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First-ever i-dotter passes away

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MililaniBuckeye

MililaniBuckeye

The satanic soulless freight train that is Ohio St
    • John Walter Brungart, who in 1936 became the first band member to ever dot the "i" in Script Ohio, passed away this past Saturday at the age of 89. Prayers to the first in the greatest tradition in college football.
     
    I wonder if he knew when he did it that he would be starting the greatest pre-game tradition in all of college athletics...I imagine he couldn't have fathomed it at the time. RIP
     
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    "The Incomparable Script Ohio"

    Trademark of The Ohio State University Marching Band





    download document: scripto.doc



    <HR>The year was 1936. America was struggling through the Depression, FDR was on the campaign trail for a second term, and the Statue of Liberty was celebrating its first half-century. In Berlin, Jesse Owens of The Ohio State University was writing his name in the history books at Hitler's Olympics. In Columbus, Ohio, a signature of another kind marked the beginning of one of the best-known traditions in college football.


    By the mid-1930s, the 120-member Ohio State University Marching Band was already setting the standards for modern college bands with its all-brass instrumentation, floating formations and driving style. But Director Eugene J. Weigel was not one to rest on his laurels. Inspired by a state fair skywriter and perhaps the marquee at the nearby Ohio Theatre, he decided to try a different type of formation at the Pittsburgh game in Ohio Stadium on October 10, 1936. It did not go unnoticed. The next day, the Columbus Dispatch reported that "The smartly drilled Ohio State Band trooped out something new between the halves when Professor Weigel's lads spelled out "Ohio" imitating script letters in the process."

    While it was actually the Michigan Band that had formed a stationary O-H-I-O in a script style a few years before, no one had tried the script writing while in motion. "Sky-writing" worked, the crowd loved it and the gridiron signature was already on its way to becoming a tradition by the time of its second performance at the Indiana game on October 24. "Once again the Ohio State Band put on a show with its now-famous and always-thrilling "Ohio" formation written out in script" said the Dispatch the following morning. In recognition his contribution to school spirit, Weigel received an honorary Varsity "O" at the end of the season.

    SCRIPT OHIO has remained relatively unchanged over the decades, and is performed a number of times each season at both home and away games. Unwinding out of a massive block "O" as if written by a giant pen, it is recognized across the country as one of the great symbols of college sport, whether in the Rose Bowl or on a dusty high-school field. Each autumn, when some 600 former band members return to Ohio Stadium for their annual reunion, they join the now-225 undergraduate musicians in a quadruple SCRIPT OHIO. A crowd of more than 90,000 fans celebrates the tradition to the melody of Planquett's Le Regiment de Sambre et Meuse, the French march that Weigel selected back in 1936.

    The highlight of any performance is always the "dotting of the i" in a giant Ohio. John W. Brungart, a retired pharmacist from Coshocton, was the first person to receive that honor back in 1936.

    While Brungart was a trumpet player who just happened to be at the right place at the right time that first season, Professor Weigel enjoyed another flash of inspiration at the beginning of the following year. Yet another tradition was born when he switched sousaphone Glen Johnson for the trumpet player at the "dot" in 1937, with fourth and fifth-year tuba players claiming the spotlight ever since. The "i"-dot tradition will continue at the 2004 Tostistos Fiesta Bowl with a Double Script Ohio.

    There have been a small number of notable exceptions to the sousaphone tradition. Bob Hope sauntered out to the top of the "i" in 1979, while former Ohio State Coach W. W. Hayes drew an emotional ovation in 1983. "It was one of the greatest events of my life," Woody later recalled.

    There are other special memories of SCRIPT OHIO. A performance at the 1976 World Series in Cincinnati drew the ire of then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who was upset to see a football gridiron etched in tape across his baseball outfield. Another of the more interesting renditions took place on the deck of an aircraft carrier in the San Diego harbor.

    But while SCRIPT OHIO has become the goodwill symbol for the state and the University, the universal excitement it generates still makes it truly unique. ESPN commentator Beano Cook echoes the sentiments of many football fans in saying "If I could dot the "i" in a Michigan game and the good lord came to take me the next day... at least I could die happy." We can only add: "Go Bucks!"

    http://www.tbdbitl.com/FIESTA/scripto.html

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    http://worlddmc.ohiolink.edu/OMP/NewDetails?oid=2677438&scrapid=5831&format=yourscrap&sort=thedate&searchstatus=0&count=1&hits=1
     
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