Ohio State students as the first-ever Rivalry Run begins in 2019. Credit: Courtesy of Nick Wead
As the Ohio State football team prepares to take on their biggest rivals — the team up north — the largest student organization at Ohio State is preparing a friendly competition of its own.
The third annual Rivalry Run will offer one- and three-mile races around campus Sunday. Starting at the RPAC Plaza, the event will be put on by Block O, which is the official student section for Ohio State athletics, according to its student organization page. The event first took place in 2019 in partnership with Nike and drew a crowd of 500 runners in its first year — indicating students’ excitement, Nick Wead, a fourth-year in economics and Block O president, said.
“We brought students together at the RPAC plaza and had this whole trail, this whole course that goes throughout campus, set up with different Ohio State-themed lights,” Wead said. “We had the cheerleaders there, the band there, Brutus there, and it was just an awesome, awesome event.”
Prior to the introduction of the Rivalry Run, Ohio State students had been known to partake in a more controversial tradition in preparation for the big game, Emma Schueler, a third-year in civil engineering and the program director for the student organization, said.
“Previously, the tradition was jumping into the Mirror Lake as a student, but obviously that’s not the safest thing,” Schueler said. “So we kind of wanted something that was still tradition that students can do to excite them.”
When the pandemic struck, the Rivalry Run was put on hold after just one year of success, Wead said. To keep the brand new tradition going, Block O came up with an alternative.
“What we did was we shifted the run into an app,” Schueler said. “The app would track how many miles you would go. In order to get a free shirt, you would have had to get so many miles that you tracked on this app.”
By incentivizing the virtual Rivalry Run with giveaways for those who made it onto the leaderboard of the app, Block O was able to keep the sense of tradition alive, Schueler said.
“I think the biggest thing that we wanted was to fill that gap in the tradition of that rivalry week, and we found something that was very successful,” Wead said. “Because it was so successful, we didn’t want to let it go.”
Now that the Rivalry Run will be held in person again, the student organization is looking forward to boosting the excitement and school spirit on campus prior to the Ohio State-Michigan football game, Schueler said.
“I know that running a three-mile race is not an everyday thing for everyone — definitely not for me, I definitely don’t go out on a cold November night and run three miles,” Schueler said. “It’s basically just to get people excited, kind of get people out of their comfort zones.”
Although students are advised to arrive by 8:30 p.m., both the one- and three-mile races will begin promptly at 9:34 p.m., Wead said, paying honor to the Ohio State gold pants tradition.
“When we beat that team up north, the players all get the golden pants charm, and it’s got their name, it’s got the score of the game and it’s a huge commemoration of the game,” Wead said. “Well, that tradition started in 1934.”
At the end of the day, Wead said members of Block O are just excited to be celebrating school spirit and tradition with other Buckeyes once again.
“We’d love to have anybody participate with us,” Wead said. “I think that element and that commonality of the love for this university and just to be energetic is something that is unique and brings people together.”
Participants can expect to receive free T-shirts on a first-come, first-served basis and will be able to decide between the one- and three-mile races at the starting line. Those interested in taking part in this free event can register online.
This article has been edited to clarify that although the Rivalry Run was sponsored by Nike in 2019, it will not be sponsored by Nike this year.
