I figured this is a pretty common question for many fans, so I will do my best to explain what my experience was.
First off, the experience varied based on the time of kickoff. I always preferred noon games. Noon games means you were done at 4 pm, could grab dinner with your family, and enjoy watching the 3:30 and night games. I personally hated night games, because you have to sit in a hotel all day waiting for kickoff. Night games on the road really sucks, because you knew you weren't getting home until 3-4 AM. But, I realize fans love night games because it gives them a little more time to party and tailgate, so I see both sides to the equation.
A typical noon game entails a 7 am wake-up call at the Blackwell Hotel on Campus (it is the hotel run by the Fisher College of Business). Every player would throw on their team issued sweats and meet at the 2nd floor of the hotel and get ready for a team walk. The team walk was just a brief stroll around the interior courtyard at the business school. After the walk, we would have our pre-game meal, which was served to us. Noon game meals consisted of scrambled eggs, a filet, and a chicken breast. The starters for each unit would sit with their position coach, with the backups usually sitting at an adjacent table.
Since I was a player who perpetually lived with a chip on my shoulder, the initial thing that would tick me off would be if someone at the table got their food before me. This invariably happened every week, so by the end of breakfast I would be good and pissed off (thus getting in the mood to play football). As breakfast was near ending, Tress would introduce whoever the honorary captain was and he would give a very brief talk. Some talks were really good (Cie Grant was a standout), some were awful. It is what it is. At the conclusion, the coaches would exit breakfast and the real captains would give a real talk. These also varied. I always preferred short and quick. If you needed me to inspire you three hours before kickoff, you probably weren't worth a darn anyways. At the conclusion of these speeches, players would storm out in an effort to be first on the elevators or would head to the stairs to go back to their rooms.
Once in the rooms, you had about an hour to get showered up and throw your suit on. I'd always take a quick shower. After the shower, I would hang my suit up in the shower curtain rain and crank the water to as hot as it could go for a "hillbilly steaming" of my suit to get the last wrinkles out. Gotta look fresh, ya know?
Once it was time to go, you grab your bag and head down to the bag drop in front of the hotel. You'd toss your bag on a bus and the managers would put it in the locker room in the stadium. From there we had brief final meetings. Our final meetings were by position group and we would usually go over in detail any of the key items that we were expecting from the defense. Usually, we'd also invariably hear the chirp of police sirens that denoted the police escort of the visiting team was passing by our window. This also pissed me off and let me know if was close to wartime. At the conclusion of the meeting, I would always send a brief text to my sister, mother and girlfriend telling them that I loved them and they were the reason I played so hard. I always tried to play hard for those three because I wanted them to be really proud of me. They took such good care of me that there is no way I could have done what I did at Ohio State without them. After I sent the texts, it was time to head down to the Blackwell steps.
At the steps, we waited for the signal for the Skull Session walk. There sometimes my mom and sis would be waiting with my girlfriend. They all got a quick kiss, but knew I was already locked in. I always wanted to be at the front of the line when we did the skull walk for two reasons:
1. I wanted to be therein case any crazy fan messed with Tress (you never know)
2. I wanted to be the first guy to get my ankles taped. I always used our best trainer and when you are first, you don't have to sit around and wait.
The Skull Session Walk is a really cool experience. Obviously, opponent and time of the game had dramatic effects on the size of the crowd that lined the street. When we played Michigan in 06, the fans lining our walk was roughly 10 deep. It was simply awesome. I always had my headphones in and would listen to Eminem's Mosh and and Aerosmith's Dream On during the walk. I was living my dream, so the song was appropriate. The band would always play and we walked in and all players knew to remove their headphones out of respect. From there, a senior would talk very briefly. Following that, Tress would step to the podium to thunderous applause. Winning a National Title in a state that hasn't won any major championship in decades leads you deserve such an applause. Tress would say a few words, thank the band, then tell the folks in attendance that they needed to do their job and be loud. As he stepped away, the band would strike up and we would file out of St. John Arena.
From there, we would notice that the crowd that had lined our walk from the Blackwell to St. John had migrated over and made an even bigger crowd for the walk from St. John to the Stadium. When cued, we would walk from St. John's and cross the street to the stadium. We would enter through the rotunda and head down the ramp. One of the little known highlights was the fact that when we walked in, they would play the theme song to The Sopranos over the loud speaker. This was incredibly kickass, as Tony Soprano was my hero and it still is my favorite show of all time (I wrote CURB STOMP in silver Sharpie inside of my cleats senior year in tribute to him curb stomping the guy who said crude things to Meadow in the final season.) We also would get our first glimpse of the opposing team, who always arrived at the stadium beforehand. There usually would be about half of their team out on the field playing various forms of grabass and generally admiring our stadium. Again, this was another thing that pissed me off.
As I had mentioned earlier, my strategy after we made it into the locker room was to head straight to the training room. By this point, especially for noon games, I would be sweating worse than Bill Greene in a confessional (a brisk paced Skull Session walk/suit and tie/90+ degrees out). It was practically a dynamic warmup lol. Once I was taped, I usually had 60-70 minutes to kill before we had to hit the field for pre-game warm up. I would grab my headphones and the Gameday magazine and head to a bathroom stall. I'd do my businessand look at the magazine for 10-15 minutes as I listened to the Al Pacino speech from Any Given Sunday and In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins. Once that concluded, it was time to get loose.
