As well as being a popular 1950s television show, the phrase “Father Knows Best” shows some definite merit.

After a 22-year-old Jim Tressel returned home to Berea, Ohio, follwing an interview with Penn State coach Joe Paterno concerning a graduate assistant coaching position in December 1974, his mind was set.

“I told my dad, ‘Hey, I’m going to Penn State to coach with Joe Paterno,’ ” Tressel said. “And he said, ‘No, you’re not. You’re going to the University of Akron.’ “

A puzzled Jim Tressel listened as his father, Lee Tressel, continued.

“You won’t get to do as much at Penn State,” Lee Tressel told his bewildered son. “And at Akron, you’ll get to be one of the position coaches.”

Tressel listened to dad and ended up taking a graduate assistant coaching job at the University of Akron – where he was a position coach, as offensive backfield coach.

Father indeed knows best.

Tressel spent three years at Akron before heading downstate to Oxford, Ohio to coach the quarterbacks and receivers for Miami University.

It wasn’t until 1981, when Tressel coached quarterbacks and receivers at Syracuse, that he had his first chance to coach on the opposite sideline as Paterno.

Penn State defeated Syracuse 41-16.

On Saturday Tressel, with four career Div. 1-A coaching victories, has his chance at redemption against Paterno and his 323 career Div. 1-A coaching victories, when Ohio State (4-2, 2-1 Big Ten) travels to State College, Penn., to take on Penn State (1-4, 1-3 Big Ten).

A Penn State win would give the 74-year-old Paterno the Div. 1-A all-time coaching victories record at 324, breaking legendary Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s record.

The 48-year-old Tressel was 13 when Paterno coached his first game at Penn State in 1966.

With more than 100,000 Penn State fans crammed in Beaver Stadium clad in navy and white on Saturday hoping to see a record-breaking day, and a national television audience looking on, one could not blame Tressel for losing focus.

Tressel says he won’t.

“There are no mixed emotions,” he said. “Ohio State is number one to me.”

The relationship Tressel and Paterno have built over the past 27 years makes such emotions possible.

Tressel’s father, Lee, coached at Div. 3 Baldwin Wallace College in Berea for 23 years. A player of his, whose father was a faculty member at Penn State, arranged the interview Tressel and Paterno had in 1974.

“It (the interview) was awesome,” Tressel said. “I was 22 years old and had been at a Div. 3 setting my entire life. Penn State was practicing for the Cotton Bowl, and Joe took the time for my father and I to come and watch.”

From that point on Tressel and Paterno remained in contact. Well, sort of.

“I corresponded with him a lot more than he corresponded with me,” Tressel said. “I remember one time writing a quarterback manual when I was at Akron and mailing it to him.”

Did Paterno read it?

“He probably didn’t read the whole thing. I thought he did. I thought he pored over it,” Tressel said. “Like anything I’ve ever shared with him, he said he appreciated it and would share it with his staff.

“The neat thing about Joe is that whenever you sent him anything, he wrote you a little note right on the stationery you sent. You always heard back from him,” he said. “Which, when you’re a 23-year-old graduate assistant at the University of Akron, is kinda neat.”

And it’s not only Tressel picking Paterno’s brain. Paterno has sought Tressel’s help before.

When Paterno started his Web site, he picked Tressel to be one of his 25 contributing writers. A nice honor for a Div. 1-AA coach.

“(Paterno) has always been there when you need him,” Tressel said. “The thing I always liked about him was that there was no level of coaches. He felt we were all teachers.”

Still though, Tressel can’t help but hope that on Saturday, the student beats the teacher.