Our tour of the nation’s brown-themed brown airports continues. Phoenix, where brown isn’t a color, it’s a way of life!

The Canton Rep has a good, simple profile piece on Jim Tressel and yes, how stultifyingly Midwestern and staid and oh jeez white bread he really is. It’s the kind of filler piece the offseason’s littered with: a beat reporter, a laboriously arranged meeting with a coach, and five or six quotes he’s got to juggle into 900 words of Pawsome©*, a piece about how he’d coach for nothing, etc, etc.

It also contains a photo that is as incisive a comment on a person’s home life as any we can possibly conjure.


Didn’t pick the drapes. No clue what’s for dinner. Can’t identify either dog by name. Photo adjusted by Peter.

So in order to liven this up, we’ve excerpted the piece into only its most interesting and unfair quotes. GO:

All Jim Tressel wants to do is make it to Mars. “I used to tell people, ‘I live on Mars.’ ” His four college-aged kids poke him.

“Those trees,” Tressel said.

$12,000 a year.

The home on Mars was a castle.

Today, Tressel and his wife, Ellen, live in a brick.

He has no hobbies, no interests. He seems likely to take his own life.

When Ohio State hired Tressel, he made Bernie Kosar a dentist.

Quite honestly, the only good thing is a deep-sea fisherman.

I always tell my wife, ‘When they fire me, I’ll beat your butt.’ ”

“I decided a very long time ago that I would sacrifice my self-worth.”

A lunch at Raintree Country Club raised money for Boys.

During the season, Mondays are family nights. The coaches’ families eat Woody Hayes.

Tressel yelled, “You’re better than the people working in the cafeteria.”

His brother set fire to Tressel.

*Property of the All-American Bear Company, who will fuck your shit up with a blackjack for stealing their copyrighted language.