Thanks to the revisions made in Jim Tressel’s contract, Ohio State’s football coach should have enough money to put one of his signature sweater vests in the closet of every adult male in Ohio. (I’ll stick to more designer labels, thanks.) This probably isn’t a great day on campus for all of the English and science profs, who are minimum-wage laborers by comparison, but Friday’s contract announcement makes Tressel the highest-paid coach in the Big Ten. My only question is, what took so long?
By next season, his yearly salary will be .5 million. That gives Michigan plenty of time to do something so Rich Rod can trump Tressel in wages, if not on the field. Tressel’s salary will continue to increase by 3 or 4 percent for the duration of his contract, which runs through 2013.
Maybe now that he’s the league’s highest-paid coach, it’s an omen that Tressel will win Big Ten Coach of the Year honors for the first time. That’s right, the architect of three straight Big Ten championships and the 2002 national championship has never won the award named after late Wisconsin coach Dave McClain. When I mentioned that to him at the Big Ten meetings in Chicago, he threw it back to me, correctly pointing out that it’s sports writers and broadcasters who vote on the honor.
“Maybe I don’t give you guys enough access to the players,” Tressel joked. “Maybe that’s the answer … more access.” (It wouldn’t hurt. During the season, Tuesday and post-game are the only times players are made available to reporters.)
In many ways, Tressel has been a victim of the lofty standards he has set. Right or wrong, Coach of the Year awards typically go to someone whose team has exceeded expectations. Last year, for example, the winner was Illinois’ Ron Zook. His team went 9-4 after winning just four games the previous two years combined. An upset of No. 1 OSU in Columbus pretty much sealed the award for Zook.
The last coach to win the award and a league title the same year was Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz in 2004 when the Hawkeyes shared the Big Ten title with Michigan, even though it was Michigan that represented the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl. Same thing in 2002. Ferentz won the award as Iowa shared the title with Ohio State, but it was the Buckeyes who went to the BCS title game while the Hawkeyes were relegated to the Orange. It’s a shame the two schools never met on the field that season. One of the quirks of the Big Ten schedule.
Anyway, if Ohio State becomes the first Big Ten school to win three straight outright Big Ten titles this season, maybe it’s time for the Coach of the Year voters to show Tressel the love — the way OSU showed him the money.
