I Love Ohio State/I Hate Michigan

By Dale Ratermann and Steve Greenberg

Presented in a unique reversible-book format, this is the ultimate Ohio State University fan guide to the passionate and historic rivalry between the University of Michigan Wolverines and the Buckeyes. Full of interesting trivia, hilarious history, and inside scoops, the book relates the fantastic stories of legendary Buckeyes coaches and star players, as well as the numerous villains who have represented the maize and blue over the years. Like two books in one, this completely biased account of the rivalry proclaims the irrefutable reasons to cheer the Ohio State Buckeyes and boo the Michigan Wolverines and shows that there really is no fine line between love and hate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Sep 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781617495663

Book preview

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To the memories of Coach Woody Hayes and my good friends and childhood heroes, Larry Zelina and Neal Colzie. Each packed such zeal for this rivalry that it stoked my fervor to an even greater pitch. Great Buckeyes, may they rest in peace. Also to Coach John Johnson, who, for a West Virginia native, is as Scarlet and Gray as they come. —S.G.

For Sanchez J. Jiminez, my trusted associate, who provided counsel deep into the night as we wrote this book. —D.R.

Contents

Foreword by John Johnson

I Love Ohio State

Introduction: Why We Love The Buckeyes

1. We Love Beating Michigan

2. We Love Beating Everyone

3. Players We Love

4. Traditions We Love

5. Coaches We Hate

6. We Hate Ann Arbor and Their Fans

7. We Love Ohio, Columbus, and Our Fellow Fans

Ohio State Tidbits

I Hate Michigan

1. Games We Hate

2. Players We Hate

3. Traditions We Hate

4. Stories We Hate

5. Coaches We Hate

6. We Hate Ann Arbor and Their Fans

Michigan Tidbits

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Foreword by John Johnson

Winning with Woody Hayes

I first met Steve Greenberg several years ago when I was writing my book, Tyson-Douglas: The Inside Story, and looking for a publisher for a first-time author. Although that book was primarily about my experience as the manager of Buster Douglas during his triumphant upset of Mike Tyson, several chapters were devoted to my time as a graduate assistant football coach at Ohio State from 1972 to 1975, during the heyday of the Woody Hayes–Bo Schembechler rivalry. As Steve and I, and coauthor Bill Long (himself a former OSU quarterback), worked on the Tyson-Douglas book together, we often marveled at the parallels between the two experiences. I had stood on the sideline next to Woody Hayes in college football’s greatest rivalry during arguably its most memorable era. I had been in the locker room during those tense, waning moments before the Buckeyes ran out of the tunnel to face the mighty Michigan Wolverines, witnessing firsthand as Woody drove his fist into the metal lockers time after time to emphasize to everyone how much the game meant, shouting: We are going to kick Michigan’s ass! And I had seen tears stream from the eyes of John Hicks, Archie Griffin, and Brian Baschnagel after we had beaten the school up north to win the Big Ten title and the Rose Bowl berth that came with it.

Fifteen years later, as Buster Douglas and I walked confidently to the ring in the Tokyo Dome as 42–1 underdogs against the ferocious, unbeatable Iron Mike Tyson, I could feel the intensity and hear the words of Coach Hayes (who had passed away three years earlier), which were so indelibly part of my psyche: John, don’t listen to those bastards that doubt you, who want you to lose…you and Buster have prepared for this day all of your lives. The team that hits the hardest, the longest, and makes the fewest mistakes is going to be victorious. And damn it, John, that team is going to be you!

I had preached these words to Buster over and over during our six years as coach and athlete, and I knew he was ready to shock the world. Ten rounds later, with Tyson on his knees in front of our corner, famously grasping for his mouthpiece, I looked to the sky (actually, the ceiling of the Tokyo Dome) and with tears streaming down shouted, Coach, we did it! We did it! Looking back on both of these remarkable times in my life, Steve and I realized the inextricable connection between them: the second could not have happened without the first. Without my experience as a low-on-the-totem-pole graduate assistant during the OSU-Michigan rivalry, I could never have helped prepare Buster Douglas for the magnitude, intensity, and, yes, visceral hatred for the opponent that was necessary to pull off the greatest upset in the history of heavyweight boxing.

