Traditions We Hate
Traditions are what make college football special. Traditions are what make college football unique.
There's Howards Rock at Clemson, Georgia's bulldog, the Sooner Schooner at Oklahoma, cowbells at Mississippi State, the 12th man at Texas A&M, all the great traditions at the University of Michigan ... we could go on and on. But the more we go on, it still won't include the so-called traditions at Ohio State. Frankly, they're just not good enough to be included in the pantheon of great traditions.
THE OHIO STATE MARCHING BAND AND SCRIPT OHIO
The public address announcer at Ohio Stadium intones before every game, And now, the most memorable tradition in college band history, the incomparable SCRIPT OHIO!
Memorable? Incomparable? Hardly. As we've noted elsewhere in this book, there are fatal flaws in the tOSU marching band calling itself The Best Damn Band In The Land, or TBDBITL for short, and for claiming that the script Ohio it forms on the football field at Ohio Stadium is the most memorable tradition in college football. The flaws are as follows:
1) It's not the best damn band in the land, not by a longshot.
2) It's not the most memorable tradition in college football, not by a longshot.
Listen, it's a nice little maneuver. And the band is tolerable. Any exercise in hyperbole beyond that only feeds into the braggadocio mentality that tOSU feels it must use to stroke its ego -- among other things -- about feeling like a second-class citizen when compared to Michigan. Truth be told, there would be no script Ohio if it wasnt for the University of Michigan.
In its own library, OSU writes: Script Ohio includes a revolving block O at the beginning, the curved formation of the word Ohio, and the dotting of the I by the sousaphone player. But where did the inspiration come from? According to the OSU Marching Band's history, band director Eugene Weigel said "Searching for ideas, I remembered the rotating sign around the Times Square Building in New York City, during my student days at Columbus, and also the sky-writing advertisements at state fair time." However, Weigel was also present in 1932 when the University of Michigan Marching Band took the field at Ohio Stadium. According to the student newspaper, The Michigan Daily: "Probably the most effective single formation was the word OHIO spelled out in script diagonally across the field in the double-deck Ohio stadium to the accompaniment of the O.S.U. marching song, Fight the Team. Other Michigan band formations were MICH, a block O, and a block M." Ted Boehm, OSU marching band member in 1935 and 1936, and considered an authority on Script Ohio, wrote that indeed, Michigan had performed the first Ohio in script. The University of Illinois marching band also performed a script Ohio at the OSU game in 1936, after the OSU band had already done one, with a number of musicians dotting the I. But are the scripts equivalent to the OSU Script Ohio? Boehm wrote: "We submit that the script aspect is only one part of the overall event that is signified by the name. Of course, the script is the one essential element, but there is more; all of the parts have merged, starting with the triple revolving block Ohio as the lead off formation, the peel-off into the script movement, the interlaced shoestring movement, the pervasive driving beat of the venerable Le Regiment de Sambre et Meuse, the dotted i and the concluding vocal chorus."
OK, that's what's known as splitting hairs. First, the tacit admission that Script Ohio actually came from Michigan, but then a quick 'Oh, but we dot the i and we form it out of a block O, so this is the true version.'
Riiiiiiight. Pull this other leg and it plays Jingle Bells.
Rich Thomaselli, Copyright 2011
my business copyright 2000 no animals were harmed in the making
