Football
While the Storm Rages, Tressel Institutes Unique Academic
Program at OSU
By John Porentas
First it was the New York Times, and now it's ESPN;
the OSU athletic department is a cesspool. Just ask them.
While some media outlets are looking for ways to trash
Ohio State, and in particular the football program, OSU Head Coach
Jim Tressel is quietly, without fanfare, implementing a program dedicated
to (gasp) improving academics, and he's not doing it by himself.
Tressel has enlisted the aid of a guy on a bicycle and
a guy who had to give up an officiating and educating career due to
illness to make sure that freshman football players, and certain upper
classmen who may have a bit of a tendency to slip a little in the classroom,
stay on the straight and narrow academically.
Just in case you see him on campus, the guy on the bicycle
is a familiar face in the OSU football program. He is former OSU special
teams coach Ken Conatser.
Conatser was a long-time assistant for Tressel at Youngstown
State, but left Tressel's OSU staff at the end of the 2001 to take
the job of offensive line coach at Kansas under Head Coach Mark Mangino.
Conatser says the move was a mistake; he and Mangino were a poor fit. After just two games with the Jayhawks, Conatser hung up his whistle
and retired after 35 years of coaching.
Conatser, however, did not take up fly fishing in his
"retirement". He just couldn't stay away from coaching.
"I volunteered at YSU for the off-season helping
with special teams," said Conatser.
"I love being around young people. They keep you
young. Coaching is the way I stayed around young people."
Conatser renewed acquaintances with another volunteer
at Youngstown State, Bobby Mansfield. Mansfield was a volunteer to
the Penguin football staff when Tressel was at YSU, but Mansfield, a retired
high school principal and basketball official who was a kidney transplant
recipient nine years ago, did absolutely no coaching. His sole role
was to mentor and monitor YSU players academically, a role he relished
and did effectively at YSU.
While the the furor over OSU academic questions was
in the public spotlight, Tressel was quietly working on transplanting
the successful academic mentoring program at YSU to OSU, but in this
day of voluminous regulation, Tressel went slowly, making sure the
program would not be outside NCAA guidelines.
"He had told me when he went to Ohio State that
he wanted to see how the lay of the land was and make some decisions
eventually to try and improve academics," said Mansfield.
"I don't know how well you know him, but he's all
about the complete player. It's not just about 'Let's
go play football.
"It's about community service, about
doing academics. One of his goals has always been to lead the league
not only in football but in the academic aspect as well.
"He wants to end up with a 3.0 GPA
for the team. In order to do that he needs a lot of extra help."
Mansfield said.
When school began this year, Conatser
and Mansfield brought the successful YSU program to OSU. Their duties
include making sure that freshman and "targeted" upper classmen
make it to class, and that they have someone, an adult, other than
a coach to whom they can talk about anything, not just academics.
Before they went to work, however, there was plenty of due diligence
done to make sure the program met all regulations.
"We've met with compliance, we've
met with the school lawyer, we know what we can and can't do or say,"
said Conatser.
"We had to go meet with lawyers
and fill out papers. Ohio State was very careful," Conatser added.
"We can't talk to professors, and there are other
rules, but we can definitely monitor their attendance and other things
he's (Tressel) looking for," added Mansfield.
According to Mansfield, Tressel doesn't just want his
players in class. He has other standards he expects his players to
meet as well, standards that worked at YSU and now are being put into
place at OSU
"There were some rules, like when
they got to class they had to take their hats off, sit in the front
of the room and be on time, and those were things that weren't going
on (at YSU), and they weren't going on in Columbus as well,"
said Mansfield.
Mansfield, who worked in the program
for seven years at YSU, is confident it will be successful at OSU.
"I felt we could make that work
at Ohio State," Mansfield said.
"I did it for him for seven years at Youngstown
State.
"These guys are pretty unique, but
they're no different than the players at Youngstown State.
"They're college football players
who all their life have been told how good they are.
"Coach Tressel doesn't buy all that,"
Mansfield said. "He doesn't grant them any special privileges,
like skipping class. He really believes the opportunity for academic
success goes up drastically when they attend class, so he wants them
to be there."
Neither Mansfield nor Conatser are paid
for their services. As it was at YSU, the program is implemented by
volunteer labor, labor enlisted by Tressel. Mansfield remembered the
day nine years ago when he was recovering from a life-threatening
illness when Tressel first proposed the program.
"You need to understand the philosophy," said
Mansfield.
"When I got out of the hospital nine years ago
Jim Tressel came up to me in the hospital and he said to me one day
that the biggest mistake that we make in this country is that we don't
take advantage of the over-50 group in this country, as businesses
or coaches or whatever it may be.
"The over-50 group is the most experienced group
who are now retired and have the most knowledge and most life experiences.
"Most of them don't need money. They don't have
agendas, but they have all the necessary attributes that these kids
need to succeed. Yet we push those people aside.
"He said to me 'When you get to feeling better
and you're healthy enough, I'm going to use you.' He did just that,"
said Mansfield.
Mansfield and Conatser now prowl the OSU campus, making
sure the freshmen are at their classes, but the size of the OSU campus
and the varied schedules of the players make that monitoring function
difficult. That's where the bicycle comes in. Conatser uses his mountain
bike to pedal from building to building to make sure student-athletes
are where they are supposed to be, when they are supposed to be there.
"I ride my bicycle around campus. The kids all
laugh at me," said a chuckling Conatser.
"One of them let the air out of my tire one day.
I think it was Nadar Abdahllah," Conatser laughed.
The monitoring function may sound like surveillance
work, but both Conatser and Mansfield say not so. The program is about
making sure people get to class, but it's also much more.
"Our whole thing is to be supportive, but yet let
them know that we're holding their feet to the fire a little bit,"
said Conatser.
"We represent something that players don't usually
have, somebody who is not a coach, not a professor, and not really
a policeman, but a mentoring, caring person."
"We don't have anything to do with the decision
making process (on playing time) or discipline. All we do is monitor,
mentor and really just love them like your own," Conatser said.
Mansfield agreed with Conatser. The presence of an adult
who is not a coach or university employee was a great benefit to the
players involved.
"They're going to open up more to
a guy like me or Conatser than they are to a coach, because we don't
hold any playing time over their head. We don't ever suggest that
to the coaches. They don't fear us, they trust us," said Mansfield.
Mansfield says he can already see results from the program.
"I've seen tremendous improvement from week one
to week 10," he said.
"We hardly ever catch anybody. It's not that they're
getting better at hiding, because I know where they go. They're going
to class and being where they're supposed to be. They're in class,"
Mansfield said.
The storm rages. Very quietly, the seas
are being calmed, with the help of an old guy on a bicycle.
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