Now, as I look back some 20 years after Douglas-Tyson, and 35 years after my last game on the sideline at Ohio State, I realize how much The Game is still a major part of who I am. This past November, Buster and I were invited to participate in an OSU-Michigan Celebrities for Diabetes charity dinner event hosted each year by Hicks, the former OSU All-America tackle. Former players from both OSU and Michigan spoke about the meaning of the rivalry. It is always an outstanding event on the eve of The Game, and last year’s event—which honored the memory of Jack Tatum—had former Michigan stars John Wangler, Jamie Morris, and Bob Thornblade representing the Maize and Blue; and William White, Tim Anderson, and Ron Maciejowski representing the Buckeyes. Each of these former greats spoke eloquently (and often humorously) about the rivalry and recounted the passion with which Hayes and Schembechler prepared for each other. During his presentation, Thornblade looked down the dais at the OSU players and said, Gentlemen, I see White, Anderson, and Maciejowski, and I think we could take you. But then I look down and see Buster Douglas at the table, and that just isn’t fair! The comment drew quite a laugh from the crowd, and though I never played a down for either team, I felt as if I had just thrown the winning touchdown pass in the Horseshoe.

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Woody Hayes roamed the sideline at the ’Shoe as Ohio State football’s head coach from 1951 to 1978, leading the Buckeyes to 13 Big Ten titles and three national championships. Photo courtesy of Getty Images

I still proudly wear my Big Ten Championship and Rose Bowl rings on one hand, and my World Heavyweight Boxing Championship ring on the other. I have three pairs of Gold Pants hanging from my neck that I cherish more and more with each passing day. When people ask me about these items, I always tell them that because of what I learned from Woody Hayes—discipline, intensity, preparation, and unfailing belief in oneself—I had no doubt that Buster Douglas would one day be heavyweight champion of the world. Buster was my personal Ohio State, wearing the white trunks with scarlet trim, representing all that was good and right in the world; Tyson, without question, was Michigan, wearing the dark trunks and representing the bitter enemy from up north.

On a shelf in my office sits a copy of Woody Hayes’ book, You Win With People. I have it opened to display the front page, where Coach Hayes autographed it to my late father when he lay dying in the hospital. The inscription: To Mr. Dayton Johnson—You have a son, John, of whom you can be very proud. It is one of my greatest honors and possessions. These days, as I watch the Buckeyes take the field against Michigan each year, I can’t help but think there is a young graduate assistant somewhere on the sideline having the same feelings that coursed through my veins more than 35 years ago. And I know that Coach Hayes is looking down, proud that the Buckeyes coaches are out there following in his footsteps—inspiring young men and kicking Michigan’s ass.

I know that the most important thing in Coach Hayes’ life, by far, was to beat that school up north, and he instilled that in everyone who ever was involved with him. It sticks to everyone and everything. There is no better rivalry in sports, no victory so relished, no defeat so reviled.

One day, as I was arriving at my gym, one of my new fighters got out of his car. What I saw enraged me. The kid was wearing a sweatsuit with an M prominently displayed on it. I truly was beside myself. I asked him how much he paid for it, and he said it cost him $40. I gave him $100 for the sweatsuit on the spot. It had rained that day, and I took the garment, put it in a rain-filled mud puddle, and jumped up and down on it several times. I then got in my car and drove back and forth across it several times, and then I threw it in the trash. People think I’m crazy when it comes to this stuff; if you witnessed my display, that probably would confirm it for you. But I take great comfort in the fact that somewhere up above Coach Hayes was smiling down on me.

