Ay-Ziggy-Zoomba.com

This is the Orange County Register newspaper in CA but this article ran in the Akron Beacon Journal Sunday. It's views like this that make my stomach hurl.

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Buckeyes fans state their case
Ohio State football is a source of pride for many residents.
SCOTT M. REID
The Orange County Register


Columbus, Ohio Colin Gawel caught what the locals call scarlet fever as a small child.

Most Ohio kids do.

“If you grow up in Ohio, you’re raised on Ohio State football,” Buckeye wide receiver Dane Sanzenbacher said.

Gawel was fortunate, growing up in Columbus, he could spend autumn afternoons at Ohio State football practices, then open to the public under Woody Hayes, running through the Ohio Stadium end zone as practice wound down.

One day Hayes approached Gawel and his friends on the field.

“He said, ‘You boys going to be Buckeyes when you grow up?’” Gawel recalled.

To Gawel and his friends it had to seem like a trick question. What else would they be?

Other programs have won more national championships, but no college football program is so identified with and embraced—some would say suffocated — by the state in which it resides as Ohio State is in the Buckeye State.

Which is why showdown between No. 3 USC (1-0) and the No. 8 Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium, all 102,329 seats filled, is more than just another big game to Ohioans.

“It’s going to be a war,” Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor said.

A culture war.

Ohio State fans see Saturday night as more than just the Buckeyes’ bid to shake their reputation as the program that can win the big game or snap a six-game losing streak to the Trojans. Many Ohioans view the game as nothing less than a nationally televised prime time referendum on their way of life.

“When they’re in the trenches Saturday night and they’re lined up ready to go, I believe it’s going to be our tradition, our lifestyle, our hard work and values versus the glitz and glamour of USC,” said Joe Oestreich, an Ohio State graduate who teaches creative writing at Coastal Carolina. “Midwestern (ethics) against the loosey, goosey, surfer ‘Hey, Dude’-- (Ohio State coach) Jim Tressel would never call anyone dude — of Pete Carroll.

“I honestly do see that. It does seem to be a clash of lifestyles.”

It is a lifestyle that is part pageantry, part debauchery and complete obsession.

“Buckeye football is so ingrained in the lives and lifestyles of every Ohioan that there’s not another team or sport on the planet that you can compare it to,” said Bo Biafra, lead singer of the Dead Schembechlers, a Columbus-based punk rock band whose members dress like Hayes, complete with the circ 1960s glasses and black ball cap.

Ohio’s obsession with all things Buckeye goes back decades. Ohio Stadium, known to Buckeye fans as The Shoe for its horseshoe-like shape, was built in 1922. Critics called the 66,000-seat facility a $1.3-million mistake by the university, pointing out at the time Ohio State’s enrollment was 8,000 and Columbus’ population was 200,000. The Shoe’s first game drew 71,138 fans. Saturday’s sell-out will be the 50th consecutive Ohio State home game to attracted at least 100,000 fans.

Such devotion has allowed Ohio State to build the biggest college athletic program in the nation. The Buckeyes had $65.1-million in football related revenue for the 2007 season, according to documents the school filed with the Department of Education, nearly $40-million more than the $2 8.6-million USC had for the same season. That revenue helps fund 36 varsity sports, eight more than any other Division I school, that play and train in 16.9-million square feet of facilities spread out over 377 acres.

The total devotion to Buckeye football is also evident on home game weekends from early Friday afternoon to Sunday’s early hours on Lane Avenue across from the stadium as fans, thousands of whom don’t have tickets, load up for kick-off on a steady diet of beer and brats. “We’re not a wine and cheese crowd like Michigan,” Oestreich said. For 26 years a private tailgate known as Hineygate (as in rear end) at the Holiday Inn on Lane regularly attracted 10,000 fans who drank and danced while bands dodged tossed beer and bras. Hineygate became history this season after the university bought to hotel with plans to turn it into a dorm.

The Buckeye Nation and its obsessive nature are the products of several contributing factors. With the nation’s largest enrollment, 53,715 in the Fall of 2008, the university cranks out a mind boggling number of alumni each year. Unlike Alabama, divided between Auburn and the Crimson Tide, or states like California, Texas, Florida and Oklahoma with multiple top flight programs, the Buckeyes, with no other significant college program in-state, have Ohio’s undivided attention.

The loyalty is also the result of what Biafra calls the “common thread” of tradition that runs through the decades of a program that was produced seven national championships and as many Heisman Trophy winners.

“You feel like you’re part of a history that runs from Woody to (two-time Heisman winner) Archie (Griffin) to Eddie George,” Oestreich said.

But perhaps more than anything Ohioans see a reflection of themselves and their values in the Buckeyes. While Columbus is home to five Fortune 500 companies, Ohio remains very much a red state with a blue collar.

“Ohio as a whole is blue collar,” Oestreich said. “It’s a freaking Springsteen song.”

And as the Buckeyes go so goes Ohio.

“When the team is going well, I feel that I’m personally doing well, and vice versa,” Oestreich said. “When (Buckeye coach) John Cooper was losing every year to Michigan the whole state was in a funk.”

