The News From Up North
Wolverines
Buckeyes go nuts in Columbus as U-M game approaches
November 17, 2005
BY SHAWN WINDSOR
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
<!-- SIDEBAR PHOTOS AND FACT BOXES --><!-- ARTICLE SIDEBAR --><!--MAIN PHOTO--><!--THEME LINKS--><!--RELATED ARTICLE LINKS--><!--RELATED EXTERNAL LINKS--><!--PHOTO GALLERY LINKS--><!--MAIN FACTS BOX-->The Big Game
- Matchup: No. 17 Michigan 7-3, 5-2 Big Ten; No. 9 Ohio State 8-2, 6-1.
When: 1 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor.
TV: ABC (Channel 7 in Detroit).
Line: Ohio State by 3.
Coaches' records: Lloyd Carr -- 6-4 vs. Ohio State; Jim Tressel -- 3-1 vs. U-M.
BIG TEN scenarios
Ohio State: Can win the title outright with a victory and a Penn State loss at Michigan State. Could tie for the title with a loss and a Penn State loss.
Michigan: Can tie for the title with a victory and a Penn State loss.
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<!-- BODY TEXT --><!--ARTICLE BODY TEXT-->COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Tonight, in the middle of
The Ohio State University's campus, thousands of students (and maybe a few alumni) will dive into Mirror Lake, swim to the fountain in the center and scream in the watery darkness. Most will be wearing bathing suits. A few will be naked.
"But those are usually fat frat guys," explained Chris McCarthy, a junior from Vermilion, Ohio, who plans on taking the plunge.
The whole delirious -- some might say, hedonistic -- affair is an unofficial component of "Beat Michigan Week," and it happens on the Thursday before every U-M/OSU football game, no matter how cold or how icy.
But forget hefty, naked frat boys for a moment. For that doesn't begin to explain the near-biblical intensity felt in Columbus this time of year. A better explanation might be found in the Bible itself, specifically, in Proverbs, 31:21:
"She has no fear for her household; for they are all clothed in scarlet."
Eric Peterson shared this verse Monday over a plate of steaming chicken and noodles at Nancy's Home Cooking, a Buckeyes-themed diner and Columbus institution on High Street, a couple of miles north of campus.
"You see," Peterson continued, getting spiritual about why the rivalry means so much down here, "this is God's team. You can just put Heaven, Ohio," for the dateline.
Here, college football inspires a mix of fealty and zealotry that can be found in few places north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Customers packed into the lunchtime eatery were talking about the game as if it were life and death, paying no attention to a couple of players quietly eating at a table in the back, including star wide receiver Santonio Holmes. At Nancy's, the rule is players get to eat in peace.
Much of the talk dealt with coach Jim Tressel, who took over in 2001 and owns a 3-1 record against Michigan.
"He's made the Michigan game important again," said Eric Williams, 41, a Columbus resident. "He talks about it. He's a lighter, politer version of Woody Hayes."
It was Hayes, of course, who couldn't bear to utter the name Michigan, referring to U-M as "that school up North." But it was John Cooper, who went 2-10-1 against U-M in the '90s that left a part of Columbus ashamed.
When U-M beats OSU the atmosphere on campus the following Monday is "like a morgue," said McCarthy, who remembers walking around after his freshman year two years ago when the Wolverines won in Ann Arbor, 36-21.
"It's almost too much to handle," he said.
And McCarthy considers himself a relatively mellow member of Buckeyes Nation. Even though he is the chair this year of "Beat Michigan Week," a campus organization that plans year-round for the third Saturday of every November.
The festivities this week include a pep rally (Tressel and a few players stopped in), a banner signing, a pillow fight, a flag-football tournament and a wing-eating contest called "Wing the Wolverines."
Unlike the state of Michigan, which splits its rooting football interests between U-M, Michigan State or even Notre Dame, Ohio State has little in-state competition.
Think of Ohio as a sink, and Columbus as the drain, collecting loyalties from all the states' borders, except for Toledo and parts of Cleveland, where maize-and-blue traitors can be spotted.
"They're confused up there," said Chris Spielman, a former All-America linebacker at OSU. "I don't get it. If you grow up in Ohio, you shouldn't be confused."
Spielman, a four-time Pro Bowler who played eight seasons with the Lions, argues that football culture in Ohio is fundamentally deeper than in Michigan.
"Kids play hockey up there," he said. "In Ohio, they play football, even in the winter."
He also likes to point out that the reason U-M has a national program in the first place is because of Ohio.
"We gave you Coach Schembechler," he said. "We give you your best players."
Spielman, now 40, moved back to Columbus after he retired from the NFL. He hosts a daily sports talk show on the radio and does color analysis during college games for ESPN. (He resigned last summer after coaching the Columbus Destroyers of the Arena Football League to a 2-14 record.) Occasionally, Tressel asks Spielman to speak to his players.
Everywhere in the city, signs point to Buckeyes football. Clocks that countdown to the Michigan game year round. Newspapers that remind readers how many days are left. Streets named after Woody Hayes. Namesake bars, restaurants and arcades. Rental signs in front of apartments that entice renters with "stadium view," as though the "Horseshoe," as it's affectionately called, is a wonder of the world, a Grand Canyon-like opening in south central Ohio.
And then there is the color scarlet, splashed in small dabbles and great swooshes throughout the region, on clothing, on storefront signs, on billboards, on the tin ceiling at Nancy's Home Cooking, where owner Cindy King has watched Buckeyes culture from her perch for almost four decades.
Hers is the kind of place that exists only in memory in Ann Arbor, long before Ivy League aspirations and counterculture pot laws and boutique beer took hold. King still sells lunches for $5. She has no menu, only a few verbal choices that greet customers as they sit.
"Chicken noodle, green beans, mashed potatoes or bean soup and cornbread."
Until a year ago, customers paid by leaving their money in a bucket on the way out the door. Alas, she had to pull the honor system when someone started stealing.
Still, Columbus flocks to her joint and fills it with tales of Buckeyes worship.
"I once went to Cedar Point," recalled Eric Williams, after finishing his plate Monday. "Everywhere I turned I saw Michigan fans. I was pretty much disgusted."
He smiled as he said this.
It was hard to know if he was joking.
Contact SHAWN WINDSOR at 313-222-6487 or [email protected].
