Ohio State Football: Best Game Day Traditions, Thurman Family Style

Game Day with the Thurmans

Dave Thurman (10:13 a.m.)

With less than a week until Ohio State's opener against Marshall, it is time to get geared up for the best time of the year, a three-month span filled with an abundance of sights and sounds unlike anything else on the planet. 

Buckeye football is so much more than just a game; it is truly a spectacle: an event that sends chills up and down the spine. 

Every fan of the scarlet and gray has their own favorite tradition, and just for fun, I have polled our family of four, as we think back to twenty years of Buckeye games.

-Courtney: The baby of our family is about to turn 21, and she can't remember a time when she didn't attend or watch OSU games. 

Being a bit of a fashionista, it is no surprise that she says her favorite part of Ohio State game day is getting dressed in Buckeye gear, complete with peel off tattoos on her cheeks. 

She also loves the tailgating as we try and arrive plenty early, listen to a CD of TBDBITL, and enjoy some delicious pregame food.  Don't think she doesn't enjoy the game, though. 

Courtney can tell you every position on the field and what formation they are in, as well as other nuances of the game. 

And last year as we were tossing the pigskin before a game, an OSU fan walking by shouted, "Hey, she passes better than Pryor!"

-Susan: Momma is a born and bred Buckeye who went to Princeton High School north of Cincinnati, which sports scarlet and gray colors themselves. 

She is also a musician, though, and so she loves the band and gets pretty fired up when they play the Buckeye Battle Cry.  Still, her favorite game day tradition is the O-H-I-O cheer. 

One story comes to mind. We were in Bloomington, to watch the Buckeyes take on the Hoosiers, and they had just anointed their stadium "The Rock." 

Each person entering that day was given a slip of paper with instructions to start a R-O-C-K chant.

Well, the home crowd gave it a valiant effort, but as soon as the cheer started it was literally drowned out by O-H-I-O.  The poor Indiana fans were defeated before the game even began.

-Drew: There aren't many fans who get more excited than Drew, although his move to Phoenix in 2009 makes it kind of hard to attend games. 

He reports that his favorite tradition is the singing of Carmen Ohio after the game, and he has known the words since he was a toddler.

My favorite Drew story, however, occurred at an Illinois game in Champaign, in 2000.  The game was tied with a couple seconds left, and Ohio State was set to attempt a field goal to win it. 

We were sitting in a sea of orange-clad Illini fans, some of whom were pretty drunk on a frigid, windy day.  Illinois called three straight timeouts to try and ice Dan Stultz (you could still do that back then). 

After each timeout the fans became more vocal, taunting us, fully confident the kick would be missed. 

Well, Stultz put it through the uprights, the clock hit zero, and Drew turned around to the Illinois fans, and with all the bravado of a 13-year-old kid yelled "Face!"  I grabbed his arm, and we ran down the steps and out of the stadium in record time. 

-Dave: As for me, the family patriarch, I suppose I am a traditionalist, and so my favorite game day tradition has to be Script Ohio and the dotting of the "i."

In fact, I confess it has been known to put a tear in my eye.  I go for the game itself, but it wouldn't be near as much fun without the band, the cheerleaders, and Brutus Buckeye. 

Just writing about it gets me so excited, I will probably have trouble sleeping tonight.

So what about you?  Is it the Skull Session at St. John Arena, Hang on Sloopy, the Victory Bell, Hineygate, or something else? 

We'd love to hear from you about what gets you especially fired up on those glorious Saturdays in autumn that pass by all too quickly. 

Now if I can only remember where I put the cornhole last November...