While attending school my sophomore year one of my roommates was in the pep band and several of her close friends were in the marching band. The longer I know her my love and fascination for the band (The Best Damn Band In The Land) and everything that goes along with it grows, plus I’m an alumni so it is natural for me to love the Buckeyes. I cannot picture going anywhere else for college. I believe that everything happens for a reason, though we do not know that reason till hours, days, years later.
Any time I am in another city, state, or country and I see something Buckeyes’ in the back of my mind I am yelling “GO BUCKS!”… to say it out loud is not always appropriate.
A couple years ago for Christmas I got several books about OSU and OSU football and unfortunately I am not a huge reader I have been slowly making my way through the books. The more I read them the more I understand my grandpa more. I see the similarities between him and Woody Hayes. My grandpa was a high school teacher, and coached football, track and country, and basketball. In his days he would slam a kid against a locker at half time if he messed up in a basketball game. He would grab a kid by the facemask of their football helmet and drag him across the field if the messed up in practice. His students in his class were scared to upset their teacher. My cousins and I were scared of him but loved him like no other. He was always fair. You may not agree with him but you understood – eventually. He placed a strong emphasis on respect, education, and doing the right thing. Woody Hayes demanded a lot of the same. Any football recruit he visited, Woody would be honest saying you may not start but you will get a degree. Woody also once said “You may not like me, but you will respect me” and his players did. I found in this spring when my grandpa passed away that not one player that I talked to did not respect him. They may not have always liked him but they later understood why he did things and respected him. Typically it was after their time playing for my grandpa that they liked him.
Jim Tressel holds a lot of the same values as Woody Hayes. It could be contributed to Jim’s dad who was also a fan of Woody’s and a good friend of his as well. Jim grew up knowing Woody. Coach Tressel, unlike Coach Hayes, shows very little emotion while coaching. He may be different in practice but during football Saturdays not often will you see Coach Tressel get animated. I absolutely love it and get teary eyed when I see it when at the end of a game Coach takes the team to the marching band and everyone, the crowd, the team, and Tressel sing Carmen Ohio.
You can bet that on my iPod, on my phone, and on my computer I have songs from The Ohio State Marching Band! A few weeks ago I drove to that state up north to watch one of my youngest cousins (Joey) play that team in their hole of a stadium and when that band came out I grabbed my phone and played ‘We don’t give a damn for the whole state of M…’ and while driving back to Columbus after the game and crossing the Ohio boarder it timed out, unintentionally, that ‘I wanna go back’ played and I just lost it laughing - that may have more to do with my traveling alone and I had been up since 5 a.m. that day and was about 12 hours later.
One of my best friends made the comment once 'Most girls its clothes, shoes, and purses. For you its Ohio State, Soccer, and clothes'
*My cousin Joe Hudson, Senior Linebacker for Miami (OH)
Joe in the middle with our family and a few friends around him. The day he played that school up north.
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