Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has named former Star College football coach Jim Tressel, who led Ohio State to the national championships, as the next lieutenant governor.
“I want someone who works to come up with ideas every day. This is a guy who has ideas,” Republican Dewine said at a press conference Monday. “And they’re thoughtful, they’re based on what he saw and what he learned.”
Tressel, 72, must first be confirmed by the state legislature. He will replace DeWine’s former ticket buddy John Husted, and the governor has recently appointed him to fill the Senate vacancy left by Vice President J.D. Vance.
Dewine is limited in time, and Husted’s promotion to the Senate has had a domino effect on Ohio’s political scene. Tressel did not indicate whether he plans to run for governor himself in 2026. Ohio State Attorney General Dave Yost has already called for the Governor’s Republican nomination. His campaign for work this month.
Tressel, who recently served as president of Youngstown State University, has been mentioned as a potential candidate for the long-elected office, but he has never pulled the trigger on his own run.
Torrestle was a prominent fundraiser for former Anthony Gonzalez and R. Ohio, who played football for him in Ohio. (Tressel also coached the Youngstown Penguins to four NCAA Division I-AA National Championships before moving to the Buckeyes.)
“It was certainly a surprise,” Tressel said Monday of his nomination.
Tressel resigned from Ohio in 2011, when the school’s soccer program got caught up in a controversy, and players selling souvenirs to tattoo parlors in an NCAA investigation.
