By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
It was like homecoming for U.S. Senate candidate Tim Ryan Wednesday outside the BGSU football stadium Wednesday evening.
Ryan, a Democratic congressman from Warren, Ohio, greeted his former political science professor Marc Simon with a hug. He talked with BGSU students about their careers. And he signed a worn football for Jerry Wicks.
After tailgating near his “Put Ohio Workers First” bus, the former BGSU football player was headed to watch the Falcons play Central Michigan.
A lot has changed in Bowling Green since Ryan graduated with a degree in political science in 1995. Back then there were no robots delivering food, no Starbucks on campus, no virtual classes.
But much of the city and campus are the same.
“Bowling Green has a special place in my heart,” said Ryan, who was in a campus fraternity. “I still have a text group with 10 to 15 Bowling Green guys I stay in touch with.”
On Wednesday, Ryan was trying to leave an impression on potential voters outside the football stadium.
“I know Northwest Ohio,” he said.
Ryan supports unions, investing in affordable health care, protecting natural resources, strengthening national security, creating opportunities for rural Ohio, modernizing the immigration system, protecting reproductive freedom, ending racial disparity and standing with LGBTQ+ populations.
His Republican opponent, J.D. Vance, has not made a public campaign visit to Bowling Green.
Ryan wants voters to remember he’s not a rubber stamp for the Democratic party. He ran against Nancy Pelosi for the Speaker of the House position. He opposed President Barack Obama’s trade policies, and supported President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Republican congress member Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, announced earlier on Wednesday that she supports Ryan over Vance for the open U.S. Senate seat for Ohio.
“That’s cool,” Ryan said. Though he disagrees with many of Cheney’s policies, he admires her strength. “She’s an American hero. We agree that democracy is important, that America is important.”
Ryan has been traveling across Ohio by bus with his wife, Andrea, and their youngest of three children, Brady, age 8. While his dad talked with media, supporters and students, Brady took the opportunity to toss around a football.
“We live, eat and breathe on the bus – and do homework,” Andrea Ryan added. Along the campaign trail, supporters often supply baked goods. On Wednesday, it was a loaf of chocolate chip zucchini bread, she said, giving it rave reviews.
There were several familiar faces in the crowd for Ryan – among them Dr. Marc Simon, his political science professor. Simon remembered Ryan in his classroom – and didn’t necessarily predict a political career for the young student.
“I didn’t see a future congressman. I didn’t see a future senator,” Simon said. But that changed when Simon heard Ryan’s stump speech as he ran for Ohio’s statehouse in the early 2000s.
“It’s been fun to follow his career,” Simon said.
Along the way, Ryan has helped several BGSU political science students get internships or with research projects.
“I’m not going to hit him up for internships right now,” Simon said with a grin.
But Ryan did offer advice to the political science students who surrounded him outside the football game. “Get experience. Follow your own path,” he wrapped up with to the fresh faces. As he walked away, one student said, “wasn’t that cool.”
Ryan, who donned a BGSU Falcon sweatshirt after he exited his bus, also took time to autograph a football that had seen its share of action.
“This is my football from childhood,” said Jerry Wicks, of Bowling Green, who cradled the freshly signed 70-plus-year-old ball.
