It’s been three days since The Resignation…and I couldn’t put my feelings into words until now.  The days went like this:

Monday: Woke up hungover, saw a text from a friend stating “Tressel resigned”, I threw up in my mouth (mix of rum, coke and disappointment), slept more and finally got up only to find myself laying in my bed/couch all day staring blankly at the television or ceiling with no emotion.

Tuesday: Woke up, hated having to be up so early going to work, hated being at work, hated Tressel for lying to us and was glad he was gone, hated a guy at work for wearing a sweater vest and had his lunch farted on (rumor has it someone with an angry face and a work ID with the name “Bryan Fraker” on it performed the act…it’s all hearsay and conjecture) and I ended up going to bed so angry that today I pooped not just a diamond, but a diamond in the shape of a middle finger.

Wednesday: I ate so many burgers, chips and booze that I waddled around just like Fat Albert after a keg of beer and his 4th dinner buffet of the night.

Anyway as I woke up today I finally realized what I had with Tressel: it was a romantic relationship.  The events Tressel led us through as fans are exactly like moments in the life of a romance.  Allow me to take you through the 10 years of excitement in my Jim Tressel theory for sports:

This starts, just like everything else…in the beginning.  As with every relationship other than the first you have to get over your ex.  If it’s a tumultuous relationship with your ex then you look for something different in your new mate.  If she was crazy you want something sane.  If she was too much of a jealous type you’re looking for someone more laid back.  If she had a great rack you yearn for…another great rack (ok, bad example.)  Point is you want something new and fresh.

John Cooper was the head coach at Ohio State before Tressel.  Cooper was a level-headed guy and did a decent job coaching, but there were three flaws that led to his downfall:

1. He came from coaching at Arizona State and had no connections to Ohio whatsoever.
2. He was awful in bowl games (3-8).
3. He couldn’t beat I’msupidandmakeoutwithmyfamilymembers…oh, sorry.  I’m not president yet.  He couldn’t beat Michigan (2-10-1).

And who did Ohio State hire?  Jim Tressel.  He had the look of someone you respect (OSU was unraveling under Cooper), coached at an Ohio college in Youngstown St. and was used to winning the big games with four national titles at Youngstown St.  Perfect on paper, but just as romance you have to get to know someone before you’re boyfriend/girlfriend and all starts with the first date.

Tressel’s first season (before the Michigan game) in 2001 was exactly like a successful first date.  On a first date I like to look for great conversation (Tressel’s “310 in Ann Arbor” quote) and a nice, organic end of the night kiss to let me know there will be more stuff to come (6 wins and being bowl eligible).  The first date went great and eventually there’s a chance of the rarest form of emotion…love.

Everyone knows the moment they first fall in love with someone.  Whether it be staring deep in someone’s eyes and knowing it, your partner coming to your place to take care of you when you’re sick or she shows up naked with a pizza and a case of beer (YES!  YES!  YES!) everyone has a moment.  This moment of endearing love was upsetting Michigan in 2001.  As soon as that final gun sounded of the 26-20 win…I was in love with Tressel.  Now things are getting serious with me praying “PLEASE DON’T HURT ME, JIM!  I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!”  And he didn’t disappoint

The journey from loving someone to getting married has to be a crazy road.  I don’t really know how that feels (the closest thing I’ve been to marriage is with my penis…and we can’t get married because same sex marriage doesn’t fly in Ohio), but I imagine it’s like a roller coaster going up the first hill: you keep getting closer and closer and it gets scarier and scarier until eventually you take the plunge.  The 2002 OSU football season was the ride to me being Ms. Bryan Tressel…um…

I pictured the whole thing of me and Jim during the regular season.  I saw us moving-in to an apartment together (win at Purdue…I needed a change of pants after the 4th-and-1 TD to Jenkins…messed both front AND back of the pants), getting a dog (double OT win at Illinois…I needed a change of my pants AND the person sitting next to me…it all came out) and getting engaged (14-9 victory over Michigan to send us to the BCS Championship…my family needed to change houses I was so happy).  After the engagement…marriage.