That was no act. I’m not in the habit of tossing $100 down the drain. It was purely and simply a reflection of how heated this rivalry is and how hated Michigan is around these parts. We just have to beat them every year; losing is unacceptable and distasteful. In a perfect world, Gold Pants would be the perfect season-ending gift. Every single year. Forever.

—John Johnson

Introduction: Why We Love The Buckeyes

You’re going to Michigan? Why you dumb, no-good sonofabitch! You go right ahead. You go there, and when you play against Ohio State, we’ll just see whether you gain a yard against us all day. We’ll break you in two.

—Woody Hayes (having lost a recruit to that school up north)

You’ve more than likely heard or read every cliché about the Ohio State–Michigan football rivalry. Here are two, courtesy of myriad radio and television announcers down through the years: You can throw out the record books when these two teams get together and What happened this season really doesn’t matter to either team as long as your team wins today. As each football season dawns (does it ever have a sunset?), this game—The Game—is always a focal point because more often than not it will be a make-it-or-break-it scenario for a coach’s longevity (hello, Earle Bruce, John Cooper, Lloyd Carr, Rich Rodriguez) and/or his team’s postseason bowl fate. It possibly could mean more in Columbus than in Ann Arbor (that whore), where the largest cash crop is marijuana. They always want to make a point about something up there, but they, uh, forget—they do love Snickers dipped in organic hummus, though.

On our side, the hatred runs deep, almost as deep as that harbored by the late and very great Wayne Woodrow Woody Hayes. You’ve heard this: Woody was on a recruiting trip up north, his car was critically low on fuel, and rather than filling it up at one of their gas stations, he and his traveling companion, assistant coach Ed Ferkany, pushed on toward the Ohio line. Said Woody, Keep going! I don’t spend five lousy cents in the state of Michigan. We’ll make it to the Ohio line if we have to get out and push. In truth, we both have purchased fuel in Michigan; we don’t like to push our vehicles. Other than that, Michigan can kiss our scarlet-and-gray asses!

So when the folks at Triumph Books offered the chance to write this tome, we flashed back to our high school years. One of us lived in Columbus at the time, and he possibly…perhaps…might have…maybe could have been involved in chicanery that involved the clandestine theft from a porch of one of those butt-ugly Michigan flags belonging to some sucker with the onions to fly it. You know the one—dark blue with an upside-down yellow W on it. Dude had the audacity to fly that rag in our city during the week of The Game. That was a lot of years ago. It was a dark and stormy night, and empty 3.2-beer cans might have been strewn all over the front yard of a neighboring house, where a party the night before might have raged under the direction of the Clearasil crowd. We might have been getting pumped up for another clash of the titans the next day. It’s very possible the blue-and-yellow flag may have been placed dead center on the pavement of a quiet, tree-lined, suburban street in Columbus that evening and had some skunky 3.2-beer poured onto it. And it’s possible a certain someone with a strong connection to us backed his parents’ Chrysler New Yorker onto the flag, with the rear tires just beyond the upside-down W, and repeatedly laid patches on it. When rubber met cotton, that’s about all it took. It was, as they say, poetry in motion, folks.

Needless to say, the neighborhood was awakened. All H-E-double-hockey-sticks was being raised in the name of perpetrating what we know to be an impossible physical act on a despised football team and everyone associated with it. Poor flag never had a chance. The flag’s owner, to our knowledge, never gathered the additional onions to fly another one. He probably packed the bowl of his Meerschaum pipe, smoothed a stray wrinkle from his cashmere cardigan, and plowed back into his fireside favorite, What It Means to Be a Wolverine. It’s kind of like the definition of the meaning of life—no one knows.

