Ay-Ziggy-Zoomba.com

AUSTIN, Texas — Ohio State football coaching legend Woody Hayes famously figured that the school’s band was worth three points on the road and seven points at home.

But the Buckeye band, famous for its Script Ohio routine, complete with an "i"dotting sousaphone player, was nearly omitted from Ohio State’s travel plans for Saturday’s big game against Texas. The band received $225,000 from a benefactor and raised $25,000 more to pay its way to Austin.

Ohio State, the first university to top $100 million for its athletic budget, typically takes its band to only one or two road games a year, including every Michigan game. This year’s scheduled trip was to Michigan State. No money was earmarked to take the band to Austin.

Last year for the trip to Ohio State, Texas took more than 150 band members, a fraction of the band’s 400 members.

Typically, the entire Longhorn band will travel to football games within reasonable driving distance. For plane trips, the band usually is limited to about 100 members.

"We like to have a presence at every road game," said Ed Goble, associate athletics director for business at Texas.

Texas originally planned to take about 100 band members to Columbus last year until Ohio State Athletics Director Gene Smith told his counterpart and friend DeLoss Dodds that a 100-piece band wouldn’t sound like much with more than 100,000 fans in Ohio Stadium. Smith urged Dodds to bring more of the band.

"We ended up taking about 150 or 175 band members," Goble said. "It cost us about $100,000 last year."

Ohio State will bring its full band. Director Jon R. Woods said that at Ohio State, like at most Big Ten schools, bringing the band is an all-or-nothing proposition. (The school doesn’t have pep bands.)

The Buckeye band numbers 192 on the field and playing in the stands at any game, but 225 musicians compete for those spots, and all of them make the trip. In addition, about 25 student support members come along, a total of 250 people.

At the stadium, not only does each band member take a seat; a sousaphone or drum set might occupy one as well, making a sizable dent in the 4,000 seats that Ohio State has been allotted at Texas’ Royal-Memorial Stadium.

The Buckeye band’s fundraising started a year ago for the Austin trip and got a quick boost from Columbus resident Walt Dennis and his wife, Jane. Neither is a former OSU band member. He went to Bowling Green; she went to the University of Wisconsin.

"He’s been doing several things at Ohio State," Jane Dennis said. "We’ve become big Buckeye supporters."

Walt Dennis, who owns an automobile accessory business and whose name graces a learning center at Ohio State, contributed $225,000 for the trip to Austin. The band continued to do some other fundraising, which turned out to be a prudent decision.

"We found out we have a gas surcharge of about $6,000," Woods said of the flight to Austin. "But, with what he was able to give us, we more than have the trip covered."

The band will practice at Texas’ Burger Center on Friday. Then, on game day, it will be at Texas’ Erwin Center performing its famous Skull Session for fans in the afternoon before heading to the stadium.

"Coach (Jim) Tressel was very pleased we were coming," Woods said.

The band should look particularly sharp in Austin, at least at the start of the day. For the first time in 20 years, members have all-new uniforms, but in Buckeye tradition, the black pants and jackets are designed for Big Ten weather. They’re wool.

"We’ll be pretty warm," Woods said.

Falcon30 wrote:Second that, 1987alum

dduncan wrote: but it really could have helped some other cause/charity.

Dayons_Den wrote:Do we know for a fact this guy has not donated to BGSU?

Do we know for a fact that anyone from BGSU has ever asked him to donate to BGSU?



I would hope that by having his discretionary spending ability splashed around with this band story that someone from BGSU called him first thing on Monday morning inviting him to a BG home game and a tour of the Sebo center.


As someone who has had extensive sales trainning, you will find that people will buy (or in this case) donate if they are asked. Don't fault him because he donated his discretionary money, be annoyed that he did, but also hope that he could also find some dough to float towards Northwest Ohio.

Dayons_Den wrote:Do we know for a fact that anyone from BGSU has ever asked him to donate to BGSU?

transfer2BGSU wrote:

Dayons_Den wrote:Do we know for a fact that anyone from BGSU has ever asked him to donate to BGSU?

Yes.

BGDrew wrote:Care to explain?