And never has Ohio’s collective psyche been in greater need of boost of Buckeye success than now. Between September 2007 through this July, the state’s unemployment rate climbed from 4.7 to 11.2 per cent.

Fortunately for Buckeye fans, the state’s economic problems have coincided with one of the most successful periods in Ohio State history.

Since taking over for Cooper prior to the 2001 season, Tressel, son of a small college coach who was a friend of Hayes, has led the Buckeyes to the 2002 national championship, five Big Ten titles, and coached 22 first team All-Americans.

“I’m not sure Buckeye fans appreciate that we’re living in a golden age,” said Gawel, guitarist in for Watershed, a popular Columbus band and owner a local coffee shop.

These days many Buckeye fans seem more focused on Ohio State’s losses to Florida and LSU in the 2006 and 2007 BCS National Championships games and high profile defeats against USC and Texas last year.

“They want to be the national champions every year,” said former Ohio State coach Earle Bruce.

At the very least, Ohio State fans expect the Buckeyes to beat bitter rival Michigan annually.

One popular bootleg t-shirt in Columbus, one of the few at least that’s not profane, says “I Wouldn’t Root For Michigan If They Were Playing France.”

Nothing has brought the Buckeyes greater joy than the current Wolverine slide under second-year coach Rich Rodriguez.

“This boy’s a complete disaster,” Biafra said making no attempt to conceal his glee. “He’s the Buckeye equivalent of the Manchurian Candidate.”

Biafra has even suggested a new motto for the Wolverine program: “Three Wins and a cloud of dust.”

While Biafra was rejoicing in Michigan’s demise, Gawel took his son Owen, 6, to his first Ohio State game last Saturday against Navy. On the way home, Owen pretended he was Pryor.

One more kid with scarlet fever.


Well, there you have it. Every Ohioan loves OSU football and no other program in the state has any significance. Talk about brainwashing...why some of us in this state root for other schools is amazing to people. We don't all worship at the Altar of Woody. Doyt Perry was 5X the coach that man could ever have hoped to be. When OSU wins, everything is roses. When they lose, we must be depressed. LOL. Please. Live and die with BGSU, baby.

Thank God I am a BOWLING GREEN FALCON....forever.

GO FALCONS

Amen, brother.

I'm holding less and less malice toward those that drink the scarlet & grey Kool-aid. If they can't move past their childhood indoctrination, so be it.

As for me, it's all Orange & Brown. Ay Ziggy Zoomba!

From the time I was three years old (or at least as far back as I can remember) there was only one University that anybody followed at our house. And it wasn't OSU- my dad would maybe watch the osu-um game and be pleased if osu won but UT football ruled the household. Most other folks in town didn't know UT or BG existed.

h2oville rocket wrote:From the time I was three years old (or at least as far back as I can remember) there was only one University that anybody followed at our house. And it wasn't OSU- my dad would maybe watch the osu-um game and be pleased if osu won but UT football ruled the household. Most other folks in town didn't know UT or BG existed.

I like hearing that. A lot. I like hearing that from UT, BG, Miami, UC, OU, Kent, Akron, Mt. Union, Findlay, name your favorite Ohio school that doesn't have a 'THE' in front of its name. When I was growing up, it was Cincinnati.

My entire immediate family rooted for OSU when I was a kid. I vaguely knew about BG because my dad got free tickets to the game through his job and took the family back in '91. I was only 7 at the time, and it was the coolest thing ever. However, as the years went on, I didn't remember that much about that game and was all about OSU again. Our school would have OSU/Michigan day the Friday before "The Game". My friend's older brother was at BG, playing on the team, so I went with his family to a few games to BG play. The team was pretty decent (first year under Urban I believe), and so I looked into BG's academic programs. I'm now a graduate student at BG and loving every minute of my choice.

BTW, my family was rather shocked that I wasn't all that interested in the OSU/USC game. I went to my computer and listened on the radio to BG, and had a TV on mute to flip through the other football games.

Some people never will get how some of us grew up in Ohio and didn't get sucked in to the OSU worship. I basically happened to have some friends whose dads went to Penn State, and thus said friends were professed PSU fans right at the time I started to pay attention, so I joined in with them. On top of that, while my Dad has always liked OSU, he was much more of a UC/Xavier fan, so there was no indoctrination in my house growing up. As I've gotten older, I cared less and less about Penn State, but now I am 100% a BG fan. (And equally 100% a Tennessee fan. Well, maybe 99.99% a Tennessee fan, because if BG ever plays Tennessee, I'm rooting hard for BG.)

I personally am proud to not be a Buckeye fan. I can be friends with a lot of Buckeye fans, I can even go to a OSU game watching party, and I'll be happy for them when their team wins. But, I'll not be there donning scarlet and gray or answering "IO" to someone's "OH." Just like this past Saturday, I was there at the house of some huge OSU fans who are very good friends of mine, but I wore my BG jersey and kept my eyes glued to the bottom of the screen for score updates on our game, caring little for the game video above it.

