Dick Tressel, older brother to football coach Jim Tressel, was introduced earlier today to the Columbus media as the new and first associate director of football operations at Ohio State.

Speaking of the plentiful resources at OSU, Dick Tressel said he is excited to involve the OSU football players with the community.

“With the abundant services the athletes are given, I think they will find it just as, if not more, rewarding serving someone else,” Dick Tressel said. “I have to make it work. This is a critical and evolving position.”

Spending the last 23 years as football coach and athletic director at Division 3 Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., Dick Tressel said as an Ohio boy who’s been living in Minnesota, it’s good to be back in Ohio. Although he said the decision to come to Ohio was more a professional level decision than it was a geographical decision.

“We started off going in different directions,” Dick Tressel said of his and brother’s respective coaching careers. “And to end up at the same point in 2001, that really is a space odyssey.”

Among the benefits of coming back to Ohio, Dick Tressel said being close to his mother, who has had recent health problems, was a big one.

“It’s an immediate benefit to be closer to my mom,” Dick Tressel said. “It’s good fortune. When you’re working toward good things, good things happen.”

Dick Tressel also said that working with his brother will only make himself perform better.

“You always have higher expectations of family,” Dick Tressel said. “Jim won’t have to tell me when I’m not doing my job, he’ll just have to give me a quick glance and I’ll know.

“They say the oldest is more apt to take fewer chances and follow the beaten path,” Dick Tressel said. “Being around my dad (who coached at Division 3 Baldwin Wallace) I always wanted to be a Division 3 head football coach. The third (Jim) in line takes more chances.”

Dick Tressel also said he looks forward to spending more time with his youngest brother.

“It’s been hard to get together, so we usually meet somewhere between the Twin Cities and Youngstown,” Dick Tressel said. “Christmas is usually just a day together because of recruiting.

“When together we don’t talk about X and O’s or off-tackle running plays, we pass books back and forth,” Dick Tressel said.