the playoffs 10 times under his watch. He’s the only coach in college football history to win it all at two different schools. His 197 college football wins rank him behind only Bobby Bowden, Joe Paterno and Frank Beamer, among active coaches.
No matter the level, his coaching philosophy never changes, he says.
“What we have really set out to do is have an impact,” Tressel has said. “We want to impact the kids, impact the school, impact Central Ohio, the community and the state. I think we’ve done that, but it’s an ongoing process. You’re never finished.”
Teaching First, Football Second: Why Tressel Prioritizes the Classroom
This ideal trickles into the classroom. As Tressel openly promotes an emphasis on education, his teams annually lead the Big Ten in academic all-conference picks.
His contributions to the university and the community are well-documented. Tressel and his wife, Ellen, are co-chairs of Ohio State’s $108 million library renovation campaign, making personal contributions in excess of $100,000.
The father of four applies a simple and realistic approach to football and to life.
“Perspective is the key to anything,” Tressel has said. “While we all have certain goals we’d like to accomplish and directions we think God would like us to go, and we work hard to get there, life doesn’t always head in exactly the direction we thought it would.
“I thought I was going to teach high school football all my life. That’s not what God had in mind for me. I’ve enjoyed every single place I’ve been, and I could have stayed every place I’ve been for my entire life.”
“Stay in the Moment”—Tressel’s Simple but Powerful Message
The student-athletes he coaches all get the same advice.
“Stay in the moment. Become the best you can be in the moment. And what lies out ahead, only God knows. Enjoy and stay in the moment you’re in and if you do that, you will not be disappointed with what you do.”
His basic philosophies and matter-of-fact, sometimes vanilla, demeanor have earned the respect of his players. They seem to find comfort in his consistency.
Says center Doug Datish, “Coach Tressel is Coach Tressel, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.”
Michelle Garland Segrest, a graduate of Auburn University, is an award winning sports reporter who has been working as a journalist since 1989. During her career, Michelle has reported about everything from sports to courts, lifestyles to business, politics to pastries, and technical to travel.
Where is Jim Tressel now?
Jim Tressel led Ohio State to its first football championship in 34 years in 2002. Following his resignation as football coach in 2011, he is currently the Lieutenant Governor of Ohio. He was sworn into office on February 14, 2025, after being nominated by Governor Mike DeWine. He previously served as the president of Youngstown State University from 2014 to 2023.
