New Buckeye assistant coach Alex Grinch grew up in Grove City, Ohio, which is about a 20-minute drive from Ohio Stadium. He played football at Mt. Union, winning three Division III national titles in the process. He is Ohio through and through, and that never wavered throughout his coaching travels.
Before coming to Ohio State in January, Grinch spent time in New Hampshire, Wyoming, Missouri, and Washington, and was successful at each stop. When Urban Meyer spoke with reporters on signing day last month, he said that Grinch being from Ohio played a “huge part” in being offered the job.
Grinch obviously accepted, and he came on board nearly two months ago. He now has the title of co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach, but he has always carried with him the title of “Ohioan.”
“Ohio is home,” he said. “My wife is from Alliance, Ohio. We haven’t lived in the state since graduating college, so it’s been 16 or 17 years since we lived in the state. So we vacation in Ohio. As you go around the country and all of the stops along the way in coaching, but most certainly this is home. Is that the driving force in this opportunity? No. It’s the program, it’s the university, but obviously to suggest that’s not an added bonus, I’d be lying to you.”
Grinch grew up as a Buckeye fan and became very familiar with the program as it once again began playing at an elite level in the mid-to-late 1990s. And it wasn’t just him, it was the entire family.
“We were, as a family. My grandparents had season tickets,” he said. “I was born at Ohio State University hospital. My brother as well. This is what we knew growing up in terms of college football. Then you find out it’s not all like this. That was an eye opener as you kind of grow up. You kind of expect everything to be the Horseshoe and then you find out it’s not. It’s what we knew growing up.”
In his third year as the defensive coordinator at Washington State last season, Grinch was able to direct the nation’s No. 16 defense at a place where that just doesn’t happen. As such, he had several job offers to mull over. When it came to the offer from Urban Meyer, however, there wasn’t much to mull.
“You look at pluses and minuses, and certainly there’s a lot of pluses at a place like Ohio State,” he said. “I’ll say this, any time you devote your life to the profession and one of the elite programs and organizations with an elite coaching staff and elite leadership, you have a chance to take one of those phone calls, you have to really have your antennas up.
“If that’s an opportunity that you’re not going to look into, you better have some pretty good reasons, and I couldn’t find enough good reasons to look at some of those other opportunities. And it stemmed from the elite of the elite, in this building and on this campus, and on this coaching staff. It was an opportunity that I was thrilled to talk with Coach and coach Schiano and the rest of the coaching staff. I’m thrilled to be here.”
Despite growing up as a Buckeye fan and steering himself into the coaching profession, he never let himself get lost in the idea of maybe one day coaching for Ohio State.
The business doesn’t really lend itself to dreamers.
“I don’t think I was naïve enough to think or dream of that,” he said. “Once you get into this profession, number one you just want to get a job. And then once you get one, once you’re a GA, then you want to be a position coach. You want to run your own room and you want to get on the road recruiting. I was able to do that at the University of New Hampshire. Then it’s, ‘Well, what’s the next opportunity?’ And you want to make sure as best you can to kind of have that type of career arc. At some point you start thinking about being a coordinator.
“I think the dreams go away once you realize how hard this business is and how many guys are out there that are exceptional coaches that aren’t presented with opportunities. No, I think I probably crossed that off a long time ago, but certainly this has been home and I grew up more than aware of this place. We were certainly fans.”