Jim Tressel's brief homecoming once again reveals his inner Clevelander: Bill Livingston
By Bill Livingston, The Plain Dealer
November 24, 2009
Chuck Crow/The Plain Dealer
A Cleveland boy at heart, Jim Tressel is the closest thing the city has to a full-time winner -- with the expectations and criticisms that come along with the title, says Bill Livingston.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A panhandler approached in the parking lot of Windows on the River, and Jim Tressel turned him down courteously. Next to the restaurant in The Flats, a big ship twisted around a bend in the Cuyahoga. On the river's far bank, the lights began to bloom in downtown office buildings.
Tuesday night, Tressel returned to the grit of the streets and the glare of the bright lights in his hometown at the Cleveland Ohio State Alumni Club awards banquet. Attendance at the affair, which peaked at 600 in the national championship year, was down to just over 200.
A two-loss season, albeit a conference championship one, a wounded economy, and the strange choice of OSU officials to alternate Tressel's visits every other year between Cleveland and Cincinnati all played a part in the downturn. It is strange because Ohio State has always had a much higher profile here than in Cincinnati, and because Tressel is the local guy who made not only good, but made better than it had been in 34 years when his team won it all in 2002.
Many fans, even in Cleveland, complain that he has not made Ohio State omnipotent, nor matched up particularly well with the sunshine schools down South and out West. (How did that work out for Southern California this year? Just asking).
When Tressel got the Ohio State job, he wondered if he would ever go to a Rose Bowl. He won six Big Ten championships, then went to six other BCS bowls. But his next game is in Pasadena.
The biggest thing is that Tressel is one of Cleveland's own, Mentor-born, Berea-bred. He is not only a great winner, but also a great emphathizer.
"How about our Brownies?" he said, rolling his eyes to a reporter and pretending that he might keel over in the wake of the 38-37 loss to hapless Detroit Sunday. It added another lump of coal to the fans' slag heap of disappointment.
