Tress 101
Tressel is the only major-college football coach to teach a class during the season and, naturally, it's all about X's and O's
Friday, November 12, 2010
By Rob Oller
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Doral Chenoweth III | Dispatch
Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel teaches Theory and Practice of Football Coaching, a three-credit-hour course. Staff assistants provide a lot of help, and two former OSU head coaches pitch in, too.
Doral Chenoweth III | Dispatch
One of the 50 students takes notes. Some of the students knew little about football coming in, and no players are in this class.
Doral Chenoweth III | DISPATCH
Former OSU head football coach John Cooper demonstrates a blocking technique. ESPN filmed part of the class on Wednesday for a segment to air this weekend.
A few minutes after 7 on a chilly Wednesday morning, bleary-eyed students began filing into the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, lugging book bags and wearing Ohio State colors. Or else.
"That's not Notre Dame Irish," Jim Tressel said in mock disapproval to Grace Miller near the team meeting room that twice a week doubles as a college classroom.
Miller recoiled for an instant; the OSU senior and Dublin Scioto High School graduate was unsure whether the most famous professor on campus was kidding about the cursive Irish, her high school's nickname, stitched across her sweatshirt.
He was. Sort of. But it was hard to tell that early in the morning. The Buckeyes' head football coach began his 7:30 a.m. class promptly at 7:28 because "everything is a race against time," he reminded his students.
And so began Theory and Practice of Football Coaching, a three-credit-hour course taught by Tressel, with much help from football staff assistants, as well as former OSU head coaches John Cooper and Earle Bruce. It meets on Mondays and Wednesdays in the fall, with a "lab" on Fridays that sends students out to scout high-school football games. The course includes pop quizzes and a midterm heavy on football history. And students must design a high-school-level training program for a position of their choosing.
"There's a lot more work than you would expect," Miller said.
Tressel, the only coach in all of major-college football to teach an academic course during the season, was dressed Wednesday in a scarlet-and-gray short-sleeved nylon shirt - no vest. He immediately began the roll call for the 50 students (no football players), who come not only for the novelty of being taught by Tressel but also to learn about X's and O's.
Some students, such as Miller, knew next to nothing about football when class began in September.
"Now, I can watch it and actually know what's going on," the molecular-genetics major said.