Jim Tressel had sympathetic words for Scott Scarborough, his one-time rival for president of the University of Akron who left the job last week.
“The University of Akron is going to be fine. It was founded in 1870. It’s been through good times and tough times,” said Tressel. The former Ohio State head football coach was hired in 2014 as president of Youngstown State University after working as executive vice president of student success in Akron. Tressel coached football at the Youngstown university early in his career.
Tressel spoke Monday just prior to attending a forum with other Ohio university and college presidents at the Northeast Ohio Medical University in Rootstown.
Tressel said being a university president is tough work and that he had not talked with Scarborough in a couple of months.
When they did talk, it was typically on more global issues, not anything specific to their respective institutions, he said.
Tressel was a finalist for the top Akron position in 2014. The day after the University of Akron hired Scarborough, Tressel was offered the Youngstown job.
“These are challenging times in higher ed. There’s no question about it,” Tressel said. “It’s a challenge to be a chief administrator in higher education right now and I am sure the University of Akron will find a good one.”
Tressel said he does not believe in looking back at previous jobs or professions.
“Whenever you are somewhere, my belief is you are fully there and your eyes aren’t back where you came from,” he said. “I wasn’t peeking back to see what was going on at the University of Akron. I was fully immersed at Youngstown State.”
University of Akron trustees last week unanimously approved a mutual agreement with Scarborough that ended his tumultuous nearly two-year presidency at the university. Scarborough is staying as a professor at UA, teaching three business courses.
“You could see in the last year or so it was tough,” Tressel said. “There were difficult things and you never know the ebb and flow of what happens, things that you effected maybe or things that you haven’t.
“You could see it was a difficult situation,” Tressel said. “And in difficult situations sometimes difficult decisions have to be made, both personally and from the institutional standpoint. And obviously they came to the conclusion for everyone involved to move in different directions. And that’s what they’re going to do.”
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/JimMackinnonABJ