Jim Brown

I was saddened to read today of the death of Jim Brown. He was an enduring figure for me and for many, both for his legendary exploits on the football field and for his leadership and fearlessness off the field.

In my view, Jim Brown was unquestionably the greatest running back in NFL history, and it isn’t really arguable. He routinely racked up 1,000-yard rushing seasons at a time when the NFL played far fewer regular season games and set the record of 1,863 rushing yards in a single season that endured for years. His career statistics are ridiculous: in only nine years in the league and 118 games, he rushed for 12,312 yards and 106 touchdowns and added 2,499 yards and 20 touchdowns as a receiver. His career average of 104.3 rushing yards per game remains an NFL record. With his size, power, and speed, he was perhaps the only player of his era who could play, and dominate, in the modern NFL.

But his achievements on the football field told only part of the story. Jim Brown was a force. In a great book, They Call It A Game, Bernie Parrish, a former Browns player, recounts Jim Brown coming into the room for the team’s breakfast on the morning of the 1964 NFL title game, the last time the Browns won the championship. “Jim Brown entered the room,” Parrish wrote, “and everyone felt his presence.” He had that kind of personal magnetism, and he took no guff from anyone. When the Browns owner insisted Brown come to training camp and leave the filming of The Dirty Dozen, Brown retired–at age 30, and at the peak of his career. Who knows what records he would have set if he had continued to play?

Jim Brown was active and outspoken about civil rights, racial injustice, and other causes, at a time when few athletes took that risk. He formed what would become the Black Economic Union to encourage black entrepreneurs. He wasn’t perfect, and he had a checkered personal life that was marred by accusations of violence against women. That part of his story shouldn’t be sugar-coated, but it also shouldn’t prevent people from admiring the positive contributions he made, on and off the field.

Just as Jim’s Brown presence was felt, his absence will be felt, too. He was 87.

The $6 Billion Team

Yesterday the parties to the transaction announced that a new ownership group would be buying the Washington Commanders, a National Football League team. The announced price tag for the transaction is a staggering $6.05 billion–a new record for the sale of a professional sports team. The proposed deal now goes to NFL owners for approval,

The Commanders have been pretty dismal lately. The team hasn’t won a playoff game in 18 years, and the franchise, and its owners, have been mired in controversy. Nevertheless, the eye-popping $6.05 million price tag for the team blows the previous record for an NFL team–set by the 2022 sale of the Denver Broncos for $4.65 billion–out of the water. If you’re an NFL owner, you’d presumably be highly motivated to approve the proposed sale, if only to establish a new comparable that can be cited when you decide you are ready to cash in and put your team on the market. If an underperforming team like Washington commands that kind of price, just imagine how much might be paid for more successful franchises, like the Kansas City Chiefs or the New England Patriots?

In case you’re interested, the group that is selling the Commanders paid $800 million for the Washington pro football franchise in 1999. In less than 25 years, the market value of their ownership interest has increased by a factor of more than six–and that doesn’t account for any amounts the ownership group has received from TV contracts, ticket sales, and merchandising deals during the period of their ownership. Seeing the market value of an investment increase more than six times is a pretty good return.

It’s not just NFL teams that have been gold mines at the auction block lately, either. The $6.05 billion price tag for the Commanders edges out the prior record for a professional sports team, which was $5.3 billion paid for the Chelsea F.T. club in the English Premier League last year. Billions of dollars also have been paid for teams in the NBA and Major League Baseball over the past few years.

So, there’s no doubt that professional sports teams have been a pretty good investment recently–but you wonder how long this can last, and whether we’re simply witnessing a huge sports franchise bubble, like the crazed spike in home purchases that helped produce the sub-prime mortgage collapse that led to the Great Recession, or the infamous Dutch tulip market bubble in the Netherlands in the 1600s. It’s not as if sports franchises have lots of tangible assets or obvious intrinsic value, and the continued success of the NFL, which has been bedeviled by concerns about concussions and general player safety problems, among other issues, is by no means assured.

