Akron, Canton, Warren, Ohio State, UCLA. Football Coach Joe Tresey: 'I've been everwhere'

CANTON TWP. − Shields up, dude. Joe Tresey is firing opinions.

On COVID-19: "It put us back 10 years as a society."

On football player measureables: "Some kids who look good working out couldn't play dead in a western."

On a Canton football giant: "I was working at McKinley when the Marion Motley statue was being planned. I always thought Jim Brown was the man. Then Antonio Hall and I watched film on Marion Motley. That dude was every bit as good as Jim Brown."

A coaching life can go all over creation. Tresey could write the book.

He stood before the Hall of Fame Luncheon Club Monday with tales of an unusual winding road.

One stop was head coach at New Philadelphia when the Quakers were in the Federal League. He talks as if he faced GlenOak's Bob Commings, Lake's Jeff Durbin and Perry's Keith Wakefield last Friday.

His Mount Rushmore of coaches has but one face, Woody Hayes. Tresey was a mid-1970s student at Ohio State who wasn't good enough to play for Hayes.

He grew up in Warren with a sense Canton/Massillon was the center of the football universe. In a haunting moment early in his career, Tresey coached the Fredericktown Freddies to the 1989 OHSAA Division IV state semifinals, where they lost to his alma mater, Warren JFK, 15-6.

Don Hertler Jr. was a young head coach at Garaway High School when he reached out to Tresey about studying Freddies football.

Tresey got the bug to try college football. He got his fill.

There was a stop at Akron.

"Lee Owens was head coach. I was defensive coordinator," he said. "Lee was great. He did not get along with the AD. Neither one budged. The AD usually wins those."

Owens, along with Tresey and most of the staff, were fired after going 7-5 in 2003, which doesn't look bad now — the Zips are 7-47 since 2019.

Tresey journeyed on and opted out. In 2015, he became athletic director at Clear Fork High School, telling Jon Spencer of the Mansfield News Journal:

"It will take a million dollars to get me to do that (return to college coaching) again."

It took less than that. He spent one year on coaching staffs at Kent State (2017), Akron (2018) and Norfolk State (2019).

He was past 60 but thirsty to coach when he joined Hall at McKinley High School in 2021. In 2023, Walsh University head coach John Fankhauser brought him in as an assistant.

McKinley and Walsh both being in Stark County, Tresey didn't have to approach his wife, Melinda, about another relocation.

"We've been married 37 years and made 17 moves," he said. "She wanted me to follow my dream."

Dream job?

In college, Tresey was a defensive coordinator at UCLA, South Florida, Cincinnati, Georgia Southern, Youngstown State, Central Michigan, Akron, Ashland and Otterbein; he was on staffs at VMI and Otterbein.

He was a high school head coach at Mechanicsburg, Fredericktown, New Philadelphia and Middletown.

His name came up as a possible head coach in Massillon before Nate Moore took that job in 2015.

Moving nonstop never was part of the plan.

He landed the coordiantor job at UCLA in 2011.

"Rick Neuheisel was at the end of a contract," he said. "Not good."

A defensive coordinator job at Youngstown State, near his boyhood home, seemed a great job to land on his feet in 2012.

In his first game, the Penquins stunned Pitt at Heinz Field. In his second year, the team was 8-1 at one point before losing its last three games.

"We went 7-4 and 8-4," he said. "We weren't in the playoffs. I guess I was the scapegoat."

What college football is becoming bothers him.

"TV money is ruining it," he said.

He ranted about Texas A&M giving fired head coach a $75 million buyout.

"Would I have taken it? Yes. But ..."

Tresey's talk was full of fire, spiced with mentions of locals (some in the crowd), famous people, and pupils who made it to the NFL.

He spoke of a walk with Bo Schembechler, a run with Brian Kelly, and a long-ago New Philadelphia win over Dover.

"Some things are treasures for the rest of your life," he said.

Reach Steve at steve.doerschuki@cantonrep.com

This article originally appeared on The Repository: College football coach Joe Tresey entertains luncheon club in Canton