My stretching routine consisted of going through our normal pre-practice routine twice, then hitting any areas that were either tight or sore (remember, in football, everyone is always sore/hurt on Gameday). I did the routine in a Rampage Jackson shirt, since he was the big deal back then. He had knocked Chuck out at UFC 71, which was one of the best sporting events I've ever attended. So I was a fan. I also was blasting various music, including Rampage's walkout song and various other loud/profane music that would get me right. At the conclusion of the stretch, it was time to put the armor on (About 20-25 mins before we hit the field).
Getting dressed during pre-game is one of the final signals to your brain that it is almost GO time. I always would sit on my chair and put my knee braces on (which we universally hated, but that had saved my ACL on multiple occasions). From there it was pants, followed by shoulder pads with the jersey already taped onto the pads. I was a big fan of double sided tape for the jersey because I didn't want any defensive lineman to be able to pull my jersey. Additionally, Nike made their jerseys much tighter in the 2006 season, which I was a big fan of. As you can imagine, the guys with bad bodies weren't fans of that. But to me, functionally trumps style whenyou play football. After I pulled the pads down and tucked the jersey in, it was time to roll.
During the few remaining minutes before we big guys hit the field, we would all sit and listen to various songs that got us right in our respective headphones. By this time, Phil Collins and Aerosmith were phased out of the rotation in favor of Korn, Disturbed, and The Rampage Jackson Theme song "Can't Be Stopped". It was truly GO time now. When we got called up, I would immediately go to the front of the group. The leaders of the team ALWAYS want to be up front. When we got the signal, we would storm the doors and head down the tunnel to meet with our skill guys, who always would head out earlier to run routes and do individual drills (every school does this).
Once on the field, we would meet in the endzone and get lined up for the vaunted HIVE. It was one of the cooler traditions in Ohio State history. Plus, it was accompanied by AC/DC's Hells Bells, which is one of my top 3 songs of all times. That was the final trigger that it was time to go. We would do our HIVE across the endzone and jog to the middle of the field and get a quick breakdown. From there, we would all run to our respective position groups for individual drills. As an o-line, we did a brief warm-up to either a cadence or the movement of Boll's foot, which was to simulate going on the ball (a silent count). After the warm-up, we would pair up and get some run and pass fits to loosen up for going vs. the defensive line. When it was time to get together, we'd bring it up and breakdown "Kicka-- on 3, 1,2,3 KICKA--" We'd then jog over to the D-Line.
Once we met the d-line, the starters would all do the quick slap of hands/hug thing then we would get lined up to go against each other. We would all get one run fit and one 1 on 1 pass rush rep, then rotate out. The 2's would go, then we would all bring it up as a full lineman unit. When guys were done saying whatever needed to said, we did a breakdown that varied by year. My senior year, I coined "KNOCK A B***H OUT ON 3, 1,2,3, KNOCK A B***H OUT". The guys generally loved that one, so I was happy about that.
From there, it was time to go full team. We would all jog over and wait for the skill players and then we would team it up. The 1 offense always went against a base version of the 2's on defense, followed by the 2 offense vs. the one defense. After about 5 plays for each unit, we would kick a field goal and then punt the ball to midfield. At midfield, we would circle up and whoever our starting QB was would throw a ball straight up in the air(I think Troy Smith may have started this). Then we would bounce around and get a final full team breakdown and head up the tunnel.
Once back in the locker room, we had about 20-25 minutes before we would head back out. Guys would always take a final leak and grab a Gatorade before heading to either the Offensive or Defensive area of the locker room. I would always pound two Gatorades with GatorLytes mixed into them before the game. GatorLyte in basically additional salt product that tasted awful, but kept me from ever cramping in a game. As I drank those, coaches would go over last second adjustments and if there was anything noticeable from their pre-game warmups (defensive formations/players that didn't dress or warm-up, etc.) From there, the coaches who had to head to the press box would head out and the rest of the team would take a knee in front of the door in front of Tress. We knew we usually had about 5 minutes to go at that point.
Tress would address us one final time and get us ready to roll. From there, he would take a knee and we would say the Lord's prayer, followed by a brief saying:
"I am only one, but I am one
I can't do everything, but I can do something
And that I can do, I ought to do
And what I ought to do, by the grace of God
I SHALL DO!"
This always got us hyped because it really is all about doing YOUR job. From there, we would file out of the locker room and head out of the tunnel. I again always liked being first, as I didn't want any slow guys getting trampled when I charged to our sideline. When we reached the bottom of the tunnel, the band would just being finishing up and moving into the formation that would allow us run between them. Also, our cheerleaders would be assembled in front of us and I would say a brief prayer that none of them would fall and die an untimely death of getting trampled by a bunch of fat guys charging to the sideline (kidding, but I really did hope none of them would fall). When we got the cue, the band would strike up the fight song and we would sprint out to the roars of Ohio Stadium. It is truly as cool of a feeling as you could have. As you stand on your sideline and take in the chorus of boos that accompany the visiting team criss-crossing to their sideline, you realize it is time to go. It is a very exciting feeling...
