Former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel has a new title: Lieutenant Governor of the state of Ohio.
Acting Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced that Tressel, who coached the Ohio State Buckeyes to a National Championship in 2002, will be the state’s next Lt. Governor.
Area reporter Karen Kasler reported the news on Monday morning.
“Former Ohio State national championship-winning football coach Jim Tressel, who also was the president of Youngstown State and a VP at University of Akron, will be Ohio’s next lieutenant governor, as announced by Gov. Mike DeWine,” Kasler wrote on X.
Tressell first coached at Ohio State in the 1980s on staff as an offensive assistant. Following a lengthy tenure at Youngstown State, Ohio State hired him to right the ship at the turn of the 21st Century.
Not only did Tressel right the ship, he helped Ohio State become a national powerhouse. The Buckeyes won the National Championship in 2002 and competed at an elite level throughout his tenure. Tressel’s Buckeyes made two more National Championship Game appearances in his tenure in 2006 and then 2007. The Buckeyes won the Rose Bowl in 2009 under Tressel, defeating the Oregon Ducks.
While his tenure came to an abrupt end under circumstances that would get laughed at in an NIL world – and to be fair, it appeared harsh at the time – it hasn’t curbed his stability clearly. Tressel had previously served as Youngstown State’s Athletic Director.
Tressel has now ascended into government, and we’ll see how that goes.
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022