As for we Buckeyes, yeah, we’ve taken our lumps in this series and trail it badly, 44–57–6, but history is rewriting itself. (Did we just write that?) Look, as we tickle the keyboards for this project, it has been well more than 2,600 days since the guys up north beat us and will be 2,919 when we play them up north on November 26, 2011. Actually, Mee-chigan has been little more than a minor bit of turbulence along a glorious Buckeyes flight in recent years. Blowouts for our side are common. We out-recruit, outcoach, and outsell them by a country mile. The tables are turning. Matter of fact, find us one with a stupid candelabra on it at a tailgate party up there, and we’ll show you how they turn. It’s not the friggin’ symphony on the prairie, Skippy, it’s The Game, and we own your asses these days. We’ll pass on the baked brie, Merlot, and the crudités. Send over a couple brats and beers, damn it!

Now that we have clarified the back half of the book with all manner of venom spewed, let us tell you why we love Ohio State. Follow along: the Buckeye Battle Cry, Across the Field, Heisman trophies, All-Americans, Buckeye Leaves (proper noun in Columbus, as it should be), the Victory Bell (sweetest tonal quality ever), the Gold Pants (another proper noun, as it should be), Mirror Lake, Buckeye Grove, the Senior Tackle (same grammar lesson), Tunnel of Pride (ditto—this grammar crap is getting monotonous, so ride with us for just another moment, please), Captain’s Breakfast, Hang on Sloopy, Skull Session, O–HI–O, Carmen Ohio (who, most definitely, as ath-a-letes would say, is not a whore), and Script Ohio (after this book is released, it’s a dead-solid lock we’ll be asked to dot the i), among many, many others. Patience! You’re about to find out.

1. We Love Beating Michigan

every victory against that school up north is a game we love. Sometimes an otherwise disappointing season can become worthwhile when it concludes with a thumping of the blue and yellow. But some victories are just more lovable than others—whether the game itself is simply more exciting or the drama of the situation makes the winning that much sweeter. Whatever the reason, here are the top 15 Buckeyes victories in the most storied series in college football.

No. 1: 2006

It was billed as the Game of the Century. Undefeated and No. 1–ranked Ohio State vs. undefeated and No. 2–ranked Michigan. It marked the first time in the illustrious series that the teams entered the game ranked No. 1 and 2 in the nation. At stake: the Big Ten championship and a likely spot in the BCS Championship Game.

Thursday night before the game, Bo Schembechler delivered his annual pep talk to the Wolverines. The next morning, the 77-year-old Hall of Fame coach collapsed and died. The game went on with a then-record crowd of 105,708 at Ohio Stadium. A pregame video tribute to Schembechler was played on the stadium scoreboard as the PA announcer read, Michigan has lost a coach and patriarch. The Big Ten has lost a legend and icon. Ohio State has lost an alumnus and friend.

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Quarterback Troy Smith looks to pass against Michigan in Ohio State’s 42–39 victory on November 18, 2006. Photo courtesy of Getty Images

Michigan took the opening kickoff and drove 80 yards to take a 7–0 lead. It was their only lead of the game. The Buckeyes scored three unanswered TDs and took a 28–14 advantage into halftime. Midway through the third quarter, Michigan pulled to within 28–24, but Antonio Pittman took the ball for a 56-yard touchdown run to put the Buckeyes ahead 35–24. The Wolverines’ Mike Hart scored his third touchdown of the day early in the fourth quarter to cut OSU’s lead to 35–31. But, with 5:38 left in the game, the Buckeyes’ Brian Robiskie caught a 13-yard TD pass from Troy Smith to make it 42–31. Michigan scored again with 2:16 remaining and converted its two-point try to make it a three-point game at 42–39, but the Buckeyes were able to run out the clock.

Smith threw for 316 yards and four TDs, Ted Ginn Jr. caught eight passes for 104 yards, and Antonio Pittman ran for 139 yards on 18 carries. There were a lot of good playmakers out there today, said Ohio State coach Jim Tressel. It was a fast-break game the whole way.

Michigan coach Lloyd Carr said, We gave up too many big plays. Those are mistakes in a game like this, in any game, that will get you beat.

Ohio State went on to play in the National Championship Game