There were two impressions that I left with following Monday's press conference discussing the resignation of Youngstown State football coach Jon Heacock and the future of the program.

The first is that former coach Jim Tressel, now leading the Ohio State Buckeyes, will have serious input on the hiring process.

Tressel may have had a greater impact on Youngstown State University than any coach in the school's history, so it makes sense that executive director of athletics Ron Strollo, who played for Tressel and Heacock during the early 1990s, would seek his advice. And as he said Monday, he certainly will do just that.

''I had a discussion with coach Tressel (Sunday) after I found out that Jon ultimately was going to make this decision,'' Strollo said. ''I asked him 'Can I bounce things off you for advice' because he knows that role as well as anyone. I trust coach that he's going to make a decision on this issue that's the best for our campus.''

It's a great idea to consult with Tressel, who has and continues to donate millions of dollars to the university. He's an icon in the community, not to mention one of the better coaches in the country. Yet there seems to be a very heavy reliance on Tressel's beliefs, and a slight lack of ingenuity by YSU.

I have the utmost respect for Strollo, and in no way am I questioning his intelligence. That said, he's the head of a rather prominent athletic department, and he needs to be the one doing the brainstorming and making the key decisions during this process. I understand Strollo said that he's simply bouncing ideas off of Tressel, but the fact that he called Tressel immediately after finding out Heacock resigned makes me believe that Tressel is going to have more of an influence than Strollo is letting people believe.

Tressel was the person who hand-picked Heacock to be his successor, and while Heacock did a decent job as coach, the fact of the matter is he resigned because he could not reach the expectations at YSU. So why go back to that person for the next hire? Tressel is a fine coach and a good person, but he's not an athletic director, nor does he claim to be.

Strollo said it himself that this is the most important hire of his tenure. Furthermore, his job may very well be on the line - not Tressel's. He should use Tressel's advice, but he needs to think for himself and go with his gut when he makes this hire.

The second feeling I took away from the press conference centers around the qualities Youngstown State is looking for in its next coach.

Strollo was asked about the declining ticket sales at Stambaugh Stadium, which have went down concurrently over the last few years, and how stimulating those sales will play a role in the hiring.

''The first priority isn't to put butts in seats, to be quite honest with you,'' Strollo said. ''We have 105 to 110 student athletes here. That's the most important thing is what type of experience are those student-athletes going to have here and when they leave here, what type of people are they and how are they going to serve our community, our state and our country.''

There are several coaching tactics of Heacock that could be questioned, but one of those areas certainly is not the type of people he groomed during his tenure. Heacock, a very caring person who is strong in his religious convictions, has an uncanny ability to help troubled players get on the right track. He would much rather mold the next president than the next Heisman Trophy winner. Strollo agreed and spoke about that attitude on Monday.

''Jon brought such a great quality,'' Strollo said. ''It's hard for me to even begin to describe how he's touched the student-athletes that have gone through here. The general public doesn't always see that. We on the staff see how he handles things. That's a priority (for the next coach) there.''

OK, so if Heacock was outstanding at shaping players into great people, and that characteristic, Strollo said, is the chief priority of hiring a coach, then why was Heacock on the verge of being fired if he didn't resign? The cold truth is that coaches are hired to win, not to make better people out of their players. It's sad, but that's the nature of the business. I know that, Heacock knows that and Strollo knows that, but Strollo wouldn't say it. He instead contradicted himself and said what he thought people wanted to hear.

If he was disappointed in the Penguins only advancing to the playoffs once in Heacock's nine-year tenure, then he should have said so.

jsimon@tribtoday.com