Not everyone in Ohio liked "The Vest' and some are even glad he is gone...

In “The Hollow Men,” T.S. Eliot’s despairing ode to post-WWI Europe, the poet concluded that the world would end “not with a bang but a whimper.


Well, for the two colossal football coaches in Ohio State University history, the blustering bully Woody Hayes and the buttoned-down Boy Scout Jim Tressel, their respective downfalls are not either/or matters. Woody went out with a big bang while Tressel desperately held on as long as he could before finally succumbing with a whimper. And fair or not, they will be forever linked together by both their successful records and – shall we say - the denouements of their corresponding careers.


It would take a team of early 20th century Austrian psychiatrists at the top of their game to precisely pinpoint the mental condition of Woody Hayes when he threw that fatal punch at a Clemson player in the Gator Bowl over 30 years ago. And even they would end up shrugging in nervous bewilderment.


http://clevelandcurrent.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=143&Itemid=58



Personally, as someone who studied at OSU, I liked the quiet professionalism of Tressel. One of the reasons is that when he was head couch at Youngstown State, a friend of mine volunteered to help with the coaching staff. Each week he would schlep down to Youngstown, where he was raised, from Cleveland, where he now lives, to help in anyway he could.

The year they won the National title, Tressel, from out of his pocket, made sure that all of the volunteers, some twenty of them, got a National Title Ring...

He didn't have to do that, they were all surprised that he did.

You have to take stuff like that into consideration when you take the measure of the man...

Personally, as a fan, I think he overlooked too much. They all know the rules. And yet I appreciated all he did to turn OSU football around.

He will be missed.

Nothing but a hypocrite.

Thank you for your perspective, and Larry's.