Left: Jim Tressel shared his thoughts about success with Westerville South seniors.
Jim Tressel has spent his entire life helping people get where they want to go. It’s his passion. The award-winning Ohio State football coach and current President of Youngstown State University shared his thoughts about success with seniors at Westerville South High School on Wednesday morning, October 14.
He defined success as the inner satisfaction and peace of mind achieved in knowing you did the best you could, not just for yourself, but for the group. “Everyone can have success,” he said. How it’s obtained involves four steps:
- Dream and set goals. Write down where you want to go.
- Work. It takes a lot to get where you’re going.
- Expect adversity along the way and learn to handle it. “I predict your future will be a combination of things you hoped for and things you never dreamed would happen,” he said. He also suggested the students learn to handle success, which can be even harder.
- Have faith, believe you will succeed, and believe in yourself and the people around you.
Tressel further offered three tips to the seniors as they prepare for life after graduation:
- Choose your friends wisely, ones who care about your future and have the courage to tell you the truth. Be the right kind of friend.
- Get involved in activities outside the classroom.
- Try to graduate from college with as little debt as possible.
Tressel knows success. He became the ninth president of Youngstown State University (YSU) on July 1, 2014. A native of Northeast Ohio, Tressel graduated from Berea High School in suburban Cleveland in 1971. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Education from Baldwin-Wallace College in 1975 and a master’s degree in Education from the University of Akron in 1977. He also received honorary degrees from YSU in 2001 and Baldwin-Wallace in 2003.
He previously was executive vice president for Student Success at the University of Akron, where he was charged with restructuring and leading the efforts of a newly created division dedicated to the academic and career success of students. Tressel’s areas of responsibility included recruitment and admissions, financial aid and career services, advising and adult/transfer services, the military services center and multicultural academic programs. He spent a great deal of time in the Northeast Ohio region, emphasizing the need for top-notch higher education, innovation and collaboration.
Prior to joining the University of Akron, Tressel was head football coach at Ohio State University from 2001 to 2010, where his teams won the national championship in 2002 and seven Big Ten championships and appeared in eight BCS post-season bowl games. As head football coach at YSU from 1986 to 2000, Tressel’s teams won four Division I-AA national championships. He also was executive director of Athletics at YSU from 1994 to 2000