bigtenbadboy
3rd Rate Lurker
Would have been cool to schedule the college of Wooster this week to commemorate, and get a measure of revenge! Couldn't be that much worse than the Hoosiers.
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Lantern
Parking lot marks home of Buckeye football beginnings
Ryan Pratt
Today the site of Ohio State's first football game is paved-over and surrounded by old brick buildings, bustling streets and battered alleys. The sidelines have been replaced with sidewalks and yard lines replaced by parking spaces. Asphalt lies over the grass and dirt where athletes once played.
Friday morning, hundreds of people gathered at 280 E. Whittier Ave. for the unveiling of the Ohio Historical Marker dedicated to the first OSU home game against the College of Wooster in 1890. The crowd was filled with men and women, children and adults, and alumni and fans from both schools.
"The tradition that began right here has been a blessing to many people," said OSU head football coach Jim Tressel.
More than a century ago, hundreds of people gathered here for a different reason. It was a very different era. It was a time when there was no television or radio coverage. Fans cheered in person as the two teams battled without helmets on a field without lights. There was no marching band, no Script Ohio and no Brutus mascot.
"Imagine a time when there was no Buckeye football tradition - it had to start somewhere, and this is the place where it all began," said Ohio Historical Society Executive Director Bill Laidlaw.
It began at a field called Recreation Park. Its location was forgotten until local historian Court Hall recently took on the research project to discover the setting. This was not an ideal place for football; according to Schumacherplace.com, it was a baseball field that was constructed in the 1880s and eventually became the home of the first major league baseball team in Columbus, the Solons.
According to OSU officials, the Buckeyes lost 64-0 in the first game to the Fighting Scots (known at the time as the Presbyterians). It would be the only football game played by OSU on the field. They would play on various other fields until Ohio Field was built in 1898 at the intersection of High Street and Woodruff Avenue. Ohio Stadium, the current site of Buckeye football and home to seven National Championship teams, would be not be completed until 1922."I think it's only appropriate that we pause as many times as we possibly can to pay tribute to the opportunities that we have today and the opportunities that our young players have today under the tutelage of Jim Tressel and his staff," said OSU Director of Athletics Gene Smith.
The commemorative marker stands in the historical district of German Village. The field once called Recreation Park is now residential homes and a parking lot for a Giant Eagle on the west side of Ebner Street in Columbus' Schumacher Place neighborhood.
"It is here where foundation was laid for our football program to provide the experience for the thousands of Buckeye football players and fans to enjoy what we're enjoying today," Smith said.
Those involved in the ceremony agreed these foundations are important for what OSU has become today.
"We are very honored that we have the opportunity to share in Ohio State's beginning in football," said Wooster Athletic Director Keith Beckett. "Those beginnings and those experiences were very important in the evolution of two distinctly different but very excellent programs."
Over the past 100-plus years, the two schools have headed down vastly diverse paths in academics and athletics. The College of Wooster is now one the nation's leading liberal arts colleges. OSU is one of the world's leading research universities. Wooster has established a non-scholarship Division III athletic program. OSU is among the nation's paramount Division I athletic programs.
"It is not too often these days that football at the College of Wooster is mentioned in the same breath as football at the Ohio State University," said Wooster's President R. Stanton Hales.
Since 1890, the two schools have met on the football field a total of seven times. Wooster would get one last victory and a tie to end with an overall record of 2-4-1 against the Buckeyes. The scarlet and gray would be victorious in their final meeting in 1925, 17-0. Hales took advantage of the ceremony to lightheartedly remind people of the score of that first game"I do acknowledge that memories of Ohio State's second game, and very one-sided score, 64 to nothing, must be very painful for all Buckeye fans, for the 500 present at that first game, for those present today and perhaps even for those too embarrassed to attend," Hales said jokingly. "The most distressing aspect of this whole matter is that Ohio State has been dodging Wooster for nearly a century."
Today, OSU football is at the pinnacle of the game. The undefeated top-ranked Buckeyes are led by Tressel. For him, the historical marker has some special significance.
Tressel said his mother, the late Eloise Tressel, served many years as president of the Berea Area Historical Society and was a former president of the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums. She felt so passionate about Ohio history she once stood in the middle of a similar parking lot, which had been paved over the home of the first family of Berea, until it was agreed that there would be a monument in its place, said Tressel.
The Ohio Historical Society has erected 1,141 markers around the state since 1957. Previously, only two were associated with the OSU and its athletic program. There is one in the honor of Olympian Jesse Owens and one for legendary football coach Woody Hayes, said OSU President Karen A. Holbrook.
"This is another wonderful initiative of the Ohio Historical Society to make us even more aware of Ohio History," Holbrook said. "We are very proud of the tradition Ohio State football has and its very long and deep roots in the history of Ohio overall. It is clearly a very large part of our past, and is certainly a huge part of our present."
