Ohio State cheerleaders calling out a chant on the sideline of the Buckeye’s 38-3 win over Michigan State Saturday. Credit: Brett Price | Managing Editor for Content
Hey, Alexa, play, “We don’t give a d*mn for the whole state of Michigan — the remix.”
It is one of the many songs on the Ohio State cheer team’s rivalry-week playlist.
Ben Schreiber, head cheerleading coach and Ohio State spirit squad alum (2004-07), said he tries to make the week leading up to The Game more special than others. With remixes blaring through the speakers at St. John Arena and a good Ohio State-Michigan documentary to set the tone, Schreiber said this year’s contest might be bigger than his senior year in 2006.
As a sophomore, Schreiber transferred in and quickly found himself in a Buckeye cheer uniform on the sideline of all of Ohio State’s home football games. Hailing from Ohio, he said he was always familiar with the rivalry and was happy to be a part of it.
“I was here for three Michigan games,” Schreiber said. “First game, everyone said it was going to be big — it was going to be an exciting time.”
Though the Buckeyes went 8-4 that year, winning 37-21 against the Wolverines, Schreiber said neither that game nor the 2005, 25-21 win in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the following season could compare to “The Game of the Century” in 2006.
No. 1 Ohio State took on No. 2 Michigan at Ohio Stadium at 3:30 p.m. — the last rivalry game not at noon — in what became one of the most prominent contests in The Game’s history.
The Buckeyes won a 42-39 thriller.
“It was a pretty day,” Schreiber said. “The sun was out. It was fun. And it was special because the game was on at 3:30, so you had that element of it being a day game, but then also it finishing as a night game.”
Schreiber said everyone stormed the field and football players, Brutus and the cheer team crowd-surfed. A “special and crazy” day it was, he said.
That game garnered enough attention that HBO made a documentary about it, titled, “Michigan vs. Ohio State, The Rivalry,” in which Schreiber made a small appearance in the background when the camera passed the cheerleaders.
The HBO documentary, however, helped inspire a tradition brought in by Schreiber soon after he rejoined the squad as head coach in April 2014.
Schreiber said many squad members don’t completely understand the rivalry and exactly what it means to both teams and their fans because they recruit from all over the country.
Each year, Schreiber said he picks out a documentary surrounding The Game and the team gets together to watch it on their final practice before game day, the film on HBO being one they watched recently.
“Just to make it a little bit more special to really put our team members in the position that you’re a part of a game that’s been going on for over 100 years, it’s going to continue to go on,” Schreiber said. “It’s something that your grandparents, your great grandparents if they were in the state, have heard of.”
Sean Henderson, a junior on the cheer team who cheered in last year’s rivalry game in Columbus, is from Spring, Texas, and wasn’t sure what The Game was all about, really, until he got here in 2021.
“I read about it a little bit, then I watched, I think, The Game — one of them — I think in 2014 and 2016,” Henderson said. “I didn’t know much about it until the junior year of high school, which I was offered here.”
Despite the buzz surrounding The Game, Schreiber and Henderson said they treat the preparation and game day activities the same as any other Saturday, aside from the playlist, which Schreiber said includes variations of popular Ohio State-Michigan traditional songs.
“As an athlete, being on the spirit squad, it’s nothing else. It’s a regular game,” Henderson said. “As a fan, yes, obviously, this game is the biggest every year. As an athlete, nothing.”
Eyes wide with curiosity and glee when the crowd first roars, Schreiber said the most important thing is for his squad to know the importance of The Game.
“Your time in this program is short, it’s four or five years. This rivalry has been going on for over 130 years,” Schreiber said. “There’s many people that have come before you and done this. There’ll be people that come after you and do this and you can say that you’re part of something that’s bigger than you, bigger than us.”
With intensity from both sides — Ohio State trying to avenge its two recent losses and Michigan hyped up following the suspension of its head coach Jim Harbaugh — Schreiber said he wouldn’t be surprised if this was even a bigger game than 2006.
“This has all the characteristics, even a couple weeks out, that this could be one of the biggest games in the rivalry, so super, super excited,” Schreiber said.
