Ohio. The Buckeye State. My family and I spent 5 winters there...in Cleveland. Made us strong, pale, fat, patient and football fans for life. You see, football in Ohio is the holy grail for all Ohioans, natives and transplants alike. It's a transformative experience for all who live or have lived there.
I'm not referring to the National Football League's Cleveland Browns or the Cincinnati Bengals, but, more importantly, grade school, high school and, most notably, college football. Ohio parents hook up their kids to a football IV while still in diapers and they become forever hooked. Don't believe me, check out the Dawg Pound at Browns games or the Horseshoe in Columbus on game day.
We thought we knew football. We didn't know jack about the game until we went to Cleveland. Once you're in Ohio, you become inculcated into the mania of football. You have no other option or distraction. Quite frankly, there isn't that much else to do. Sorry Cleveland friends. Football fills the stage of life and that's ok. Lake Erie is not much fun in November.
Football in Ohio is THE enduring faith of the faithful by which everything else is measured. In the fall, Friday nights are reserved for the high school games. Saturdays mornings kick-off the grade school games while the afternoons are spent in Columbus, Cincinnati, Kent, Toledo, Youngstown, Alliance, Springfield, Bowling Green, Oxford or wherever watching and rooting for the home college teams. Sunday afternoons are reserved for the Browns and the Bengals of the NFL. By Monday morning, win or lose,, you'd think you'd be "footballed out." No chance. No relief. Another week...another game...another refill of football IV pleasure, please.
One weekend, we saw a grade school game on Saturday morning at John Carroll University. That evening, we traveled down to the Rubber Bowl in Akron and saw a high school game between St. Ignatius and Canton-McKinley played a savage game in front of 25,000 screaming fans. And on Sunday, we saw the Browns lose dispiritedly to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the old Cleveland Stadium. The entire weekend's weather was "football weather." Gray. Damp. Cold. Ohioans love that. "Football should be played outdoors and in foul weather" is a buckeye chant. When it comes to football, two football hotbeds, Texas and Florida, have nothing on Ohio.
Because football in Ohio has such historical roots and is such a big deal, it should come as no suprise that Ohio has produced some of the greatest coaches and players in the history of the game. As far as coaches are concerned, here's a list of coaches both past and present who were either born in Ohio, went to school in Ohio or coached in Ohio... check this list out:
Past
Woody Hayes
Bo Shembechler
Paul Brown
Ara Parseghian
Lou Holtz
Earl Bruce
Don Shula
Chuck Noll
Urban Meyer
John Gruden
Chuck Kyle, St, Ignatius
Present
Jim Tressel, The Ohio State University
Les Miles, LSU
Bob Stoops, Oklahoma
Mike Stoops, Arizona
Bo Pellini, Nebraska
Gary Pinkel, Missouri
Jim Harbaugh, Stanford
Ron Zook, Illinois
Nick Saban, Alabama
These are huge names in the history of football and Ohio lays claim to all of them. Remember, this is a state with less than 4% of the US population but 15% of college football's major conference head coaches were born there...the most of any state by far.
So as you get comfy in front of the tube for the upcoming bowl season, you'll see Ohio's influence everywhere. There's Tressel in the sweater vest pacing the sidelines in the Sugar Bowl. Miles will be weaving his crazy witch doctor magic on the Cotton Bowl carpet. Stoops will be chewing out his players at the Fiesta Bowl. And, Jim Harbaugh will be glaring at some official(s) at the Orange Bowl. Remember this, they all have buckeye roots and that in and of itself is pretty astounding...yet predictable...they are Ohio folks. Football is in their DNA.
Finally, for those who may not know, guess where the Football Hall of Fame is? O-H-I-0. Canton.
Go Buckeyes beat the Razorbacks on January 4.
No comments:
Post a Comment