It`s a rare Buckeye fan that hasn`t sung along with the chorus of “Hang on Sloopy” after the third quarter of every Ohio State football game, but probably rarer still is the Buckeye who knows for sure what a “sloopy” is.”I used to think it was `Snoopy,`” said Rob Beasley, a physics and economics senior. Beasley said he was in his second year at OSU before he bought a tape and realized his mistake.Actually, “Sloopy” was the stage name of a musician named Dorothy Sloop who got her start back in the 1950s. Sloop died last month in Pass Christian, Miss., but at Ohio State, her name lives on.Originally from Steubenville, Ohio, she played the nightclub scene in New Orleans for years and later retired and taught gifted children in Florida.Two songwriters, Bert Russell and Wes Farrell, heard Sloop perform and liked her nickname. “Hang on Sloopy” was born, but it went through several versions before the McCoys made it a hit in 1965.Brittney Rulen, who graduated from OSU in 1995, said people don`t believe her when she tells them her great aunt was the Sloopy that inspired the famous song, but that doesn`t phase her.”We`ve always been really proud,” Rulen said.This story explains who put the Sloop in “Sloopy,” but it doesn`t explain how a rock-n-roll tune having nothing to do with football or OSU became the trademark song of the Buckeyes.”The song would have just died and gone away if the marching band hadn`t played it,” said John Tatgenhorst, chief arranger for the OSU Marching Band since 1964.Tatgenhorst said he hounded the director at the time, Charles Spohn, to let him arrange a version of the song for the band to perform after he heard it for the first time over the PA system at the Ohio State Fair during the summer of 1965.Spohn finally relented, despite his distaste for the “earthy” sound of the McCoys, and the following week Buckeye fans heard “Hang on Sloopy” at the OSU-Illinois game.”It was raining to beat heck,” Tatgenhorst said. The band was unable to go out on the field because of the mud, and fans were bundled up in rain gear. Response to the debut performance was mild applause.”My reaction after we played was: it bombed,” he said.The next week, however, the students and fans went crazy. The stands were rocking and students were standing on each others` shoulders.The song has been a game staple ever since.”Everybody always enjoys playing `Sloopy` because we know we`ll always get a great response from the crowd,” said sousaphone player Sue Kirchner. “The football players and coaches love it. It fires them up.”Kirchner said her favorite part of each game is when fans form the letters O-H-I-O at the end of the main chorus.Senior education major Joey Gottfried said he had no idea what Sloopy was but noted the song has a catchy tune. “It pumps the whole crowd up,” he said.It doesn`t seem to matter whether people know what the song is about.”It works,” Gottfried said. “I can`t explain why.”