Gordon Gee Ohio State and West Virginia combo photo

Gordon Gee as the president of Ohio State during the news conference in March of 2011 to announce Jim Tressel's NCAA violations and as the current president of West Virginia.

(Associated Press, both photos)

COLUMBUS, Ohio --

Gordon Gee

Then: Gee's involvement with Ohio State's NCAA issues always will be remembered with eight words: "I'm just hopeful the coach doesn't dismiss me."

Gee was just back from a trip to China and in the fifth year of his second go-round as Ohio State's president when he appeared at a March 2011 news conference with Jim Tressel and athletic director Gene Smith to announce Tressel's NCAA violations. A joke gone bad became one of the sound bites from a night that didn't go well for Ohio State.

It wasn't until nearly three months later that Tressel was forced to resign, and Gee was at the heart of the administrative decision to support Tressel for weeks and then to decide a change was needed. A week after Tressel's resignation, Gee also admitted that the buildup of media coverage helped contribute to Tressel's departure.

Now: Gee is the president of West Virginia University after announcing his retirement from Ohio State exactly a year ago Wednesday. Known for one-liners that got him in hot water, not just the Tressel crack, Gee decided to leave Ohio State after two separate terms lasting a total of 14 years, the end hastened when it was reported he had made what some considered an offensive joke about Catholics during an OSU meeting. Words were always Gee's great gift in his relatability and enthusiasm, but they also were his undoing. The Ohio State-NCAA issues didn't directly relate to his retirement, but the Tressel joke was part of what became a growing list of verbal missteps, one that finally was too long to ignore.

Gee wound up back at the school where he first became president at age 36 in 1981.

He was consulted by the presidential search committees at Akron and Youngstown State about Tressel and believes Youngstown State's choice of Tressel, and Tressel's decision to take over as president there, is an ideal fit. In fact, Tressel used Gee's return to West Virginia as something of a guide for his return to YSU.

The second interview in a multipart series giving voice to those involved with the Ohio State tattoo scandal three years ago, with characters asked to both look back and examine where they are now.

"I remember talking to Gordon when I was considering this move to Youngstown State, and he shared with me that his time back at West Virginia has been so rewarding and it's been perhaps one of the highlights of his life," Tressel said. "And he felt certain that I would feel the same way after being back at Youngstown for a while."

The interview: Yet Gee, 70, remains part of Ohio State. He conducted this phone interview on May 21 from the office he maintains at Ohio State as president emeritus. He continues to work with higher education issues in Ohio. And it became clear during the conversation that after leading five universities as president or chancellor – West Virginia, Colorado, Ohio State, Brown and Vanderbilt – Gee still very much feels connected to Ohio State.

Gee also took immediately to the premise of this story, as he seemed eager to discuss how things turned out three years later, with the result better than he maybe thought it would be.

His words: "I think everyone won," Gee said. "The university is doing very well. I believe we have the best football coach in the country in Urban Meyer. I had the privilege of hiring him, as you know, and I think he is doing fabulous work.

"I think Jim went through the refiner's fire and came out the other end not only intact but I think gracefully and he managed a very difficult situation. And I think he is going to be doing what he really wants to do, which is to lead and lead in a different way from leading a football team.

"As for me, I obviously had 14 great years at Ohio State. I left, as you well know, right ahead of the sheriff as I always say, because I'm the well-known one-liner, and for that I have always been known and often apologetic. But I had a great time here, and now I am doing something that I genuinely appreciate, which is an opportunity to pay back the people who gave me a great chance at an early age.

"So this particular story is a much different one from many that could have been written. I think The Ohio State is a winner, I think Jim Tressel is a winner, I think I feel very confident in what I'm doing, so from every perspective it's one of those unusual stories."

Gordon Gee, left, with Jim Tressel, center, and Gene Smith at the March 8, 2011, news conference about Tressel's NCAA violations.

• Gee's intrigue with the endgame clearly results in part from his belief that it didn't have to turn out this way. Three years ago, he had concerns.

"I thought the damage may have been permanent in many different ways," Gee said.

"I think ultimately, we handled it well. I think we got off to a rocky start. I give myself great discredit because I don't think I really took it as seriously as I probably should have done. As you know, I made my infamous crack about Jim firing me just to lighten up the mood, but everyone was hopping on everything.

"I think for the first time in my life I really realized the power of the Internet and the power of Facebook and Twitter and the power of blogging. It's almost overwhelming, and we were in the middle of a tsunami. And we did recover because we did the right thing and I think Jim did the right thing, I think we all did the right thing. It was painful.

"As to whether the university would recover and whether any of us individually would recover, I think the jury was still out. So I think that's the remarkable nature of this story."

• Gee was the most reflective interview in this series in many ways, which included his explanation of what he learned. But he didn't feel that he needed to redeem himself or make up for anything he did at Ohio State.

"It's behind me. I don't think there's anything for me to redeem at Ohio State. I gave it my best," Gee said, adding, "redemption comes from other people, not yourself."

But he did learn.

Gordon Gee before he retired as Ohio State's president a year ago.

"At least for me, I believe that one learns from one's mistakes. And I made significant mistakes, and I learned from them. So I think for that I am better. I think I also learned that there is a lot of forgiveness, even though a lot of people are unforgiving. I've learned there is a lot of forgiveness, and the university has been forgiven by its alumni, Jim has been forgiven in the best sense of the word, and so have I. That's the story of the human condition that often doesn't get told, because we often see people pilloried.

"I joke that being a university president is akin to being a piñata. But there are also notions of redemption. And certainly in Jim's instance, redemption is exactly the right word."

• In the moment in 2011, Gee felt himself caught in that tsunami he mentioned, to the detriment of the rest of the university. Expressing these feelings now gives another layer of insight to the decision to force Tressel's departure.

"I mean, those were dark days," Gee said. "As a university president, for a long period of time, I always felt I spent relatively minute amounts of time on athletics.

"You have great athletic directors, you let them run it, you keep yourself informed, but I'm not the athletic director, I'm the president of the university. But all of a sudden this whole thing overwhelmed us to the point that I was spending immense amounts of time on athletics. And so that meant other aspects of the institution I was just not able to pay attention to and it was very draining.

"In a moment of true confession, I was joking with our athletic director at West Virginia, because he's had some detractors. And I said, well, wait until you have the Washington Post, the New York Times, ESPN, Mike and Mike and Rick Reilly all saying terrible things about you on the same day. Then you know that you've got a problem. And that was me.

"Ohio State is one of those institutions that everyone around the country loves to hate. So whenever we stumble, we stumble on the front pages and the back pages."

Coming Wednesday: A former NCAA investigator from the OSU case