The 2003 BCS National Championship was exactly like marriage.  It was step by step.  Your friends and family are there to watch this big moment (pre-game); the organist starts playing music beginning the wedding (kick-off); everyone walks down the aisle and gets in position (first quarter);  the bride walks down the aisle and meets the groom as the minister starts his speech (second quarter); people zone out wondering how crazy the reception is going to get and people in the congregation scan the bridal party for people they want to “have sex with”…I mean…(halftime); the groom says his vows (third quarter); the bride says her vows (fourth quarter); the minister asks if anyone disapproves of the marriage (first overtime); “Allow me to introduce to everyone, for the first time ever…” (second overtime)…everyone’s on pins and needles and finally it’s said:

MR. AND MRS. JIM TRESSEL!!!  WE WON!!!  WE BEAT MIAMI!!!  AND JIM GAVE ME A GIANT CRYSTAL FOOTBALL TO FOREVER SHOW PEOPLE AS THE SYMBOL FOR WHY I LOVE THIS MAN!!!  I NEVER WANT HIM TO LEAVE!!!  AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now normally the honeymoon is fun, but this particular honeymoon was like getting an infection from the hot tub you and your wife, um “did it hardcore”…wow…anyway it was like that with Maurice Clarett.  The problem was all Clarett, neither of us wanted this stuff and eventually the situation worked itself out as he was suspended for the year, helped rob someone and then was arrested by police as he was driving near the house of a witness against him in that trial with Grey Goose and assault rifles…or how any normal honeymoon goes.  No fuss, no muss.  All is good now.

I’ve been told through romantic comedies and stand-up comedians that the first year of marriage is the best because of lots and lots of consummation of the marriage.  It’s not the greatest moment in the relationship as the marriage, but it’s still really awesome…just like the 2003 season.  P into V; P into M; T into V; but P no go in A (now that’s using the alphabet wisely!)  All those letters add up to get coitus and a 2003 Fiesta Bowl championship.

Have you ever heard of the sophomore slump?  It’s a thing in sports where a rookie has a great season, but in the sophomore year people figure out how to defend the rookie and he has a bad year.  It happens in marriage (rising costs of living, more fights than ever before, sex only once by accident) and in 2004 with Tressel (injuries, .500 in the Big Ten, sex only once by accident…oops…wrong analogy).  The slump culminated with Troy Smith accepting $500 from a booster.  Smith was swiftly banned from the bowl game and the first game of 2005.  The Smith Fiasco would be like if your wife got a love letter and roses from someone at her work, but she ripped him a new one and slapped a sexual harassment lawsuit on his ass…actually he might like that…she politely laid it on him…still too sexual…her lawyer took a stapler and stuck it on his forehead…there it is.

After the slump comes a year of good times.  2005 would be like falling in love with your wife all over again…the slump was erased and we’re back to good times.

Have you ever gotten the second best of something?  Like you won a silver medal in a nationwide writing contest?  Or runner-up in a raffle of some sort?  Or second place in the sex Olympics (oh, wait…I got second-to-last…the last place guy was a bag full of broken glass and Tabasco sauce)?  Getting your second desire is great…but it’s just not first.  That’s what the 2006 and 2007 BCS Championship game losses were.  In marriage it would be like getting the second best job and second best house…it’s fantastic, but it’s still not what you set your sights on.  Granted both BCS games were atrocious on Ohio State’s part, but we still did something that 117 other Division I college football teams didn’t do…make it to the championship.

So here we are…it’s about five years into my marriage with Tressel.  I still love that man with all my sports love.  Everything is going great…until IT happens.

Have you ever gotten something you truly wanted, and you think it’s the best possible thing out there…but in the end the thing you wanted is the worst thing in the world and forever changes you?  Examples would be sex with a dirty hooker, sex with a dirty hooker and…sex with a dirty hooker!  (Sorry…I figured that would make sense to those people at the time and then a week later…boom…herpes).  Terrelle Pryor is that thing.  He was the number one high school prospect in the nation.  Ohio State needed a quarterback.  Everyone wanted him…and we got him…and things were never the same.

