Rivalry Round-Up: Part I

This weekend I drove 6.5 hours west from Annapolis, MD to Columbus, Ohio to witness what ESPN refers to as "The Game". All my life, I've heard about this rivalry and how it is "the best in the nation". While I expect this single account of the game will do nothing to its reputation, I feel that my experience will give all of you an idea of what it is that some of you will never have the opportunity to experience, and most of you who wouldn't wanto to.

Friday Night:

We left USNA at 3:30 Friday afternoon, and made our trek across Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and finally into Ohio. The Appalachian Mountain Range was beautiful along the way. We reached Columbus at 10:00, and planned to make our first stop at my buddy's friend's house to pick up our tickets.

As we came into the campus, I really began to pay attention to my surroundings. We were in what looked like a housing project. I say this because of this proximity of the houses to each other and the disaster that was most of the yards. I asked my buddy if this was actually on campus. He looked at me dumbfounded, and said it was. The houses looked horrible. Beer cans and trash were all over the porches and front lawn.

Now, I'm a college student. While it's true, I haven't received a true college experience from the institute I came to. I understand this was the night before the biggest home game of the year, but this was ridiculous. To make matters worse, my buddy informed me that this was the norm and that “football was an excuse” for the way it looks now. I honestly couldn’t believe it.

The biggest surprise was our trip down fraternity row. As we pulled on the street, my buddy told me what it was and I was eager to see the houses. While they were big, they also looked like they hadn’t been kept up at all since the 80’s. Paint was peeling, stairs were missing from the porch, and the whole street looked fairly in disrepair. The best looking house made up for its standard condition by hanging a banner from the 2nd floor window that read in scarlet letters, “F*CK MICHIGAN”. That star was an uppercase “U” though. I couldn’t believe it. Fraternity row? I’m not in a fraternity, and have never had any association with one but always thought they held themselves to some type of standard.

We crashed at his sister’s house that night. He hadn’t seen her in a while, and wanted to catch up. We would need the sleep.

Saturday:

We woke up at 5:00 and wrapped up in as many layers as we could without looking completely ridiculous. Our first stop was The Pati”O”, a bar that opened at 4:30 on gamedays for their “Kegs and Eggs” party. We arrived at 6:00 and the place was packed out. Everyone was in scarlet and grey, and the place was hopping. We ordered drinks (I got their special, Apple Cider + Crown, which was incredible), and mingled among the fans. Anytime a Michigan fan walked in they were showered in obscenities. I thought that was kinda cool, but when 20 guys begin the chant “blue slut” and all point at a 5’0 girl who’s wearing a Michigan shirt, and is hanging out with some OSU friends, I quickly became disgusted.

We left the bar, and headed to a friend’s house for more “Kegs and Eggs”. This gathering was fairly mild mannered. Here’s a picture to give you your first visual.

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp33/SouthernComfort34/IphonePics005.jpg

Very nice girls, a puppy, and Gameday in the background; things were good.

We left the party, and started our walk towards the stadium. The trashy yards looked even worse in the sunlight. I suppose I wasn’t as disgusted though, because I was about to go to the game, and had drank enough to not care.

“The Shoe”, as it’s called, appeared out of nowhere. It had an “antique” feeling to it, which I appreciated. We walked up the ramp to our seats, and arrived just in time to see Script Ohio.

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp33/SouthernComfort34/IphonePics040.jpg

This was probably the most coordination that occurred on the field all day.

I understand no one wants a game recap. So, I won’t give one.

The stadium atmosphere was very impressive. At kick-off everyone yells,”OOOOOOO(kick)-H-I-O”. It sounds pretty good, especially with a lone soul yelling “Roll Tide Roll”. They also do a chant with every side of the stadium yelling out a letter, spelling Ohio. We sang a song with lyrics, “We Don’t give a Damn about the whole state of Michigan, cause we’re from Ohio.” Great atmosphere, loud stadium, amazing band, and the football was mediocre at best. The Shoe would be a great place for a close game, but I would NEVER bring my kid to a game. The language was insane. I sat on the opposite end of the student section, and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Everyone knows the “BullSh*t” chant after a bad call, right? Well the ENTIRE stadium joined in.

After the game, I witnessed the tailgaiting scene for the first time. I honestly could count about 200 tents from the stadium, and that is it! Most of those tents were commercial deals from alumni groups. Very meager.

That night, we went downtown. There were riot police everywhere! Ohio St had just beat the worst Michigan team in history and they were ready to riot. I didn’t feel safe while walking the crowded streets. I was constantly on alert. There was drunken belligerence everywhere. Not funny, ha ha, we are drunk and are making fools of ourselves, but man you might want to go to the hospital you can’t stand by yourself drunk. I was fairly disgusted. I saw three fights (all OSU vs. OSU), and four arrests in the two hours I was out. It really was on the brink of complete anarchy.

That about wraps this one up. If there are any questions, comments, concerns at all, please leave them in the comments’ section. I’ve obviously left out plenty of details, but I wanted to get this posted as soon as I could.

Next Week: The Iron Bowl