Buckeye coach inks winning playbook
Photo By John
Ray
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By Felix Hoover
For YourNewsColumbus
Posted 08-25-09
Some places demand winners at all costs.
At Ohio State, it's $25 for hardbacks, $15 for paperbacks.
Those were the going rates for Head Football Coach Jim Tressel's book
The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life,
which he signed Monday on the fourth-floor terrace at the William
Oxley Thompson Memorial Library.
Proceeds from sales of the bestseller will help pay for the recently
reopened library's renovation.
Coach Tressel's commitment goes much deeper. He and his wife Ellen
co-chaired the fundraising committee that secured more than $21
million for the upgrade.
The book, co-written with Chris Fabry, presents previously unpublished
anecdotes about coaches and players from Tressel's years coaching at
OSU and Youngstowwn State. It also delivers some of the wisdom he has
shared with players and his staffs throughout his career.
Fans had lined up for about an hour before the coach's appointed
arrival time and maintained order once he started the autograph line.
Melissa Snow, 30, made the trip from Mansfield "just to see Coach,"
she said.
"I'm just a fan for a lifetime," said Snow, who was decked out in a
Buckeye jersey with the No. 27 popularized by Heisman Trophy winner
Eddie George.
After the booksigning, she was headed to Ohio Stadium to watch the
free, public football practice. Folks knew in advance there was a
one-hour time limit on the autorgraph session because the coach, too,
planned to attend the practice.
Cara Witter, an alumna who works in the OSU Registrar's office,
already had a copy of the book and found it "very inspiring," she
said.
Convenience played a factor in Emily Tramte's going to the booksigning.
A junior, she's taking summer classes in pursuit of a degree in health
science and journalism. If her dad doesn't get wind of her purchase,
it will be a surprise birthday gift in a couple of weeks.
Some attendees lined up for the booksigning after touring the library
at 1858 Neil Ave.
Raimun E. Goerler, interim director of the library system, was among
the tour guides. Three decades at the library gave him special
insights into many of the displays, including portraits of the OSU
presidents.
For Rebecca Maykowski of the Northeast Side, the tour was a homecoming
of sorts.
"I worked in the catalog," said. Maykowski, who received bachelor's
and
master's degrees in education from Ohio State.
As a math major, she also did some of the computations used to track
the library's inventory, she said.
Many visitors marveled at how the three-year, $109 million renovation
converted a dungeon with stacks into what's being called a world-class
library.
The view east from the 11th-floor provides an overview of the Oval and
prompts a guessing game to identify buildings at and near the Ohio
Exposition Center.
This is finals week at OSU, ensuring that the library would be in
heavy use.The true measure, however, will be when the full student
body arrives this autumn. The building has seating for about 1,800 and
houses more than a million volumes and several unique collections.
Students will have access to 200 computers, wireless Internet service
and a cafe.
With the renovated library, students have plenty of impetus to hit the
books.
And with Coach Tressell as a major benefactor to
hit 'em again, hit 'em again, harder, harder.
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