I'm a Falcon

[ZiggyZoomba]

Since the "articles" interface was hacked... so I'm just going to post this here.

In the spring of 1988, I was a high school senior and I was SO excited! I was just accepted into Miami University. It was prestigious, it was something no one else from my little school did that year, it was different, exciting, new, and somewhat elite, at least in the eyes of the 70 hicks (myself included) that made up the Woodmore HS class of 1988.

Fall came, and I took off for Oxford. The campus was beautiful... the classes tough... the girls were drop-dead gorgeous! The guys on my floor were all cool, fun, bright... seemed like a good thing was happening here!

Then, something changed. Sports. I couldn't do it. I went to Miami football games and rooted for them, but it was the BG score I was looking for in the paper... it was the BG news I was calling home to my dad to hear about. Then, October 29th came... BG v. Miami at the Doyt. I went home for that game. I wore orange and brown. I rooted for BG. I knew I wasn't going to be at Miami for any longer than I had to.

I returned to Oxford and contacted the BGSU admissions office to initiate the transfer process. I went to some hockey games in Oxford; a pre-season basketball game where Indiana actually came to Miami... but I didn't care. I was a Falcon.

I came back to NW Ohio at the semester break and never went back to Oxford. I started classes at BG in January.

I'm a Falcon... how could I have done anything else?

[TG1996]

Awesome.

I knew from the start I was coming to BG. Most of it was because I knew they had the program I wanted, but alot of it was because it was BG.

I never even had to trade my allegiances once, not even for a semester.

[Zom]

Sometimes the only way you know where you belong is by stepping outside the box to look back in and realize you already knew what's in your blood. Without doing Miami, you may never have known.

You duh Wizard of Azz. You duh MAN!

[hammb]

I was accepted at OSU, BG, and MIT. I applied to MIT just to see if I could get accepted, had no real desire to go there, despite it's prestige.

So it came down to OSU & BG. OSU offered a little less scholarship money, but the difference was negligible. I was able to save some money by living with my parents by going to BG, but still if I really wanted to go to OSU I could have just gotten some more loans.

In the end I just plain liked BG. I grew up going to BG basketball games, so I was always attached to Anderson Arena. I took PSEOP classes at BG and I enjoyed the classes & the friendly atmosphere of the campus. I have a number of family members who also have BG degrees.

Conversely, OSU was just too damn big for my liking. I've never really liked their campus, and I realized that the only reason I had any inclination whatsoever to go there was for their football team. In the end, I chose BG because I loved nearly everything about the school. From a community & sense of family standpoint BG was light years ahead of what I got from OSU in my visits down there.

As I became a part of the BG community my allegiance to OSU's football team waned and I became the Falcon fan I am today. How the hell could I ever talk with the guys I knew on the team and tell them that I was going to root against them because I was an OSU fan when I grew up? No way.

[1987alum]

Grant:

Awesome, plain and simple.

[gentlesatirist]

...BG, Toledo, Kent and Youngstown. BG and Toledo offered scholarships. The other two didn't.

Growing up in Warren, had never been to BG or UT before. Visited BG on a very cold but sunny day. Visited UT on a little warmer, but rainy day. Looking back, weather may have played a psychological role.

Went to BG and never looked back. Had a blast for 4 years. Then my brother got in the year after I graduated, effectively extending my time for 4 more.

Also met my future wife as freshmen, started dating as sophomores. Then two years ago we end up buying a house in NE Ohio from another couple who met in their BG days.

And to think I owe it all to the NW Ohio sun.


- FE
Wickliffe OH

[Flipper]

I had my choice of several MAC, Big 10, clown and barber colleges. I picked BG because the place just felt like home when I toured the campus.

Which is odd...I commuted so I never actually lived on campus. I hung out on the steps of Mosely Hall alot though.

Ok it wasn't actually the steps...it was one of those flat concrete slabs next to the steps. I spent 5 years at BGSU and never once did a pigeon crap on me while I sat on that slab. Maybe I can control the pigeons like Aqua Man controls fish and I don't even realize it. I'll have to experiment and find out.

Hmmm...my weekend just got a tad more interesting

[ZiggyZoomba]

I hung out on the steps of Mosely Hall alot though.

I love the image of Moseley hall on this webpage... the split-rail fence in the foreground... ahhhhh I can almost hear the cows lowing...


http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/ca ... s/mos.html

[Warthog]

My choices were BG, Ohio, and the General Motors Institute in Flint. Don't know if it exists anymore, or if it does what it is called. GMI was a complete internship program. You had to have an internship lined up before you started because you went to school for a semester then worked for a semester for the entire time. It was about 90% engineers and 10% business. The ratio of males to females was about 97-3. Glad I didn't end up there.