Pryor would be like a cool, handsome, single neighbor that moves into the house next to your family.  It’s really great when it first happens, but then he sees your wife…and things were never the same.

The potential of TP would always be there, but he never achieved it.  All of us wanted it so bad.  Every year it would be “If only TP could take the next step”, “If only Pryor could be more consistent”, “If Pryor could learn to be a passer”…IF, IF, IF!  If never became when.  The same thing applies to the neighbor.  “If only he would come over to watch the game”, “If only he would go out to the bars with me”, “If only he could bring a hot chick back to his place so I could peep on her”…IF, IF, ILLEGAL!

After another year you start to hear what could be seen as troubles for the relationship, but you don’t think anything of it.  For Pryor it was the stories from other students about his douchebaggery at parties by thinking he’s God’s gift to the university and he deserves anything and everything he wants.  For my marriage analogy it would be you finding a new pair of boxers in your laundry that you’ve never seen before, but your wife says that she bought them for you even though they aren’t your size and are a color and style you don’t wear.

Lies tend to be part of the Snowball Effect: they start small, but soon they get bigger and bigger.  For Tressel he decided not to forward the emails to the compliance office like he should and even told the NCAA that he didn’t know of any wrong doings for his football team more than once.  For your wife it would be her explaining that the only reason she had her shirt inside out coming back from the neighbor’s house was because she accidentally fell in his pool and she had to throw her clothes in the dryer and in her haste to get back to her loving husband she didn’t check which side was right.  Lies work…until the truth comes.

In a matter of months it was proven to the world that Tressel covered up Tattoogate in order to have his would-be ineligible players still be able to play (you could spin it as he was looking out for his kids…most Ohio State fans believe this…but it’s just not true).  In the marriage analogy the proof was found when you were reviewing the security footage to see what happened in Poolgate and found your wife and the neighbor bumping uglies next to his pool shed, including things she never does for you (let’s just say the letters P and A are involved).  The truth came out, but it’s not easy just to let go.

With any deep relationship the victims tend to stand by their partner through the turmoil because it’s so hard to stop.  After his news conference on March 8 I wrote a blog post vehemently defending Tressel and standing by him.  (Side note: it was also Mardi Gras that night so I had a few beers in me and that only strenghtened your belief in both Jim Tressel and seeing boobies).  The Tressel defense is just like showing the footage to your wife of her and the neighbor…but it was Mardi Gras, you’ve had a few beers and you have a strong belief in seeing some boobies, so you stand by her.  This is great and all, but that can’t stop the inevitable.

May 30: Tressel resigned.  Not only did he resign, but it came to light that he lied about a star quarterback at Youngstown State getting improper benefits, too.  (I’m sure the story was there when we first hired Tressel, but I don’t remember it).

Hypothetical Date In The Future: You divorce your wife. Not only did you divorce her, but turns out it wasn’t an infection from the hot tub at your honeymoon…she went to town on the snorkeling instructor, three bell hops, two line cooks and even the minister himself.

After the breaking up occurs in both scenarios it will be hard to get back in the saddle again, but eventually you will heal from the wounds caused by the cheating and hopefully everything will turn out for the best in the end.

Jim Tressel gave The Ohio State University 10 great years of service.  He was an outstanding human being to both his players and the community.  I loved being a student and a fan for the games under his tenure.  I will always be grateful for what Tressel gave us…but I’m moving on.  He’s no longer the coach and when we hire another full-time coach I will be behind that guy 100%.  Let’s hope he can give us another 10 years like Tressel did.

Tressel’s legacy in Ohio will be fine in a few years.  He will have the same love in Columbus as Woody Hayes.  Both guys were unceremoniously relieved of their jobs, but each left an undeniable positive influence on the campus during their tenures.  We as Buckeyes are truly lucky to have had Jim Tressel as a head coach for 10 years. 

He will be missed.