After a recent trip home for the holidays, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was still surrounded by everything Ohio State. I live three hours northeast of Columbus but I was surprised to see just how many people share my passion for the Buckeyes and are virtually obsessed with anything scarlet and gray.
So, the Buckeye football team is the greatest thing OSU has to offer — or is it?
I actually didn’t have to look far to find some OSU students who don’t feel the Buckeye love.
For these students, the university and its athletics are two completely separate entities. My boyfriend’s roommate Christopher Sokolick, an undecided first-year hoping to attend medical school, isn’t all caught up in the scarlet and gray sensation, and he’s not alone. I quickly found two other OSU students who said they aren’t Buckeye football-lovers.
The three said they chose OSU because it was strong academically compared to other schools they considered. The other two students I spoke with are majoring in pharmacy and environmental policy and management. They said the football team had no sway on their decisions to attend OSU.
Their logic makes sense considering U.S. News & World Report ranked OSU’s pharmacy program fifth in 2009, and the OSU College of Medicine landed at 27th of 126 accredited public university medical schools.
Sokolick summed up his feelings by saying he likes going to school here but isn’t going to enjoy every single thing the university has to offer.
It’s strange to me that the very people who spend every day on such a spirited campus, which fosters an enormous amount of pride in its football team, have not adopted the extreme love of the Buckeyes that lives in most OSU students and alumni.
Not every person in Ohio — or even on OSU’s campus — is going to feel that warm and fuzzy feeling at the thought of Buckeye football, but many still feel a sense of pride on gameday. The students I talked to did purchase season tickets this year, and one of them even attended half the Buckeyes’ home games. Another attended three, and the third went to two. They sold the rest of their tickets.
So, even these students who aren’t die-hard Buckeye fans could not deny that campus is a great place to be on gameday.
One of them said: “Football Saturdays are the best days of fall. I love how fired up campus gets.”
All three also said they were rooting for OSU in the Sugar Bowl, and that was before the Bucks beat Arkansas 31-26 Tuesday night in New Orleans.
Maybe there’s hope for them after all.
