Youngstown Resurrection Penguins More Than Just A Football Team To Ohio Region

Most of the ingredients that have been folded into Youngstown State’s recipe for football success mirror those of other tradition-rich universities.

By coach Jim Tressel’s own admission, his program has been blessed with “good players who are quality people and who enjoy the game.”

In addition, Tressel has been able to hire coaches who “work like crazy and care about the kids.” And he is backed, he says, by an administration that understands and appreciates the importance of athletics.

All of those factors have played huge roles in helping Tressel and his Penguins get to where they are today - just one win away from playing for another Division I-AA national championship.

YSU (11-2), which won national titles under Tressel in 1991, ‘93 and ‘94, plays Eastern Washington (12-1) in Saturday’s 12:30 p.m. semifinal playoff matchup at Albi Stadium. The winner will advance to next weekend’s championship game in Chattanooga, Tenn.

One factor that might have meant as much as any to the success of the Penguins program was the economic downturn of the mid-1970s that cost the Youngstown, Ohio, area more than 50,000 jobs.

Those bad times, Tressel explained, left the community looking for a beacon in the darkness. And Youngstown State and its football program quickly became the brightest light around.

Youngstown, a city of almost 100,000, is located in the far eastern reaches of Ohio, just 5 miles from the Pennsylvania border. Prior to the mid-70s, it was a tough, robust steel town that prided itself on its blue-collar image.

“But then, like most of the cities in the Rust Belt, the steel mills went down in the mid-70s,” explained Tressel, an eastern Ohio native, who is in his 12th year at YSU. “We lost 50,000 jobs, and it just devastated the area.

“People, in general, look for something positive to grab onto at times like that, and an institution of higher learning is always a plus. Then, when you put the excitement of intercollegiate athletics with it, you have a chance to be that rallying point.”

And the Youngstown populace has rallied to Penguins football in such a big way that the school built a new home for the team in 1982. Stambaugh Stadium was erected at a cost of $20 million and received a $4 million facelift last year in order to add 3,400 seats and increase its capacity to 20,364.

Since 1990, YSU has drawn an average of well over 14,000 fans per game. During 1997, the Penguins averaged a Gateway Conference-high of 15,048 and set a single-game attendance record when 20,519 showed up for an Oct. 11 matchup against Buffalo.

Along with an unprecedented championship run at the start of the decade, those loyal fans have been treated to winning football on a consistent basis. Tressel has built his team with players that epitomize the blue-collar, tough-guy types of an earlier Youngstown.

“Traditionally, that was the character of the town,” Tressel said. “But there aren’t many blue-collar towns left. Our town is a diverse one now - small businesses, high-tech companies - just like any other, so to call it blue-collar would be a misnomer.

“But we’re certainly proud of that heritage.”

Youngstown is located less than an hour’s drive from Cleveland, to the northwest, and Pittsburgh, to the southeast, giving Tressel easy access to hundreds of big-city high school prospects.

This year’s Penguins roster includes quarterback Demond Tidwell and running back Jake Andreadis, who both ventured cross-state from Cincinnati to play for Tressel.

Tidwell has completed 62.6 percent of his passes for 1,812 yards and eight touchdowns. Andreadis has carried 163 times for 966 yards and 11 TDs.

But the Penguins, like Eastern, live behind the play of their offensive and defensive fronts. And many of Tressel’s warriors who man the trenches - such as Harry Deligianis, a 305-pound first-team All-American defensive end, and Matt Hogg, a 315-pound first-team All-American offensive tackle - grew up less than an hour’s drive from the YSU campus.

“He recruits the Youngstown area like it was his own state,” Eastern Washington coach Mike Kramer said of Tressel. “He takes great pride in the fact that they are the unifying factor with all those steel mills being down.

“They are a hard-nosed, I mean savagely hard-nosed, football team.”

Kramer’s Eagles can only hope to someday understand that tradition and fan following.

More honors

Eastern Washington center Kevin Peterson was selected to The Sports Network Division I-AA All-America football team, joining four other Eagles on the squad. Those four were also honored the previous day by The Associated Press.

Peterson, a 6-foot-1, 260-pound senior from Port Orchard, Wash., was selected to the second team, while offensive lineman Jim Buzzard was selected to the first team. Also on the TSN team are defensive tackle Chris Scott and wide receiver Jeff Ogden on the second team and running back Rex Prescott on the third team.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: These 2 sidebars appeared with the story:

1. COMING UP Saturday: Youngstown State at EWU, Albi Stadium, 12:30 p.m. TV: Tape-delayed, 7 p.m., FSN.

2. LOOKING BACK Tressell’s record at YSU: Year W L T 1997 11 2 0 1996 8 3 0 1995 3 8 0 1994* 14 0 1 1993* 13 2 0 1992 11 3 1 1991* 12 3 0 1990 11 1 0 1989 9 4 0 1988 4 7 0 1987 8 4 0 1986 2 9 0 Totals 106 46 2 * Denotes national championship season