Tressel talks about excellence on vindy.com. (Click for the video.)

By Dan Pecchia

I may get flak from public relations purists who hate seeing “PR” used in this fashion, but phooey on them: The appointment of Jim Tressel as president of Youngstown State University was an excellent PR move by the university.

By the way, phooey also on the naysayers who kept Tressel out of the top post at the University of Akron and did their best to bad-mouth him out of the YSU presidency.

The view from this corner is that Tressel’s proven ability to unite, lead and inspire people will restore a winning attitude to YSU, make him an exceptional president and vault the university to new levels of success.

Kudos to the university’s board of trustees for looking past Tressel’s obvious lack of academic credentials (and his mistakes) and recognizing the tremendous value he’ll bring to the university and the Mahoning Valley.

By connecting with the former Ohio State and YSU football coach so quickly after Akron picked someone else, the YSU board sent a clear message that they’re more interested in doing the right thing than following the protocol of the cognoscenti.

Academic credentials overstated

It’s not like Tressel was up against the provost of Harvard or the chancellor of Notre Dame. The other top candidates for the YSU presidency had solid experience in academic and leadership roles of schools similar to YSU in size or slightly larger. They would have done just fine here.

But YSU has had enough just fine presidents. This was the opportunity to get a champion.

In light of his academic inexperience Tressel is smart enough to know, and the trustees are smart enough to remind him, to rely heavily on YSU’s academic leaders, even though they will report to him. Anyone who has followed YSU closely over the years knows that many of its presidents were not chancellor material yet were still productive.

Inspiration and leadership

Here’s where we see Tressel making an impact in the years ahead:

Winning attitude. Yes, his background is in football. But his performance record involves becoming the best in the country, at both the Ohio State and YSU levels, in a highly competitive team sport. Say what you will about successful college athletic programs, but they create respect, confidence and good feelings far beyond the arenas and YSU has missed all of those since Tressel left for Columbus.

Inspiration. Look at Tressel’s quotes and sound bites in recent news stories. He speaks from his heart like a benevolent statesman. We need that at YSU and in greater Youngstown if we’re to be successful against long odds.

Fundraising. YSU has always done a good job in this area, but Tressel knows local business leaders and has their admiration. He also has admirers far beyond Youngstown and can leverage those to the benefit of current and future YSU students and professors.

Leadership. Note how Tressel accepted an annual salary of $300,000, which is less than YSU offered and less than his predecessor earned. It’s a lot easier to orient your thinking in that direction when the guy in charge is providing examples. We can expect leadership from Jim Tressel.

These could be exciting times for the university and those of us proud to be its alumni.

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Dan Pecchia is a public relations consultant and president of Pecchia Communications. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Youngstown State. As a student there, Dan spent a year as sports editor and two as managing editor of the student newspaper, The Jambar.