Tressel inducted into Ohio State Hall of Fame

Northeast Ohio Media Group

COLUMBUS

On a night for legacy and for memories, Jim Tressel could live in the past. President of Youngstown State keeps you busy, but at a downtown hotel, he was surrounded by friends and admirers because he once served as Ohio State’s football coach.

His Hall of Fame plaque at the Schottenstein Center doesn’t include the victories vacated by the NCAA violations that ended his career. For instance, he’s listed as 8-1 against Michigan, when Tressel’s Buckeyes were 9-1 on the field against the Wolverines.

Neither in the plaque nor in the induction program is there mention of Tressel’s end, of the NCAA sanctions and his forced resignation in May of 2011. In the Ohio State community, the past is remembered, but the pain put aside. As hundreds of Ohio State backers gathered outside a ballroom, athletic director Gene Smith said he was looking for Tressel to give him a hug and congratulate him.

“He’s one of the best people I ever worked with,” said Smith, who oversaw Tressel’s ouster as the school hoped to avoid stiffer NCAA punishment. “I just enjoyed every moment I had an opportunity to work with him.

“I have the highest respect for him and what he did, and it’s unfortunate how it ended,” Smith said. “But that does not tarnish a whole person’s body of work. That’s what I look at in the end. When you talk about his legacy, his legacy is not that moment in time. His legacy is the hundreds of guys he impacted in a positive way.”

Looking almost younger than when he left Ohio State, Tressel, 62, was accompanied by his wife, Ellen, and apologized for being late for a news conference before his induction.

So how did Tressel, on the night that honored his past, believe his end at Ohio State should influence the view of his entire 10 years as the Buckeyes’ head coach?

“I think all parts of what you’re involved in are important,” Tressel said. “You can’t throw away in a game a fumble. You’re just not allowed to do that. I think in general people are fair about how they view the totality of anything.

“But what’s more important, and I’ve said it to you before, is that the people that you intimately worked with and you were trying to make a difference with, what’s most important is how they feel about it. And I guess that’s what’s so thrilling about this weekend and the College Hall of Fame and all that, is that’s the people you worked with And it’s humbling that the Varsity O and their Hall of Fame felt like this era should recognized.”