Ohio’s former national champion college football coach turned lieutenant governor has been rushing through the state this week.
Jim Tressel has been huddling with middle school students about his fitness challenge which starts Sept. 8, and handing off some of the action to some former Ohio State players to cheer the kids along.
Students sat on bleachers in the Johnson Park Middle School gym in east Columbus, clapping at demonstrations of jumping jacks and push ups, laughing at dancing and counting down time during planks and a yoga posture called tree pose. Finally they exploded in cheers at the end of a game that is aimed at improving their focus.
Some of their classmates had volunteered to do those activities alongside Ted Ginn Jr., Roy Hall and Antonio Pittman, all of whom played for Tressel at Ohio State before their careers in the NFL.
All of these exercises are elements of the Team Tressel Fitness Challenge for students, which includes individual goal setting with cardio, nutrition and sleep.
“We have to do something a little different. We want to meet people where they are. We want to help them improve their fitness level, improve their nutritional outlook, do a better job with their sleep," Tressel said.
Tressel visited eight middle schools this week, and will wrap up the tour with a visit to a school in Northwood near Toledo Monday. He said the voluntary initiative was designed for students in fourth through eighth grades on purpose.
“We went and got with a lot of educators, and they said a good target would be fourth through eighth grade because the younger ones are a little bit harder to corral. The older ones, it's not cool maybe. And so this might be the sweet spot," Tressel said.
Kids will go through bronze, silver and goal medal levels and use state-provided workbooks to track their progress. Tressel had talked about the idea even before he was sworn in as lieutenant governor in February.
"When you think about the health—physically, mentally, emotionally—when you feel better, when you're healthier, when you're more fit, everything's better," Tressel said then. "Maybe we can create an initiative that could be the beginnings of something that could help the health and fitness of our state for years to come."
This is a 90-day pilot program, with another starting in the winter and another next fall.
