Former Ohio State head football coach JIm Tressel was recently sworn in as the 67th Ohio lieutenant governor in history, working under Governor Mike DeWine.

Call him the assistant head coach on DeWine’s support staff. He just might eventually throw his hat into the ring in the next governor’s race, trying to be the head coach of the state in a political sense. Could he win? Sure he could. Would he win if he ran? I don’t know, but it’s not as crazy as it might sound.

We’ve had a former bodybuilder/actor as a governor in California in Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a former professional wrestler as governor in Minnesota in Jesse Ventura. For that matter, we’ve had a former actor as president in Ronald Reagan, and we currently have a president in Donald Trump who had his own reality TV show. He also owned the United States Football Lesgue’s New Jersey Generals, who used big money to woo quarterback Brian Sipe away from the Browns following the 1983 season. His offensive coordinator there was Chris Palmer, who went on to become the head coach of the expansion Browns in 1999. Palmer had somr great stories of working for Trump.

So, the road from sports and other non-political backgrounds into political jobs, even at the highest levels, has been well-traveled.

Tressel, of course, grew up in Berea, where the Browns have trained for decades and where their headquarters and practice facility is now. He starred in football at Berea High School, just a few blocks from Browns headquarters, and then moved next door along Bagley Road to then Baldwin-Wallace College, where he played for his father, College Football Hall of Fame head coach Lee Tressel.

His first college coaching job was as a graduate assistant at the University of Akron, where he later worked in administration after leaving coaching. His first head coaching job was at Youngstown State University, where he turned the Penguins into a Division II national power. He later went back to YSU as school president, retiring in 2023 and then returning to live in the Medina area, where he resided while in administration at UA.

Tressel is a big Browns fan and a lifelong one (his mother, Eloise, worked for years checking in media members attending Browns training camp in Berea). While at Ohio State, he would listen to Browns games on the radio on Sundays while in his office wrapping up the film review of the Buckeyes game from the day before while beginning to get ready for the game the following Saturday.

With the Browns’ struggles during the expansion era, especially early on, there was talk of him taking over as head coach of the Browns. After all, if he could guide Ohio State to the national championship in just his second season there in 2002, play for the title two other times and beat Michigan like a drum with a 9-1 record in the big game, then he ought to be able to get the new Browns on track, right?

So, he is known far and wide in Ohio, and is still tremendously popular. That counts for a lot in any election. Though he had no previous political experience before becoming lieutenant governor, he has been successful
wherever he’s been and whatever he’s done, which also counts for a lot in terms of the leadership it provides, the ability to communicate and the ability to bring different factions together as a “team” are all great assets, and selling points, even for governor.

Anyway, stay tuned. It could get quite interesting.

Steve King