Credit to Scout.com’s Buckeye Sports Bulletin writer Adam Jardy and his original story, “Playing for all the Marbles”. His archive can be found here.
Most of us have played organized sport at one time or another, at all different levels of skill and dedication.
When it comes down to game time, we all know the importance of finding some sort of motivation, a place within ourselves if you will, to push us to our greatest ability.
It may be at a place like Michigan, where Mike Barwis delivers his raspy, adrenaline pumping, profane filled message to send you into an emotional frenzy.
Maybe you prefer traveling back in time and going old school, such as Notre Dame’s legendary coach Knute Rockne and his famous speech, or perhaps a pep-talk in the form of those delivered by Lou Holtz gets you going.
Maybe you pop in the ear phones of your iPod and blare your favorite music. You might watch one of your favorite sports flicks, such as Any Given Sunday and Al Pacino’s Peace by Inches speech.
How about the necessary pre-game group prayer to calm the nerves and help you focus?
All of these practices have proven over time that inspiration and motivation come from all sorts of different techniques and methods, and that everyone has their own individual preferences
Well here’s a new one for you: Marbles. Yes, that’s right, Marbles.
After losing to Florida in a blowout in 2006, Jim Tressel made sure his team didn’t forget that game. He changed all of the codes to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center to 4114, signifying the final score of the Florida debacle.
As the season went on, Coach Tressel pushed an “us-against-the-world” mentality, to no avail as LSU shattered the Buckeye’s championship dreams.
This year, Tressel took a much more subtle approach, but one with resounding symbolism: Marbles.
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