CLEVELAND — Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel made the rounds in Northeast Ohio on Monday as registration opened for the next round of his Team Tressel Fitness Challenge. He sat down in the News 5 studio with anchor Damon Maloney, and their nearly 20-minute conversation covered a lot of hot topics beyond the fitness challenge, including Tressel’s political present and future. The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Maloney: Let me talk to you about being Lt. Governor. Some people were shocked when you were tapped to become the No. 2 in the state here. What has it been like to be Lt. Governor?
Tressel: You know, it’s been a great learning process. I’ve really grown to appreciate the enormity and complexity of what it takes to run a state. We have 12 million people. The hardest thing for people, I think, to really grasp is that we have a finite amount of resources and we have a giant amount of needs. And really, one’s own individual thing that they feel is most important, they feel needs to be a part of that, I don’t care whether it’s schools or roads or programs or subsidies for bringing companies or. You can go along the list of things… I had no idea the amount of needs and the difficulty of filling all those needs because we only have so much revenue. And I’ll tell you what the people, the agencies, most especially the Governor, they work night and day trying to figure out how they can do all they can do for as many as they can.
Maloney: So, let’s talk about it. DeWine taps you to become Lt. Governor. Everyone’s saying, all the experts out there and pundits, ‘this is a shoo-in, he’s going to run for Governor when the time comes.’ But, you say ‘no.’ Why not?
Tressel: Well, I didn’t even run— got Lieutenant Governor. You know, I was appointed. And Ellen and I had to think, you know, 48 years in higher ed. Now we were in a period of our life where we could go back and really try to help all the people that had helped us, thousands of former players. Thousands, you know, hundreds of coaches, communities all over the state. We were having a lot of fun volunteering, helping out, and making a difference. Well, then, when the governor comes, you know, you don't say no to the governor. You know, I mean, especially the kind of guy he is. I know how hard he works and how deeply he cares about this state. And so we thought, well, you can do anything for 690 days, can't you? And so we went to work. And we've been going fast and furious. And I never really thought people would say, 'Oh, well, he's going to run for governor.' That wasn't my intention to start with.
Maloney: So that was never the intention, to one day run for governor with taking this position?
Tressel: No, no. My only intention was that the governor had a need. He really wanted me to focus on education and workforce and this fitness initiative, and he thought I was well-suited for those tasks. But no, there was never an intention to run for governor. Now, people have asked me to think about it. And I think in fairness, you have to sit back and you think and you weigh the pros and cons and take a little measure of where you are in your life and where the needs of the state are. You think about where you want to work. You start thinking about, OK, who's involved on the team? Who's in the company? Do I want to move? Is this that? And so we did give it some thought. But when it really came down to it, we want to finish strong, doing what we're doing. And you know, one reality, not that this was a big factor, but if indeed you stepped away and started to run for an office, that's a lot of time away from doing the real stuff you can do.
Maloney: Vivek Ramaswamy came out strong, campaigning for this open seat, getting some of the endorsements. Some people were saying that you kind of waiting to make the decision kind of made them waffle a little bit. Then he picked up endorsement, endorsement. Did that factor into any of this?
Tressel: No, not really. I had a chance to meet Vivek when we were with the Buckeyes at the White House. And I got to talk to him, maybe for 30 seconds. But since then, I had a chance to sit and visit with him and learn a little bit more about him, and he was trying to pick my brain about what I knew, you know, in terms of the state of Ohio. He knew I was a longtime Ohioan. So, it's been fun to get to know him. We'll see how things go along the way.
Maloney: A Tressel endorsement yet?
Tressel: Oh gosh, you know what? I've sat with Vivek one time, and I'm not sure I'm qualified to endorse anyone. I've been in this world for nine months. I'm far from being an expert, so I've got a little bit of time to go, and we'll see how things flow down the road.
Damon Maloney: Did some sense of you want to carry on the legacy of DeWine? You guys are kind of maybe cut from the same cloth in a lot of areas. I think Ramaswamy, most people will say, is a different part of the Republican Party.
Lt Gov Jim Tressel: Well, you know, the governor and I did have occasional conversations about it. We were pretty busy working on the tasks at hand, but every once in a while, we would talk a little bit about it. But he only wanted me to do it if I was dying to do it. I'd like to think that as the new administration, whoever it is, takes over, the first thing they're going to do is study the DeWine administration and the things that they did. I know when I went in as a new football coach at Youngstown State or a new football coach at Ohio State, the first thing I did was I wanted to go build on history. Well, the only way you can build on history is learn it. Study it. And so, we used to always say, I want to build on vivid recall of past successes. So, I'd like to think it won't be as different regardless of who ends up in the governor's mansion. What's going to be key is when they get in there, will they study the great history of not just Governor DeWine, but Governor Kasich and Governor Strickland and Governor Celeste and Governor Rhodes, and Governor Voinovich. You have to study history to figure out how you want to go forward. And I have a lot of confidence in whoever that is that gets in there will do that.
