Ohio Stadium celebrates its 100th birthday this year.
An architectural feat, it sits 14 feet below the floodplain of the Olentangy, just north of Columbus. I’ve been there in fog, ice, heat, snow, wind, wins, and maybe a loss or two. It’s hallowed ground- which I used to have a little piece of, from the end of a season before they converted the field to turf.
There is nothing like coming around the corner at the back of Independence
Hall, and seeing the original front of Ohio Stadium down the hill, on a fall Saturday.
It used to serve as a dormitory (2 of my uncles lived there). Being a public building, an exterior gate is always open to the public- but no one tells you that. I can’t remember, but I think 3 laps around the outside gives you a mile- I used to jog around it after work, at night, with my friends the summer I worked First Year orientation. Also can’t remember where I got all that energy. A fun fact is that a humpback whale consumes the volume of 1 Ohio Stadium in krill each year. My oceanography class figured that out. Anything but the metric system!
The coliseum-inspired ‘shoe was dedicated in October 2022. The final detail of the Stadium, a set of ceramic flowers under the rotunda, was left unglazed until dedication week, colors chosen in homage to the visiting team for that game. The colors are maize, and they are blue.
If you’re new to sports, this is surprising because a storied rivalry between Ohio State and That Team Up North has been broadcast on every sports network, engrained in the souls of all aspiring fans in the Midwest, and led to so many inappropriate tshirts, some of which I may have owned- I can’t remember.
As rivalries go, people have petitioned again and again for change to colors on the great rotunda away from their original. But, being on the National Register of Historic Places, the exterior of the Horseshoe stands in its entirety, never to be changed. Many of those tiles have faded or chipped away, but their essence is still there, if you know where to look.
#ship30for30 #day7