Tressel Takes Over Buckeyes

Friday, January 19th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) â€” Jim Tressel took over as the Ohio State coach with a five-year deal and a mandate to build players' character, bolster classroom performance â€” and, of course, beat Michigan.

``I'm so proud, so excited and so humble to be the football coach at the Ohio State University,'' Tressel said during halftime of the Buckeyes men's basketball game with Michigan on Thursday night, hours after he was introduced as the new football coach.

Then he added, ``I can assure you that you'll be proud of our young people in the classroom, in the community â€” and especially in 310 days in Ann Arbor, Mich.''

The crowd roared its approval as he walked off the floor.

``Excellence is what is expected,'' Tressel, the coach at Division I-AA Youngstown State for the past 15 years, said at the afternoon news conference.

With his wife and three of his four children sitting nearby, Tressel referred to his ambition to bring a sense of family back to an Ohio State program besieged by internal strife, legal problems and academic failures â€” not to mention losses in big games.

``Having been born in the state of Ohio and idolizing the likes of Paul Brown and Woody Hayes ... as I sit here and think about the fact that I will be following men like that, it's really humbling, and it's so exciting.''

Tressel has never before led a I-A program, but his Youngstown State teams won four I-AA national championships. He said his tenure with the Penguins taught him how to get players to believe in each other, care for each other, be unselfish and reach their potential.

But Tressel said it was more than philosophical ideals that got him the job.

``Had we not won those four championships, I would not be here,'' he said.

Ohio State athletics director Andy Geiger said he had no difficulty with Tressel's limited experience in I-A â€” assistant coaching stints at Syracuse and Miami (Ohio) for two years each and three seasons at Ohio State under Earle Bruce.

``I measure the man and not the level,'' Geiger said.

Tressel's five-year contract is worth $4.6 million.

He will receive a $100,000 signing bonus and $700,000 salary, increasing $100,000 each year to top out at $1.1 million a year to guide one of the nation's highest-profile college sports programs. He was paid $88,500 to coach at Youngstown State, with another $20,000 to serve as the school's athletics director.

Tressel was hired after a 16-day search for a replacement for the fired John Cooper.

Ohio State President William E. Kirwan said the university wanted a coach with a good record of graduating players as well as winning games. The choice was a coach who ``wants success on field, but not at the expense of academic and character development,'' Kirwan said.

Tressel proved that Thursday. His son, Zak, a junior at Ohio State, didn't attend his father's introduction at a recruiting room inside Ohio Stadium. He had a physics class.

``My dad always said the only reason to miss class is a death in the family â€” your own,'' Tressel said. ``So Zak isn't with us.''

Kirwan said, ``Here's a man getting his dream job and his son couldn't come because he had a class at Ohio State. That tells a lot about what Jim's expectations are and what his values are.''

Tressel, a Berea native, took over at Youngstown State in 1986. After suffering through a 2-9 season, he guided the Penguins to their first I-AA playoff appearance the next season with an 8-4 mark.

Tressel and Youngstown State won national titles in 1991, 1993, 1994 and 1997 â€” the most for a head coach in I-AA history â€” and had 12 winning seasons. He was 135-57-2 with the Penguins.

Cooper was fired after Ohio State lost 24-7 to South Carolina in the Outback Bowl on Jan. 1. But Geiger also cited poor academic performance, on-the-field taunting and off-the-field skirmishes with the law by the Buckeyes players.

Cooper was 111-43-4, shared three Big Ten titles and played in bowls in 11 of his 13 seasons. But he was 3-8 in those bowl games and was just 2-10-1 against chief rival Michigan.

Tressel said he understood the importance of the Michigan game. His first year at Youngstown State, he said he moved the Penguins' game against rival Akron to a Friday night so it wouldn't conflict with the Wolverines-Buckeyes game.

``You can't play another game on the day you play the Ohio State-Michigan game,'' he said. ``They should just leave one day, and no one in America gets to play but those two teams.''