At some point, will liability concerns cause regulation of the sport that changes it so significantly that its current broad appeal falls off–and the owners who paid billions to sit in the owners’ box and wear gear with team logos are left with a stadium, some player contracts, and logos for merchandise that no one wants to buy? If that happens, the ownership of the Commanders could end up being like possession of a fistful of costly and unwanted tulip bulbs in Amsterdam centuries ago.

The Buckeye Browns

I didn’t pay much attention to the NFL draft that happened over the last few days. Like so much else in the modern world, the draft has become so overhyped, puffed up, and glitzed up, anticipated for months with mock drafts and pointless predictions, that it is almost painful to watch. But I’m always interested in seeing who the Cleveland Browns have drafted, in hopes that one of these days the Browns will find the right combination of players to turn this storied franchise into a consistent winner, playoff contender, and–we can only hope–Super Bowl participant.

Yesterday the Browns drafted two Ohio State offensive linemen, Dawand Jones, shown above, and Luke Wypler. In addition, the Browns signed Buckeye defensive backs Ronnie Hickman and Tanner McCalister to undrafted free agent contracts. The foursome will join Buckeye alums Denzel Ward and Tommy Togiai on the Browns’ roster–at least until the training camp cuts begin.

The Browns’ moves yesterday are intriguing. Jones, an offensive tackle, is a man-mountain who stands 6′ 8,” weighs about 350 pounds, and has a tremendous wing span. His enormous size will come in handy in opening holes for Nick Chubb and Browns running backs, but the open question is whether he can develop the quickness and technique to deal with the many speedy edge rushers in today’s NFL. He’ll get a chance work on both of those skills in practice, when he lines up against Myles Garrett. Wypler, a 6′ 3″, 300-pound center, was steady as a rock in the middle of the Ohio State offensive line this past season. I can’t remember him making a bad snap or getting beat on a bull rush.

Neither Jones nor Wypler is expected to be a starter, but they will add depth to the Browns’ offensive line and, we hope, become seasoned pros. Hickman and McCalister, both safeties, showed flashes of NFL-level talents during their Ohio State careers, and the question will be whether they can demonstrate sufficient skills to make the Browns roster.

I like having Ohio State players on the Browns, and enjoy watching players who I followed during their college careers as they move to the professional level. It will be fun to follow these new Buckeye Browns and see whether they can help take the Brownies to the Promised Land.

Science And Sports

If, like me, you love football, you can’t help but wonder about the future of the game. With players continuing to get bigger, and faster, and harder-hitting, the game has become increasingly dangerous, and brutal hits and season-ending injuries are common. To cite just one example of the injury plague, the NFL saw an 18 percent increase in concussions, league-wide, in the 2022 season.

Concussions that can have devastating long-term consequences are an especially serious concern, and quarterbacks–the keystone player around whom the offense revolves–often bear the brunt of the injuries. As a result, you need to have a unique kind of mental toughness to play quarterback in the NFL, or in any major college football program.

The NFL has tried to deal with this problem by tinkering with the rules and penalties, but also by turning to science and technology. Yesterday the League announced that it and the NFL Players’ Association had approved the first quarterback-specific helmet, which is designed to provide better protection against the concussions that can occur when a quarterback’s head makes contact with the ground. Laboratory testing showed that the new helmet design performed 7 percent better in reducing impact severity in comparison to other helmets.

The key development, according to an executive for the company that designed the helmet, “is that it has a deformal outer shell, which means when you take an impact in any location on that helmet, it will deform or basically dent in that location to absorb the impact.” This development is just the latest sign of how quickly the science and technology of helmets is changing. The ESPN article linked above notes, for example, that due to the latest round of testing seven helmets that were highly recommended in 2020 have been downgraded to prohibited for 2023.

It will be interesting to see how fans will react to a dented helmet as a visible sign of just how hard a quarterback was walloped. We can also expect continuing changes in the protective gear players wear to protect their knees, ankles, shoulders, and various fragile ligaments and tendons. The reality, however, is that there is only so much you can do, because the human body isn’t designed to repeatedly endure hard hits from 320-pound players moving at top speed. Football is just a dangerous game.