At any rate, the real choice was between BG and OU. Took a campus tour here in the Fall, and I was all set. Never even went down to Athens. Biggest reason for BG was probably that it was close enough to home (Leipsic) that I could still have my mom do all my laundry. Also, my brother was a Senior when I started so I had someone I knew who could buy beer!

[Rightupinthere]

I applied to BG.

Period. I didn't give consideration to any another school.

I grew up in Cleveland and wasn't very familiar with BGSU until I started researching schools. BG was one or two in every category on my research list. Once I visited the school, I threw away my list.

BGSU just "fit". I get the exact same feeling whenever I get back to visit. My God, how I love that school.

[Dayons_Den]

Not sure if this is what the thread was intended for, but I am enjoying reading everyone's paths to BGSU, so here is mine:

I was truly a falcon at a very young age, and took a long route to ‘officially’ become a falcon.

Growing up in BG, the son of a BG grad I spent much of my formative years watching falcon sports- men’s and women’s basketball, hockey, soccer, baseball, and football. One of my favorite days of the year was ‘meet the team’ days and I can remember posing for a picture at Perry Field with then-current head coach Moe Ankeny and the legend Doyt Perry. I can remember being confused at school when they held “Ohio State-Michigan” day, I always wore orange and brown. I can remember one day in fourth grade when two football players came by our class to give away Rich Dackin/Uncle Sam Freddy Falcon posters- I was appalled when the trivia answer asked to earn such a poster was “what are the names of the Falcon mascots”- I was totally expecting a question about how orange and brown became the colors or who is the only football player to have a number retired and I nearly didn’t accept the poster in order to answer a tougher question…

I applied to and got in to BG, Cincinnati and my little DIII school in Iowa called Cornell. I ended up trading cornfields because of opportunities both as an athlete and in the radio/communications area. I needed to get out of BG but I never let BG get out of me. I would check the scores and keep updated of all the happenings online and with many phonecalls. My summers in BG allowed me to befriend some guys like Len Matela and Ryan Wingrove giving me more of a connection to my contemporary Falcons. I can remember driving through the night to get to BG my senior year of 2001 for a MAC Tourney game at the Gund- I found out at 11pm central time that I could have a free ticket to a suite with the Matela family so of course I drove the 8 hours in the middle of the week to get to BG then leave for Cleveland the next day,.

Living in Iowa and finding ay-ziggy-zoomba.com was just another excellent way to keep me a part of the Falcon community.

Then in 2003 with my work/career on pause I decided to move back to Ohio and attend grad school at BG. At 24 I was finally, officially a Falcon. Spending the last few years in BG enabled me to take part in some great Falcon Football events and reconnect with the other sports as well. Last February I again moved away from northwest Ohio, but I often find myself drifting back via this website and other means.


I needed to get out of BG but I never let BG get out of me- that sums it up best for me.

[Flipper]

Grant...if you look really closely at the second floor window furthest to the left in that photo, you can see my trying to throw my creative writing TA out the window.

Call my work "derivative and uninspired" will you?

[ZiggyZoomba]

the General Motors Institute in Flint. Don't know if it exists anymore, or if it does what it is called.

It's called Kettering University.

http://www.kettering.edu/

[Warthog]

I was accepted at OSU, BG, and MIT.

Michigan Tech?

[Falconfreak90]

First time I ever went to BG was 1983 when my older sister enrolled as a Freshman, fell in love with the place. We'd go up to visit and take in football and hockey games. When it came time to apply for college, I knew exactly where I was going...BGSU. I applied to 3 schools...BGSU, OSU and Heidleberg. I applied to HB for the chance to play college football, knowing I wasn't nearly good enough to play at BG. And OSU? Yeah, right. I was accepted to all 3 but with both parents BG grads and my older sister there as well, not to mention great communications and business schools...I was set.

I never regretted not going somewhere else. It may not be the most beautiful college setting but the people are second to none. I had a blast for 4 years, got my degree and sadly, left BGSU in May 1990. I find it humorous when the college kids call for fund raising and ask me the last time I was back. "Oh, last week...and the week before...and 3 weeks before that". LOL!

I LOVE BGSU....and am a Falcon for life and beyond.

ROLL ALONG YOU BG WARRIORS!!!