VC Rumor--Nope
Dispatch
8/25
Texas-size rumor about OSU game shot down by club
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Jeb Phillips
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The first call came three weeks ago. Several have come every day since. They start something like this:
"I heard a rumor . . ."
Laurie Watkins knows enough to cut the callers off: "No, it’s not true that Matthew McConaughey has rented out the Varsity Club for the Texas game."
Watkins is the day manager of the bar on Lane Avenue near the Ohio State University campus, the de facto center of football game-day celebrations. McConaughey is the Texas-born actor, star of A Time To Kill and this year’s Sahara — and a University of Texas graduate.
Some would call it a terrible insult — an infiltration, really — if McConaughey were able to take over the Varsity Club for one of the biggest college football games of the year — Texas at Ohio State, Sept. 10.
This rumor has been all over. People who walk in ask about it, too, said Watkins and Tony Mollica, the bar’s general manager. The customers say they heard it on the radio, though they can’t remember the station. They start to get angry.
And all Watkins can say is, "We would never do that. This is a Buckeye bar."
The Varsity Club does rent out its lower floor regularly, but never on game days, Mollica said. A private party couldn’t bring in the kind of business that a game in the Horseshoe does.
The Varsity Club gets prank calls all the time from purported celebrities, saying they’d like to rent the bar, Watkins said. A few years ago, someone claiming to represent the Rolling Stones called, wanting the bar after they played a concert here, Watkins said. Bar managers thought it was a joke and rejected the request. Turned out it was for real, Watkins said, but too late to rent out the place.
No one even claiming to be McConaughey has called, Mollica said. There’s no truth to the gossip. None at all.
On to the next rumor.
"I have heard that President Bush is flying in," Watkins said.
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