A Sad Case Of Bengals Envy

Today the Cincinnati Bengals will play the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. I’m trying to decide whether to watch.

If the Bengals win, they will go to the Super Bowl for second year in a row and for the fourth time overall. That’s four more times, incidentally, than my team, the Cleveland Browns. The poor Browns are one of the tiny fraction of NFL teams that have never made it to the big game in the 50-year history of the Super Bowl.

The Bengals have a great team, led by an admirable, franchise quarterback who happens to be an Ohio boy: Joe Burrow. They have a complete offense and a good defense, and are well coached. And yet, only a few years ago, the Bengals stunk. Somehow, they managed to completely turn things around, accumulate talented players, hire a good coach, and become a dominant team. I can’t look at them without thinking: why, oh why, can’t that happen to the Browns? What weird issue seems to leave the Cleveland Browns seemingly permanently mired in mediocrity–or worse?

So, will I watch the game? Probably, since I’m an American guy and it is what American guys do on Sundays during football season. I’ll probably even find myself casually rooting for the Bengals, knowing that a Cincinnati victory would make friends who are Bengals fans happy. The Bengals are supposed to be the Browns’ AFC North rivals, but the sad reality is that the Browns aren’t really anyone’s rivals these days: we’re just too pathetic and pitiful to be a hated foe. And don’t tell me that I should switch my allegiance, either. I’m not and will never be a fair-weather fan; being a Browns fan is as much part of me as my left arm.

So I guess I’ll watch–knowing it will be a painful reminder of my own team’s record of absolute, mind-boggling, seemingly impossible futility. I’m bracing myself.

Another Lost Season

Another Browns season has ground to a dismal and disappointing halt. Their game today wasn’t broadcast on TV here in Columbus–which tells you something, because typically a divisional matchup of Cleveland versus arch-rival Pittsburgh, both of which have significant fan bases in Columbus, would always be on the air. But the Browns have been out of the NFL playoff race for a while, and the Bengals are ascendant. In the Columbus TV battle ground–as on the football field, this year–the Browns have come up losers. So I listened to the Browns’ season-ending loss to the Steelers on the radio.

In many ways, today’s game was a microcosm of the Browns’ pathetic season as a whole. The Browns had a lot of penalties. They suffered inexplicable defensive breakdowns, and kept giving up big plays in crucial, potential drive-ending situations. They turned the ball over on offense. And in the second half, when the game was in the balance, the Browns didn’t have it, and the Steelers did. Once again, a game slipped through their fingers.

Another playoff-free season is in the books, and the Browns have somehow frittered away another season where they have been blessed by having one of the very best running backs in the NFL in Nick Chubb, but just can’t seem to make the plays needed to be a winner. So teams that have stunk up the joint recently–like Jacksonville, and Miami, and others–have made the playoffs, while the Browns are, as always, on the outside looking in. I listened to today’s game with resignation, but also with a puzzling lack of passion about it. The never-ending futility of the Browns has just ground me down–and I suspect I’m not alone.

Will the Browns keep Kevin Stefanski as a coach after a less-than-mediocre 7-10 season in which the Browns lost multiple games they could and should have won? I’ve argued earlier this year that I’d give Stefanski another season, just to have some stability in the franchise, stop the coaching revolving door, and see whether Stefanski can make the Deshaun Watson experiment work. Now that the season is over, however, I find that I really don’t care one way or another. That’s a sad testament for a loyal fan.

Coming Up Just Short

The new year got off to a disappointing start for Ohio State fans as the Buckeyes came up just short against Georgia in the College Football Playoff last night. The Buckeyes and the Bulldogs traded haymakers all night in a classic football game between two powerhouses, and to the extent anyone doubted that Ohio State belonged, those thoughts should have been immediately dispelled by the team’s performance on the field. Unfortunately, a defensive mishap–an Ohio State defender fell down, leaving a Georgia wide receiver wide open for a long touchdown that let the Bulldogs quickly cut into a double-digit lead as the game wound down–and a missed game-winning field goal as time ran out knocked the Buckeyes out of the championship game.

