P.M. Ohio State links: Chillax, coach; you know stress is part of the job

Stress takes its toll on coaches, as the heart attack suffered by Michigan State's Mark Dantonio shows.

We all have some degree of stress in our lives. Trying to decide whether to spend what's left of this month's paycheck to fix the truck muffler, which sounds like Travis Barker (this generation's Buddy Rich or NeilPeart, for those over the age of 25) doing bass drum rolls or set it aside for that vacation to Belize. That sort of thing.

We would have a hard time, though, with the stress in the life of a football coach. John Kampf of the News-Herald talked to Ohio State coach Jim Tressel in the wake of a heart attack suffered this past weekend by Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio about that stress.

Dantonio, a former assistant under Tressel, is recuperating from surgery to insert a stent in one of the blocked arteries in his heart. He had the attack after calling for a fake field goal Saturday night that led to a 34-31 overtime win over Notre Dame.

Football coaches on all levels — high school, college and professional — spend an exorbitant number of hours working on their trade. College coaches such as Tressel and Dantonio, as well as professional coaches, spend their day solely on football. The days begin as early as, if not earlier than, 6 a.m. and can go into the wee hours of the morning.

Tressel shrugged and joked to "eliminate the media" when asked for a solution to free up a coach's time. But when asked to give an idea of a good, healthy balance of life, Tressel said he has "the worst balance of life in America" and he would not be a good person to ask.

... There's not much a college coach can do to alleviate stress. The drive to win in a line of work that punishes those who don't win and the common workaholic mentality can build up in the form of stress, anxiety and — in some cases — health problems.

"We have a saying with our players that nothing good happens past 10 (p.m.)," Tressel said, "and that's fairly well-documented. We have a saying with our coaches that any idea after 10 won't work, and that's pretty well-documented."

Hmmm. That would explain why that whole duct-tape muffler on the truck idea didn't quite work out as expected.

Good story, better player
The return of safety Tyler Moeller has all the makings of a TV movie of the week. He was punched in a bar, fell, hit his head on the floor, suffered a brain injury, had surgery, spent a year away from football ... and has come back with a vengeance not seen since Rufus the Bobcat tackled Brutus the Buckeye.

Ken Gordon of the Columbus Dispatch tells the story this way:

"Every time I see (Moeller) out there, you know, I smile," coach Jim Tressel said, "because a year ago at this time, he was a miserable guy."

But it's also far more than that.

It's an attitude story, in the sense that the senior safety has infused the Buckeyes with his contagious energy.

"He's my favorite player on the defense," defensive end Nathan Williams said. "Just watching him motivates me to hustle around to the ball."

Wonder if that hustle bug extends to Brutus, and if that's why Tressel has upgraded the mascot to "probable" for Saturday's game against 42-point underdog Eastern Michigan.

Just obliterate, baby
Eastern Michigan, in case you're keeping score, is riding a 15-game losing streak. The the school has 850,000 rea$on$ to make the trip to Columbus for the beating that's expected. So what's Ohio State's motivation?

“We didn’t know when we were scheduling this game that it was going to be these numbers, but, in some ways it’s a good challenge. If you’re going to be affected by that in game four, then how might you be affected by something else much further down the line?”

Tressel said he will stick with the mantra that each practice and each game is about Ohio State maximizing its potential, and not about the comparative matchup with the next opponent.

“In some ways, the mental exercise of seeing if you can really convince yourself, that you really believe that what we do is what’s most important, and us getting better is what’s most important,” Tressel said. “The opponent doesn’t really matter. This isn’t about them, this is about us, which is the truth, and that’s the way everything should be.”

This apparently is the football equivalent of a high school breakup: It's not you, it's me.

From The Plain Dealer
Ohio State beat writer Doug Lesmerises says the Buckeyes aren't exactly fearful of the Eagles' love affair with the blitz. Terrelle Pryor's legs and elusiveness will make it a moot point, according to Pryor's Buckeye teammates.

Lesmerises' Ohio State Insider says special teams, really the only weak link to surface this far in the young season, will be missing defensive back Travis Howard and linebacker Dorian Bell.