It's all about the tradition

• By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jan 3, 2008

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Dotting the “i” to finish Script Ohio. Paul Brown. Woody Hayes. Archie Griffin. Seven national titles. Seven Heisman trophies shared by six men. Buckeye leaves on the helmet. A Buckeye Grove for All-America selections. The Block “O” cheering section. Tiny gold pants charms for beating Michigan. Senior Tackle. The Horseshoe.

Ohio State football is about tradition.

“It’s a rich tradition,” said Griffin, the President/CEO of the Ohio State University Alumni Association. “And tradition is something that doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years to earn. It just doesn’t come to you. If you could buy tradition, they’d do it, but you can’t. You have to earn it. And Ohio State has that.”

Griffin, the only two-time winner of the Heisman Trophy, said the man that may have ignited the passion was “Chic” Harley, an All-Big 10 halfback in 1916, ’17 and ’19.

“He was so successful and so many people enjoyed watching him play that they felt they needed a bigger stadium,” Griffin said. “Thank goodness somebody had the foresight to do that, because now I have to believe it’s one of the best in the country.

“It starts, to me, with him, with the excitement and passion people developed way back then in watching him and that’s just continued.”

There may be a new tradition in the making.

“To me, with the (Jim) Tressel group, when the players come out arm and arm, especially at away games, that gets the hair on the back of your neck to stand up,” Griffin said. “You know there is a team. Arm and arm means we’re all going to be together in this quest to win a football game.”

Tressel grew up in Ohio and coached Youngstown State to four Division I-AA (Now Football Championship Subdivision) national championships. In his seven seasons as coach of Ohio State, he’s 73-15, with a national title in 2002 and is bringing the Buckeyes to their third BCS national title game.

“When I applied for it, I thought it was the ultimate job for that moment,” Tressel said. “It has exceeded my expectations. … Is it the only job I’d like to have? Yes.”

Like Griffin lauded Harley, who played almost six decades before him, or as current linebacker James Laurinaitis marveled at the five previous Buckeyes who won the Lombardi Award he was up for recently, Ohio State players acknowledge a palpable legacy.

“To me, it’s the best place in the world to be a college football player,” said former linebacker Chris Spielman, the 1987 Lombardi Award winner who went on to a 12-year NFL career. “I say that because it stays with you for your whole life. I was born in Ohio and I’m the son of a high school football coach. So (Ohio State) is part of who you are, just like it is down there at LSU.

“The bonds amongst all the players that have played there are special. You take pride in being a Buckeye and you wear it on your sleeve, and you don’t apologize for it. I went there feeling I had an obligation to fulfill the standards and traditions that they have there.”