Parking lot marks home of Buckeye football beginnings
Ryan Pratt
Today the site of Ohio State's first football game is paved-over and surrounded by old brick buildings, bustling streets and battered alleys. The sidelines have been replaced with sidewalks and yard lines replaced by parking spaces. Asphalt lies over the grass and dirt where athletes once played.
Friday morning, hundreds of people gathered at 280 E. Whittier Ave. for the unveiling of the Ohio Historical Marker dedicated to the first OSU home game against the College of Wooster in 1890. The crowd was filled with men and women, children and adults, and alumni and fans from both schools.
"The tradition that began right here has been a blessing to many people," said OSU head football coach Jim Tressel.
More than a century ago, hundreds of people gathered here for a different reason. It was a very different era. It was a time when there was no television or radio coverage. Fans cheered in person as the two teams battled without helmets on a field without lights. There was no marching band, no Script Ohio and no Brutus mascot.
"Imagine a time when there was no Buckeye football tradition - it had to start somewhere, and this is the place where it all began," said Ohio Historical Society Executive Director Bill Laidlaw.
It began at a field called Recreation Park. Its location was forgotten until local historian Court Hall recently took on the research project to discover the setting. This was not an ideal place for football; according to Schumacherplace.com, it was a baseball field that was constructed in the 1880s and eventually became the home of the first major league baseball team in Columbus, the Solons.
According to OSU officials, the Buckeyes lost 64-0 in the first game to the Fighting Scots (known at the time as the Presbyterians). It would be the only football game played by OSU on the field. They would play on various other fields until Ohio Field was built in 1898 at the intersection of High Street and Woodruff Avenue. Ohio Stadium, the current site of Buckeye football and home to seven National Championship teams, would be not be completed until 1922."I think it's only appropriate that we pause as many times as we possibly can to pay tribute to the opportunities that we have today and the opportunities that our young players have today under the tutelage of Jim Tressel and his staff," said OSU Director of Athletics Gene Smith.
The commemorative marker stands in the historical district of German Village. The field once called Recreation Park is now residential homes and a parking lot for a Giant Eagle on the west side of Ebner Street in Columbus' Schumacher Place neighborhood.
"It is here where foundation was laid for our football program to provide the experience for the thousands of Buckeye football players and fans to enjoy what we're enjoying today," Smith said.
Those involved in the ceremony agreed these foundations are important for what OSU has become today.
"We are very honored that we have the opportunity to share in Ohio State's beginning in football," said Wooster Athletic Director Keith Beckett. "Those beginnings and those experiences were very important in the evolution of two distinctly different but very excellent programs."
Over the past 100-plus years, the two schools have headed down vastly diverse paths in academics and athletics. The College of Wooster is now one the nation's leading liberal arts colleges. OSU is one of the world's leading research universities. Wooster has established a non-scholarship Division III athletic program. OSU is among the nation's paramount Division I athletic programs.
"It is not too often these days that football at the College of Wooster is mentioned in the same breath as football at the Ohio State University," said Wooster's President R. Stanton Hales.
Since 1890, the two schools have met on the football field a total of seven times. Wooster would get one last victory and a tie to end with an overall record of 2-4-1 against the Buckeyes. The scarlet and gray would be victorious in their final meeting in 1925, 17-0. Hales took advantage of the ceremony to lightheartedly remind people of the score of that first game"I do acknowledge that memories of Ohio State's second game, and very one-sided score, 64 to nothing, must be very painful for all Buckeye fans, for the 500 present at that first game, for those present today and perhaps even for those too embarrassed to attend," Hales said jokingly. "The most distressing aspect of this whole matter is that Ohio State has been dodging Wooster for nearly a century."
Today, OSU football is at the pinnacle of the game. The undefeated top-ranked Buckeyes are led by Tressel. For him, the historical marker has some special significance.
Tressel said his mother, the late Eloise Tressel, served many years as president of the Berea Area Historical Society and was a former president of the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums. She felt so passionate about Ohio history she once stood in the middle of a similar parking lot, which had been paved over the home of the first family of Berea, until it was agreed that there would be a monument in its place, said Tressel.
The Ohio Historical Society has erected 1,141 markers around the state since 1957. Previously, only two were associated with the OSU and its athletic program. There is one in the honor of Olympian Jesse Owens and one for legendary football coach Woody Hayes, said OSU President Karen A. Holbrook.
"This is another wonderful initiative of the Ohio Historical Society to make us even more aware of Ohio History," Holbrook said. "We are very proud of the tradition Ohio State football has and its very long and deep roots in the history of Ohio overall. It is clearly a very large part of our past, and is certainly a huge part of our present."
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