YD: Well said.

There have been many times when I've been with diehard fans of one type (OSU, Purdue) or another (PSU) and watching the Bottom Line intently. When the game goes to a commercial just as I'm anticipating the BG score to show up (you know how you can tell they're coming up in the next score or two), I usually blurt out an anguished sound and everyone gives me an odd look.

Like I said, I'm getting less and less bitter about Big Program Worshippers. You work your side of the street, I'll work mine, right?

It's really pretty disgusting even at my church during football season.

Several ladies have those stupid car flags in the windows every Sunday.

A fellow choir member was asking how anyone could be a Michigan fan while living in Toledo since Ohio won the battle versus Michigan to keep Toledo in Ohio like where I lived had anything to do with my football allegiances. I just told him that I "fought" for Michigan in the battle for Toledo.

We even have one mentally challenged lady who constantly makes prayer requests and has to throw in that "Ohio State won last night" (even when they lose) or "Ohio State will be in the super bowl" and yadda yadda yadda

Wow. I have never read anything that made football sound so...fruity.

The article makes people in Ohio seem as......well what people tend to think of Ohioans as being.

OSU is just a reality to be dealt with as one lives in Ohio. And living in Columbus as I did, it is even more true. I just have learned to shrug and move along. OSU can be fun at times, only because I have zero invested emotion in their winning or losing.

I grew up an OSU fan. That's where dad went to school. I enjoyed going to OSU football games with him all through school, until 1992. Before then, I didn't know Bowling Green was even on the map. But I was at the OSU / BGSU game in 92. That opened my eyes. For those of you that were at that game, or saw it on film, BG literally beat the snot out of OSU. Ohio State won on the score board thanks to a few questionable calls. I believe there were what...two td's called back on BG? Anyway, since then...I've had the pleasure of attending BGSU, playing football for BGSU, playing Rugby for BGSU, and meeting my wife at BGSU. My point is, I kind of feel sad for many of these OSU fans. Many of them don't know any better. Many cheer for OSU because their friends do, or because they want to fit in. You can buy their stuff anywhere. My new slogan "OSU, the official university of the Wal-Mart shopper." I took my son into a pizza place here in Springfield Ohio last weekend (before the OSU/USC game), it was like everyone in the place had on an osu jersey. My son made this observation to me, loud enough for many people to hear, "Dad, it's like ohio state threw-up in here." It brought a tear to my eye. Anyway, sorry to be long winded, just thought I'd share a little.

I also grew up in an OSU household. My dad was at OSU for a year and my aunt, and this is the biggest thing, dotted the "i" her senior year as a sousaphone player in the marching band. I still root for OSU. They are my 2nd favorite team in football, I won't lie. Other than football though, I have no rooting interest for OSU. When I started attending Bowling Green, I was still a little jaded. That all changed the day I got a flyer saying "Come to this address, get a free Sideline Squad shirt and be a member!" That was it. I was hooked on BG Athletics for good. I ran the Sideline Squad my 2nd year at BG and unfortunately, had no time to keep it going my third and final year at the greatest institution I ever visited or attended. I still root for OSU on that last Saturday in November when they play scUM, and I'll be honest, I'll probably be rooting for them on Saturday against Toledo. But it is getting harder and harder to defend OSU fans who are so arrogant (my dad included) that they think the college football universe begins and ends in Columbus. I was listening to a radio show before the game on Saturday and the arrogance and putting down of EVERY other college football team in the nation was absolutely disgusting. They were talking about how Navy only kept it close because they play "different" then what OSU is used to. I wanted to jump through the radio and choke out the large OSU alumni who was saying these things (It was a former lineman, can't remember who or which side of the ball). Anyways, to close I will say GO FALCONS!!! ROLL ALONG!!! AY-ZIGGY-ZOOMBA!!!

Could have been Jim Lachey on the radio. So Navy played a "different" kind of football huh? It's not like they were able to play with 13 players on the field, or were given 5 downs instead of 4. There's always an excuse when someone beats or even comes close to beating OSU. We all play with the same rules!

takeoffeh wrote:My son made this observation to me, loud enough for many people to hear, "Dad, it's like ohio state threw-up in here." It brought a tear to my eye. Anyway, sorry to be long winded, just thought I'd share a little.

Classic!

We were at my brother's a few years back, talking college football. Noah said, of course, that he wanted to play for BGSU. My nephew looked at him and said, "you mean to tell me that if Ohio State, Florida and Bowling Green offered you a scholarship, you'd go to Bowling Green." Noah didn't hestitate and said, "yeah, of course." The look on my nephew's face made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of my chair.

After reading everyone elses stories about grewing up I must say I got lucky growing up. My mom has lived in Cincy her whole life and the only sports she cares about are swimming (she did it growing up, as did my sister who swims at Ashland University now) and golf (which she just learned, and enjoys following Mr. T Woods). As for my dad he grew up in the Bronx and wasn't just going to start liking OSU just because he moved to Ohio. While my uncle and 2 of my cousins are OSU fans they never tried to get me to become one when I was growing up.