Ohio State University football Coach Jim Tressel joins Ohio's history and preservation advocates at the Ohio Statehouse in recognition of Ohio's statehood and to promote the state's rich heritage.

The Statehood Day event is sponsored by the Ohio Historical Society and other statewide history organizations.

"We're excited that Jim Tressel will be the keynote speaker this year," says William K. Laidlaw Jr., executive director and CEO of the Ohio Historical Society. "Although most of us know him as winning head coach for The Ohio State Buckeyes, Jim also has inherited a love of history through his mother Eloise Tressel, the athletic historian for Baldwin-Wallace College and past president of the Ohio Association of Historical Society & Museums."