YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Jim Tressel greeted the waitstaff one afternoon earlier this week at an 89-year-old Italian restaurant with wood-panel walls. He sat in a booth and crossed his legs. He still had his familiar correct, salt-and-pepper haircut and the same glasses, worn crookedly. He wore a blazer, a tie, a blue sweater — was it a sweater? He flared open one side of his blazer to reveal that, yes, it was a sweater vest he had on under there.
During the decade Tressel was Ohio State’s football coach, the sweater vest — always Buckeyes scarlet — was as closely associated with him as the red cape was with Superman.