After a heartbreaker like that 42-41 loss, it’s easy to focus on the end of the game, and one or two plays when the game hung in the balance. I think it is important to take a broader view, and when you do that Buckeye Nation should feel a little bit better. Ohio State has been decimated by injuries on offense, with their best receiver and starting running back out of the game. As the game wore on more pieces of the Ohio State offensive puzzle were lost, as running back Miyan Williams played only a few downs and otherworldly receiver Marvin Harrison, Jr. and tight end Cade Stover went out with injuries. (I’m not quite sure how the blow delivered to Harrison’s head on the play that knocked him out of the game, and in my view changed the course of the contest, wasn’t deemed targeting, or unnecessary roughness, or some other penalty, but I digress.) But even though the team was without many of its stars, new Buckeyes came in and kept at the Bulldogs. You have to give credit to the guts and determination of Ohio State, which fought on to the final whistle.

And two people who have been criticized by some members of Buckeye Nation–C.J. Stroud and Ryan Day–deserve special credit for the Buckeyes’ effort. Stroud was magnificent in the biggest game of the season, throwing for 350 yards and four touchdowns, playing error-free football, and making some crucial plays with his legs, including a scramble that put the Buckeyes in position to attempt the final field goal. He stood up under great pressure, moved in the pocket to gain additional time, and made pinpoint throws that shredded the vaunted Georgia defense. Anyone who has questioned C.J. Stroud’s toughness or will to win should feel ashamed of themselves in the wake of last night’s game. It has been a pleasure watching C.J. Stroud master the quarterback position. He will be missed.

As for Ryan Day, he showed that he has all of the qualities that you want in a college football head coach. He had his team prepared, fired up, and uncowed, and they executed when all of the marbles were at stake. He called a great offensive game, and he had a trick play up his sleeve–a fake punt–that would have produced a crucial first down but for an official allowing Georgia to call a time out just as the ball was snapped. Coach Day showed guts and fire, and the “next man up” mentality that Ohio State displayed in the face of crippling injuries shows that Coach Day and his staff can instill resilience, too. He clearly is an excellent coach, and Buckeye Nation should feel lucky to have him.

Ohio State always has three goals: beat Michigan, win the Big Ten, and win the National Championship. They did not meet those goals this year, but they showed a lot of character and played well in the glare of the spotlight.

A Redemption Tale

The world of literature is filled with redemption tales. From ancient mythology to the stories of the Bible, from medieval narratives to modern novels, the basic contours of a redemption story plot have proven to be irresistible: the hero does something terrible, is tormented by his misdeed and seeks atonement, and must face some incredible challenge in order to redeem himself and wipe the slate clean. Sometimes the hero successfully meets the challenge, and sometimes he doesn’t.

In Greek mythology, perhaps the most famous redemption tale is that of Heracles (Hercules, in its Romanized form). Hera, the queen of the gods, hated Heracles because he was the son of her husband Zeus, kind of the gods, and Alcmene, a mortal princess who Zeus had tricked and seduced. Heracles’ presence therefore was a constant reminder to Hera of Zeus’ extraordinary and never-ending infidelity and philandering. To punish Heracles, Hera caused him to go mad–and in the throes of madness Heracles killed his wife and children.

When the madness lifted and Heracles realized with horror what he had done, he sought guidance from the famous oracle at Delphi, which advised that he must go into the service of King Eurystheus in order to atone for the murders. The King then required Heracles to complete a dozen seemingly impossible tasks requiring immense physical strength, stamina, extraordinary fortitude, and intelligence and guile, besides. The tasks included slaying the nine-headed Hydra, cleaning the colossal (and filthy) Augean cattle stables in a single day, and bringing the three-headed dog Cerberus, the guardian of the gates of hell, up from the underworld. Heracles completed all of the labors and was thereby redeemed.

Tonight we will see how another redemption story plays out. The Ohio State Buckeyes seek redemption in the College Football Playoff semifinal game after a disastrous second-half performance against Michigan a month ago. To start on the road to redemption, the Buckeyes don’t need to slay the Hydra, but they instead must defeat the mighty and top-ranked Georgia Bulldogs, a three-headed powerhouse on defense, offense, and special teams. Rather than 12 labors, the Buckeyes will need to play a complete game of four quarters of tough, disciplined, hardnosed football, block and tackle, avoid penalties, execute under great pressure, go toe-to-toe with a great and talented team, and perhaps bring some guile and misdirection into play as well.

It’s a plotline as old as time, and we’ll be rooting that the Buckeyes–like Heracles–meet the challenges before them so that redemption lies ahead. Go Bucks!

The High Cost Of Cannings

It’s been another disappointing season for the Cleveland Browns this year and, as is always the case in sports, some fans are calling for the coach’s head. That means that Kevin Stefanski is on the hot seat, and the team’s owner will have to make a decision on whether to keep the coach or look to someone else.

ESPN reports that, at owners’ meetings this past week, the NFL presented owners with information about the staggering cost of now-fired coaches, general managers, and other front office executives. The total tab comes to $800 million, which is real money even in the fantasy world of NFL owners and the jaw-dropping pay packages for athletes and coaches. Some teams are shelling out big bucks for multiple firings in recent years; the New York Giants, for example, are paying two prior head coaches along with their current coach. And here’s the thing to keep in mind about those terminated coaches on the spreadsheet that the NFL shared with the owners: every one of them came to their job with great fanfare and with the promise of leading their teams to great success.

So, what about Stefanski? The record is decidedly mixed for the third-year coach. He took the Browns to the playoffs and won a playoff game in his first year, suffered through a bad 2021, and stands at 6-8, with a very remote chance at the playoffs, with three games to go this year. But here’s a statistic that should give Browns’ fans some pause: with the team’s win over the Ravens last Saturday, Stefanski is the winningest Browns coach since the team came back into the league in 1999. That’s because the Browns have had a ludicrous number of different head coaches during that period–ten head coaches and two additional interim head coaches. The Cleveland head coaching carousel is outpaced only by the number of quarterbacks that have started games for the Browns since the team returned to the league.

I’m in favor of keeping Stefanski, although I reserve full judgment until we get to the end of the season. The team still seems to be playing for him, I think his run-oriented approach is well-suited to a team that will play a number of foul weather games every year, and I believe his stolid demeanor is well-suited to Cleveland, too. This season has been a strange one, in view of the Deshaun Watson situation and the need to start a career back-up for most of the season. Even so, the Browns could be in the thick of the playoff race this year, but for the kinds of mishaps that seem to happen only to the Browns.

If there is one thing the Browns could use, it is stability. Assuming the team still plays hard during the next three games, I hope Cleveland’s ownership learns from that $800 million spreadsheet and decides to keep Stefanski.

Gaylord Perry

I was saddened to read earlier this month of the death of Gaylord Perry. A pitcher who won more than 300 games and who was later enshrined in the Hall of Fame, Perry was an intriguing character who was the one bright spot for beleaguered Cleveland Indians fans of the early ’70s.

Perry came to Cleveland in 1972 as part of a trade that sent “Sudden” Sam McDowell, a fireballing pitcher with an equally volcanic temperament, to the San Francisco Giants. McDowell was my favorite player, so I wasn’t happy with the trade–but Gaylord Perry quickly captured the hearts of Cleveland fans, including me. He somehow won 24 games for the Tribe in 1972, when the team was awful and won only 72 games, finishing well below .500. Perry’s ERA that year, in 342.2 innings pitched, was 1.92, and he threw an astonishing 29 complete games. If you do the math, Gaylord Perry accounted for exactly one-third of the Indians’ victories that year. His record and success for a crummy team was so remarkable that he won his first Cy Young Award. (He won a second time, in 1978, for the Padres.)

