Buckeye Nuts Even Bewilder Browns Fan

By Steve Sirk
Columbus Wired Columnist
1/3/03, Columbus,OH

This weekend is The Big Game. It is the type of match-up that fans have dreamed about since the beginning of the season. It has seemed like an eternity since the The Good Guys have played in a game of this magnitude. And this very weekend, at long last, a national TV audience will get a chance to see if the scrappy team from Ohio can pull off another last-minute, heart-stopping, can’t-look-at-the-TV-but-can’t-look-away-from-the-TV victory, this time against a well-seasoned, heavily-favored opponent.

Yet here in Columbus, I am hard-pressed to hear much of anything about the Browns-Steelers playoff matchup. Instead, I am drowning in an ocean of every bodily fluid known to man as the Capital City drools, cries, wets its pants and...uhh...does other stuff...over the Fiesta Bowl, featuring the Ohio State Buckeyes and Miami Hurricanes.

Granted, the home team is playing for a national championship. And granted, that’s a big deal. But the problem in Columbus is that it’s not a big deal. It’s so much more than that. How the third-string center looks during calisthenics at spring practice is a Big Deal. (“Buckeye bench-warmer almost touches toes...Film at Eleven!”) When an aging Buckeye hypothesizes what Woody Hayes might have had to say about the current crop of Buckeyes as they enter camp, that’s a Big Deal. (“Ex-Buckeye bench-warmer tells Woody Hayes anecdote...Team Coverage at Eleven!”) By the time the season kicks off, we are waaaay past Big Deal territory. (“Buckeyes defeat BFE A&M 56-3...stay tuned for around-the-clock highlights, analysis and dim-witted features. Please note that Friends will not be seen at its normal time on Thursday night.”)

Growing up in Cleveland, I was raised as a Buckeye fan, even if college football was simply something to pass the time until the real games on Sunday. I remember cheering for the likes of Keith Byars, Chris Spielman and Tom Tupa. But ever since moving to Columbus, I just can’t take it seriously anymore. When you observe seemingly sane people treat a spring intrasquad scrimmage with the type of passion normally associated with the World Cup final, it is every bit as frightening as it is amusing.

Some of my first memories in Columbus include:

* In May of 1997, a man leaving his place in line at the post office, walking outside to a car parked in front with Michigan plates, placing his foot on bumper as if he were Washington crossing the Delaware, screaming “Goooooo Buuuuuuucks” at the top of his lungs while pumping both fists in the air, and then calmly walking back into the post office and taking his place at the end of the line as if nothing abnormal had happened.

* In October of 1997, listening to sports radio caller crying, and I mean literally sobbing, saying that the Buckeyes should have supplanted Penn State at the top of the polls because OSU went into Happy Valley and racked up 565 yards against the Nittany Lions. Even the unabashed homer on the radio had the sense to point out that the Buckeyes had actually lost the game, meaning it would be pretty absurd for the Buckeyes to supplant Penn State as #1. The caller was inconsolable, insisting there was an anti-Buckeye conspiracy. After all, they got 565 yards.

I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. But I realized that in the past, Columbus was merely a city located in Ohio State University. These folks had nothing better to do than obsess over the leisure time athletic activities of alleged “students.” But as the mid-90s came around, the city started expanding its professional sporting horizons. First came the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer, a team that routinely draws in the neighborhood of 17,000 fans per game to their eponymous soccer stadium. Then came the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets, a team that sold out 58 straight games in Nationwide Arena.

And yet, as much success as these two pro clubs have had, there are incidents that remind me that this is, and always will be, a provincial college town.

During Michigan Week, the Blue Jackets pulled off a thrilling last-minute victory over the St. Louis Blues. The Blues had pummeled the Jackets 7-1 earlier in the year, and the Jackets had been making a habit of losing close games at the end, so the last-gasp victory over one of the NHL’s best teams was a huge deal....not that you could tell from there post-game press conference.

Coach Dave King entered the interview room beaming with pride. Then he was blindsided by a Buckeye Blitz. “Did you feel the need to win a big game to steal some of the attention away from the Buckeyes?” “I know you’ll be on the road this weekend, but will you be able to watch the game?” “What advice do you have for the Buckeye players?” “Is this town big enough for two winning teams?” On and on it went. Columbus Dispatch hockey beat writer Michael Arace finally interrupted the onslaught by sarcastically asking King for his thoughts on the Miami Hurricanes’ upcoming game with Pittsburgh. Then, and only then, did Kinger finally get to answer some hockey questions.

The scene was equally dispiriting just a few nights ago. The legendary Mario Lemieux and his Pittsburgh Penguins were in town. A rockin’ sold-out crowd witnessed a great 5-2 victory for the struggling home team. After the game, the press conference consisted of...ummm...me, some dude from Delaware, the AP guy, Arace, and some anonymous radio person. Five people!

“What, do the Buckeyes have something going on?” King joked with a smile. “We’ve been struggling, and we finally get a huge win, and now there’s nobody here to cover it!”

If it’s enough to confound an Ohio guy like myself, it surely must break a Canadian’s heart.

And for the love of all things holy, don’t even get me started on MauriceGate. The he-said/they-said soap opera surrounding Maurice Clarett’s inability to attend a lifelong friend’s funeral has led to rampant speculation that Clarett is turning into “another Robert Smith.” Ahh, Robert Smith, the Euclid native who had the gall to place academics in front of football. When ordered to miss classes for football’s sake, Smith made sure there wouldn’t be any such conflicts in the future. He left the team so he could concentrate on his studies. So when Clarett blasted the football machinery and sacrilegiously asserted that some things, such as a friend’s funeral, are more important than athletics, he was labeled as “another Robert Smith.” Wear it like a badge, Mo.

But all week long the speculation has been running rampant. Will Maurice sulk through the game? Will Maurice distract his teammates? Or will this actually benefit OSU in the end by making Maurice play harder because of the chip on his shoulder? I’m surprised Elisabeth Kubler-Ross hasn’t been interviewed by all the local media outlets in an attempt to find out which of the five stages of grieving is most conducive for increasing yards after contact.

I guess I am just flummoxed by the fervor with which people down here affix their self-identity to the fortunes of a university’s football team. And that says a lot coming from someone raised in football-mad Cleveland. I am a huge Browns fan, and the team can have me wigging out like an agoraphobe at Woodstock. They can make me out-profane, in three hours, an entire season of The Sopranos. They can make me jump with unadulterated glee. Did I already mention they can make me so nervous that I’m reduced to Ozzy-esque levels of shakiness and incoherence as I watch? But when all’s said and done, I can still function as a human being. If Daylon McCutcheon had missed Sunday’s Falcons game due to the birth of his child, I wouldn’t disparage him for putting football second or wonder how fatherhood would affect his play. At Saturday’s Blue Jackets game, I will not pepper Dave King with questions about the effect William Green might have on Cleveland’s third meeting with the Steelers the next afternoon.

Despite my bewilderment at the disturbingly cult-like Ohio State psychosis that grips this otherwise pleasant city, I will be cheering for the Buckeyes as they try to cap an already magical season by dethroning the defending champs.

But win or lose, life will go on and the sun will rise again and I will wake up the next morning and check to see if my car happened to get set on fire. And then I will look forward to the totally neglected huge game of the weekend, Browns at the #%*#%* Steelers, appearing live on the big screen TV in the living room at 1:00pm on Sunday.

(Assuming Channel 10's Buckeye post-game show is over by then.)