Someone always has to clean up the mess.
After thousands of students jumped into the waters of Mirror Lake on Thursday night, the South Oval looked as if it had been trampled by a herd of buffalo that left behind shoes, clothes and a loads of trash.
Yet as the last few students trudged their way home around 3 a.m., the cleanup effort had just begun.
“Really they just come in and trash everything,” said Pierre Johnson, a groundskeeper for OSU who normally looks over Mirror Lake and the South Oval. “They just trash the grounds. I mean, the overtime is nice, but this is the area I take care of on a normal basis. It’s just a pain.”
Johnson was one of 13 workers tasked with cleaning up the aftermath left by the thousands of students who participated in the traditional stunt leading up to the football game against Michigan.
“We’ve picked up hats, clothes, shoes and everything in between,” said Mike Cordle, a grounds supervisor for Facilities Operations and Development at OSU.
Responsible for grounds on a day-to-day basis, Cordle has seen his fair share of bizarre objects show up in Mirror Lake following the annual jump.
“You’ll even see remnants show up throughout the winter,” Cordle said. “You find just about anything.”
The cleanup effort this year required Cordle and his men to work
through the night and into the morning. They used shovels, pressure washers and a power broom to try to restore Mirror Lake’s original condition.
Cordle used a John Deere Gator to remove the loads of garbage that had gathered in and around the lake. He said it took about 15 trips to move everything.
Students this year left behind less trash than in previous years, Cordle said, but they caused more damage to the turf around the lake.
In order to repair the turf, Cordle said a contractor would have to install new sod on the grounds.
Cordle said he hoped to have things returned back to normal in three days, but it will take about two months for the sod to settle in.
Johnson said he was concerned that a little fun for students can cost a lot for the university. The cost of hiring overtime workers, acquiring cleanup equipment and hiring a contractor to replace the sod adds up quickly, he said.
He gave a rough estimate that the total costs of the cleanup alone would be around $20,000.
Having worked for OSU for five years, Johnson said the strangest thing he’d found following the jump was a floating television.
While he understands the tradition, Johnson said in the past his coworkers have suggested that OSU take better care of the area around Mirror Lake.
“We do a lot of talking but there isn’t much listening,” he said. “Honestly if you look at how much money and effort the university puts into it, it’s just not worth it.”