Perry was a workhorse for the Indians during some of the darkest, most hopeless years in the franchise’s history. He not only was a consistent 20-game winner–winning 24 games in 1972, 19 games in 1973, and 21 games in 1974–but he always put on a good show, too. The big question with Perry was whether he threw a spitball, and the does-he-or-doesn’t-he element was part of his appeal. His fidgety pitching routine featured pulling on the brim of his ballcap, tugging his uniform, and touching other areas where the illicit substances might be stashed, and it wasn’t unusual for opposing managers to ask the home plate umpire to go out to the mound and conduct a search, as in the photo above. Perry never admitted throwing a spitter, to my knowledge, but he certainly encouraged the speculation, knowing that getting into the batters’ heads was a strong step toward success.

When Gaylord Perry was on the mound, he put on a show. For Cleveland baseball fans of that era, that was about all we could hope for. Rest in peace, Mr. Perry!

Second Chances

After going 11-0, the Buckeyes laid an egg in the second half of The Game–giving up big plays on defense and failing to score a touchdown on offense. The result was a score that embarrassed both the team and all of Buckeye Nation. Losing to That Team Up North always hurts–and particularly this year, when Ohio State was playing at home and seemed to have so much promise.

But the breaks have gone the Buckeyes’ way in the days since that dismal loss. LSU lost, USC lost, and today the Buckeyes snuck into the College Football Playoff through the back door. The Buckeyes ended up number 4, and will play mighty Georgia in the semifinals. Since the game will be played in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, it’s basically a Georgia home game. Meanwhile, TTUN, ranked second, will take on plucky TCU in the other semifinal game. The Buckeyes played poorly against the Wolverines, especially on defense–although you have to give some credit to TTUN, which obviously has a solid team. As a result, no one is giving them much of a chance against the undefeated Bulldogs.

I beg to differ. I think this game will be a bit more interesting, perhaps, than people expect. Ohio State has been incredibly banged up on offense, with their top running backs, their top receiver, and one of their key offensive lineman out for The Game. Will those important missing pieces be back for the CFP? It would be nice to see a healthy Jaxon Smith-Njigba playing alongside Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka, and Miyan Williams and Trevyon Henderson running like they did earlier in the season. As good as Georgia’s defense clearly is, a healthy Ohio State with all of its weapons will be a handful. If all of these guys play, and Ohio State’s offensive line is intact again, this game will offer the irresistible force versus immovable object/OSU offense versus Georgia defense matchup that people have been eager to see for several seasons now.

The bigger question will be the Buckeyes’ defense. Georgia has a good offense, but the Buckeyes’ problems in The Game were self-inflicted, with lots of missed tackles and big play breakdowns. Can coffee-guzzling defensive coordinator Jim Knowles figure out how to fix those problems? Those of us who watched Ohio State teams of days gone by, when the Buckeyes played rock-ribbed defense, chafe at the blunders and poor fundamentals on D. I think the key will be whether the Buckeyes can play some tough D in a big game.

As for C.J. Stroud–well, he was very gracious after the defeat in The Game, and showed some real character. I think he will take advantage of his second chance and play a good game against the Bulldogs. I’m not saying the Buckeyes will win, but I think this game will be a lot more competitive than people think, especially if Ohio State is healthy.

This game will make New Year’s Eve a much better holiday than just sitting at home watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

Bridging The Great Soccer Divide

Today the U.S. Men’s National Team plays a crucial match against Iran in the 2022 World Cup. If the Americans win, they advance beyond the group stage into the knockout stage and keep their long-shot hopes for the World Cup alive. If they lose or tie, they are out. Since the U.S. team has played to two draws in its first two games, they face a significant challenge, and because their opponent is Iran there are obvious geopolitical overtones.

