Gov. Mike DeWine surprised many people when he announced Feb. 10, 2025, that he was nominating Jim Tressel, the retired Youngstown State University president and a former football coach at YSU and Ohio State University, to be lieutenant governor.

While a longtime Republican like DeWine, Tressel had never held or run for elected office before the selection.

During Tressel’s time as lieutenant governor, DeWine repeatedly said he had the utmost confidence that he would do a great job and if something happened to the governor, he was certain Tressel could run the state.

A couple of days after the selection, DeWine told me that Tressel would “make an excellent governor. I wouldn’t put anybody in that position if I didn’t think they wouldn’t make a good governor.”

He also said: “I wouldn’t put him in this position unless I thought he was the best person I could think of to serve as governor of the state of Ohio. So, yeah, I think he would be a very, very fine governor if something happened to me.”

During the same discussion, Tressel said he “wouldn’t rule” out a potential gubernatorial bid.

In the nearly 16 months since Tressel’s appointment, DeWine has said a number of times that his pick has exceeded his high expectations.

While the two haven’t publicly discussed it, DeWine wanted Tressel to run for governor this year to succeed him. DeWine is term limited with his last day as governor being Jan. 11, 2027.

But Tressel’s heart was never in politics, and he chose not to run.

While Tressel’s name recognition is strong in Ohio, he would have had to face Vivek Ramaswamy, the billionaire venture capitalist who lined up endorsements from President Donald Trump, the Ohio Republican Party and several prominent state GOP officeholders for the party’s nomination.

Ramaswamy, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, has put $25 million of his own money into his campaign — and could easily pour more into it — for his Nov. 3 general election contest with Democrat Amy Acton.

During a visit to Austintown to tout WorkOhio, an initiative to connect Ohioans with in-demand jobs, I asked Tressel what he’s learned from his time as lieutenant governor. In addition to leading WorkOhio, Tressel has traveled the state to promote the statewide fitness challenge for kids in grades 4-8.

After telling me exactly how many days he had left in office, Tressel said: “That’s an easy question. The thing I’ve learned the most about being lieutenant governor is just the complexity and the enormity of what it takes to have a state of 12 million people with so many needs, so many things going on — whether here we are talking about the job force and so forth, but all the way from education to foster care to our roads to mental health needs. It’s amazing — the complexity and the enormity.”

Tressel said: “Every challenge is hard, but what’s difficult for the administration and the General Assembly is that we have a finite amount of resources, and we have a lot more needs than we have resources. That’s why we have to do a great job of assessing how can we more efficiently use our funding. How can we most effectively use our funding? We’ve got to figure out what’s the best things,

and we’ve got to invest in the best things, make sure we do our efficiencies so that we can get the effectiveness at the end. The enormity of this has been fascinating.”

Of course, Tressel praised DeWine, who asked him to be his lieutenant governor and was his only choice to replace Jon Husted. Husted left the lieutenant governor’s job after DeWine appointed him Jan. 17, 2025, to the open U.S. Senate seat vacated by J.D. Vance. Vance left the Senate to serve as vice president.

Tressel said: “There’s no one like Gov. DeWine. That guy works seven days a week, all day long, and he cares about every Ohioan. He reminds us every day he wants every Ohioan to reach their God-given potential and he means that.”

David Skolnick covers local, state and national politics for the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator.