No regrets for Gantz, just rings and respect
Joe Gantz
By MIKE PLANT
Daily Record Sports Writer
After gaining more than 1,000 yards in each of his three seasons while leading Wooster High to back-to-back playoff berths, running back Joe Gantz took on a different role at Ohio State.
The No. 2 rusher in WHS history -- one that covers 110 years -- Gantz carried the ball just eight times for the Buckeyes. He turned down scholarship offers to walk on at OSU, where he earned three letters.
Now that the fifth-year senior's college football career has ended, he can look back and say he wouldn't change a thing, because he's become part of OSU history as well.
"I definitely don't regret it, it's been a great experience," said Gantz, who got back to Columbus Sunday after Ohio State's Jan. 1 Rose Bowl win over Oregon, then began classes Monday on a scholarship, awarded to him this past fall.
"I'm leaving the program as part of a class with the most wins at Ohio State, with five Big Ten championship rings, and having never lost to Michigan," he said, adding with a laugh that as a General he never lost to archrival Orrville, either. "Growing up in Ohio, everyone watches Ohio State, so being part of it was pretty cool. I'd make the same decision over and over again."
This year's Ohio State seniors not only completed four years as the winningest group in Ohio State's storied history, they played in four Bowl Championship Series games, including two in which the Buckeyes played for the national championship.
Last Friday, OSU ended a three-game bowl losing streak with a 26-17 victory over Oregon in the Rose Bowl, also ending, at least temporarily, the talk nationally that the Buckeyes couldn't win a big game.
Inside the lockerroom, though, Gantz said the team looked at the game as an opportunity to make its own statement, not make up for any past losses, to Florida and LSU in national title games, then last year to Texas in the Fiesta Bowl.
"Losing the last three bowl games was tough, but it's not like the teams we lost to weren't very good," Gantz said. "Going into the Oregon game, our mindset, first and foremost, was just to win it for ourselves. Coach Tressel always says we need to send the seniors out right.
"We know we're one of the top programs in the country, and we want to be treated that way, so we wanted to win it for the team as a whole, and really for the entire Buckeye Nation. It was big for them."