I’m not a soccer fan, but I am a fan of my country, so I watched the U.S. game against England that ended in a scoreless tie. After the match, some loudmouth commentator on another channel said that the 0-0 tie (“nil-nil” in soccer lingo) was boring, and that’s why more Americans don’t pay much attention to soccer. The guy’s comments were part of a weird dynamic that has bedeviled the U.S. soccer scene for as long as I can remember: non-soccer fans make fun of the injury-faking and the low scores and argue that the sport is a total snoozer, and soccer fans respond that the non-soccer fans are basically knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing cretins who can’t appreciate the subtleties and strategies of a game that, incidentally, the rest of the world absolutely loves.

I didn’t think the U.S.-England match was boring. The U.S. has a very young team, and the fact that they played heavily favored England to a draw and kept their chances of advancing alive was a great result for them. They don’t seem to go in for the ridiculous play-acting on the injury front, either, which I appreciate.

I clearly don’t get all of the nuances of world-class soccer, but it doesn’t take much watching to appreciate concepts like reversing the field and trying to clear things out for breakaway runs and passes. I’m still working on the penalties, what results in corner kicks, and other elements of the game, but I can watch a soccer match without understanding those issues just like I can watch a hockey game without knowing what “offsides” is or the significance of the red line and blue line. A low-scoring soccer match involves its own special brand of tension where you know one mistake could be fatal–just like in a low-scoring baseball game. And you can’t help but admire the energy, athleticism, and skill of elite players, who run hard throughout the match, can bend and place a ball with amazing precision, and then can mash it with astonishing force. Soccer may not feature crushing hits or thunderous dunks, but it definitely offers a lot to admire.

I’ll be at work today and won’t get a chance to watch the U.S. match against Iran, but I’m definitely hoping that the U.S. finds a way to win and advance. I’m also hoping that, if they do so, we can put this perversely American argument about soccer to bed, once and for all. Both sides of the great soccer divide need to understand that not every sport needs to appeal to every person, and there’s no value in denigrating either soccer or those people who just don’t enjoy it. Live and let live, sports fans!

Go U.S.A.!

Striking The Thirteenth Letter

This week, the thirteenth letter of the alphabet is not to be seen in Ohio’s capital city. All around town, it has been crossed out on street signs, billboards, and business signs–even scooters, as shown by the scooter above that we saw near Goodale Park earlier this week. We excise old #13 wherever it is found because we don’t want to see anything that represents That State Up North this week.

The striking of the thirteenth letter is one of the newer traditions in the old rivalry. I don’t recall it happening when I was a student at Ohio State in the ’70s. Back then, people settled for things like “Screw the Blue” car stickers and got a chuckle out of TTUN toilet paper. But then a person decided that the 13th letter was just too offensive to be endured during this particular week, and the habit caught on like wildfire. Now it’s just another part of the tradition of the greatest rivalry in sports.

After today, the 13th letter will be invited back into the alphabet and we’ll be able to use it again. That’s a good thing, too–it was challenging to write today’s blog post without using it!

Go Bucks!

My First Visit To “The Game”

In the spring of 1971, my family moved from Akron to Columbus, where Dad began working as the general manager of a car dealership. He quickly recognized that everyone in Columbus, regardless of their politics, religion, or general viewpoint, could agree on one thing–Ohio State football–and he assembled a mass of season tickets to Ohio State games so he could build relationships by handing out the prized ducats to the dealership’s business partners and other managers. Fortunately for the kids in the family, Dad had enough tickets to allow us to go to the games, and I went to my first Ohio State game in the fall of 1971.

Before then, I had only been to high school football games. In Ohio, high school football is a big deal, but going to Buckeye games at Ohio Stadium was different by orders of magnitude. The massive gray stadium, the huge crowd of more than 80,000 roaring fans, the band, and the cheerleaders all made home games at Ohio State an entirely different experience. I don’t remember who Ohio State played in the first game I attended, but I was hooked immediately. And even though the Buckeyes weren’t very good that year, Ohio State fans knew that the season could be salvaged if the Men of the Scarlet and Gray could just knock off Michigan, at Ann Arbor, in their end of the season match-up. Michigan came in as a heavy favorite, but Ohio State gave them a very tough game. The Buckeyes fell just short, losing 10-7, in a game most people remember because Ohio State coach Woody Hayes, incensed that the officials didn’t call pass interference at the end of the game, tore up a yard marker and had to be physically restrained by coaches and players.

That set the stage for 1972, when the game would come to Columbus. Both Ohio State and Michigan were good that year, and it was clear that The Game would decide which team would be the Big Ten champion. I was so excited about going to The Game that I had trouble sleeping the night before and got up even earlier than normal. At Ohio Stadium, the atmosphere was electric–far more charged than at a regular Ohio State game–and the roars of the crowd when the Buckeyes made a great play were deafening. I sat in the closed end of the Stadium, right next to the scoreboard, using a single ticket that Dad had picked up. The game was a rugged, hard-hitting defensive battle, as the Ohio State-Michigan games traditionally were in those days, but the Buckeyes pulled out the win, and the joyous celebration in the Stadium when the game ended and the victory bell rang was just short of a riot. I’m pretty sure the end of that game was the first time I was hugged by an absolute stranger.

Being a sports fan has its ups and downs–Cleveland sports fans, regrettably, have lots of bitter experience with the downs–but when your team wins a big game against its archrival, the surging feeling of absolute elation is impossible to describe. I still remember that feeling from that first Ohio State-Michigan game, on a crisp autumn day in 1972. It’s hard to believe that it was 50 years ago.

“The Week” Begins

Today begins the seven-day period that is known in these parts as “The Week.” It’s the period of time right before the Ohio State Buckeyes strap on their gear and take on That Team Up North in what is known as “The Game.”

This year, as in so many years in the past, The Game is poised to be a classic. Both Ohio State and TTUN won nail-biters yesterday, with the Maize and Blue pulling out a last-minute win at home over a tough Illinois team and Ohio State surviving a road battle against a Maryland squad that pulled out all the stops. It was one of those days that make college football so great, as many of the top-ranked teams were pushed to the limit and the playoff hopes of one–the Tennessee Volunteers–were left crushed on the field in South Carolina.

But both the Buckeyes and the Wolverines survived and kept their unbeaten records intact. Both are 11-0, and both have played games were they have looked unbeatable and games where they looked good, but not great. Both teams have lots of talent, and both teams have been dealing with injuries. But we know one thing for sure: one team’s spotless record and great season is going to be marred next Saturday, while the other team will survive and celebrate and advance to the Big Ten Championship Game and, perhaps, the College Football Playoff beyond. But the Big Ten Championship Game and the playoffs aren’t the focus right now–instead, the focus is exclusively on beating the arch-rival and hated (but respected) foe. Nothing is more important, and there is no looking beyond.

This is a familiar scenario for Buckeye fans, and those of us who have followed the team for decades and have Buckeye football in our family DNA. That’s why it is fitting that The Game always happens around Thanksgiving. For many families, including mine, Buckeye football and The Game is as much of family tradition as the turkey and stuffing and the cranberry relish that still maintains the shape of a can. And when another version of The Game rolls around, and both Ohio State and That Team Up North are top-ranked and having terrific seasons, we think about the Buckeye fans in our families, the great games, joyous victories, and crushing heartbreaks we experienced with them in the past, and the tailgates and the scarlet and gray outfits and the thoughtful and earnest pre-game analysis and the killer Bloody Marys and the riotous post-game revelry when Ohio State notches a win against those arrogant bastards from our neighboring state.

So The Week is here, and we can feel, again, that familiar nerve-tingling anticipation that always arrives at this time of year–only heightened now, with so much on the line. And we know that somewhere, those Buckeye fans in our families will be watching, with Woody and Bo and the rest of Buckeye Nation and the TTUN fans, as these two great programs prepare to square off for another chapter in the Greatest Rivalry In Sports.