Hope you all have a great rest of your Friday!
Kirk
First off, the experience varied based on the time of kickoff. I always preferred noon games. Noon games means you were done at 4 pm, could grab dinner with your family, and enjoy watching the 3:30 and night games. I personally hated night games, because you have to sit in a hotel all day waiting for kickoff. Night games on the road really sucks, because you knew you weren't getting home until 3-4 AM. But, I realize fans love night games because it gives them a little more time to party and tailgate, so I see both sides to the equation.
A typical noon game entails a 7 am wake-up call at the Blackwell Hotel on Campus (it is the hotel run by the Fisher College of Business). Every player would throw on their team issued sweats and meet at the 2nd floor of the hotel and get ready for a team walk. The team walk was just a brief stroll around the interior courtyard at the business school. After the walk, we would have our pre-game meal, which was served to us. Noon game meals consisted of scrambled eggs, a filet, and a chicken breast. The starters for each unit would sit with their position coach, with the backups usually sitting at an adjacent table.
Since I was a player who perpetually lived with a chip on my shoulder, the initial thing that would tick me off would be if someone at the table got their food before me. This invariably happened every week, so by the end of breakfast I would be good and pissed off (thus getting in the mood to play football). As breakfast was near ending, Tress would introduce whoever the honorary captain was and he would give a very brief talk. Some talks were really good (Cie Grant was a standout), some were awful. It is what it is. At the conclusion, the coaches would exit breakfast and the real captains would give a real talk. These also varied. I always preferred short and quick. If you needed me to inspire you three hours before kickoff, you probably weren't worth a darn anyways. At the conclusion of these speeches, players would storm out in an effort to be first on the elevators or would head to the stairs to go back to their rooms.
Once in the rooms, you had about an hour to get showered up and throw your suit on. I'd always take a quick shower. After the shower, I would hang my suit up in the shower curtain rain and crank the water to as hot as it could go for a "hillbilly steaming" of my suit to get the last wrinkles out. Gotta look fresh, ya know?
Once it was time to go, you grab your bag and head down to the bag drop in front of the hotel. You'd toss your bag on a bus and the managers would put it in the locker room in the stadium. From there we had brief final meetings. Our final meetings were by position group and we would usually go over in detail any of the key items that we were expecting from the defense. Usually, we'd also invariably hear the chirp of police sirens that denoted the police escort of the visiting team was passing by our window. This also pissed me off and let me know if was close to wartime. At the conclusion of the meeting, I would always send a brief text to my sister, mother and girlfriend telling them that I loved them and they were the reason I played so hard. I always tried to play hard for those three because I wanted them to be really proud of me. They took such good care of me that there is no way I could have done what I did at Ohio State without them. After I sent the texts, it was time to head down to the Blackwell steps.
At the steps, we waited for the signal for the Skull Session walk. There sometimes my mom and sis would be waiting with my girlfriend. They all got a quick kiss, but knew I was already locked in. I always wanted to be at the front of the line when we did the skull walk for two reasons:
1. I wanted to be therein case any crazy fan messed with Tress (you never know)
2. I wanted to be the first guy to get my ankles taped. I always used our best trainer and when you are first, you don't have to sit around and wait.
The Skull Session Walk is a really cool experience. Obviously, opponent and time of the game had dramatic effects on the size of the crowd that lined the street. When we played Michigan in 06, the fans lining our walk was roughly 10 deep. It was simply awesome. I always had my headphones in and would listen to Eminem's Mosh and and Aerosmith's Dream On during the walk. I was living my dream, so the song was appropriate. The band would always play and we walked in and all players knew to remove their headphones out of respect. From there, a senior would talk very briefly. Following that, Tress would step to the podium to thunderous applause. Winning a National Title in a state that hasn't won any major championship in decades leads you deserve such an applause. Tress would say a few words, thank the band, then tell the folks in attendance that they needed to do their job and be loud. As he stepped away, the band would strike up and we would file out of St. John Arena.
From there, we would notice that the crowd that had lined our walk from the Blackwell to St. John had migrated over and made an even bigger crowd for the walk from St. John to the Stadium. When cued, we would walk from St. John's and cross the street to the stadium. We would enter through the rotunda and head down the ramp. One of the little known highlights was the fact that when we walked in, they would play the theme song to The Sopranos over the loud speaker. This was incredibly kickass, as Tony Soprano was my hero and it still is my favorite show of all time (I wrote CURB STOMP in silver Sharpie inside of my cleats senior year in tribute to him curb stomping the guy who said crude things to Meadow in the final season.) We also would get our first glimpse of the opposing team, who always arrived at the stadium beforehand. There usually would be about half of their team out on the field playing various forms of grabass and generally admiring our stadium. Again, this was another thing that pissed me off.
As I had mentioned earlier, my strategy after we made it into the locker room was to head straight to the training room. By this point, especially for noon games, I would be sweating worse than Bill Greene in a confessional (a brisk paced Skull Session walk/suit and tie/90+ degrees out). It was practically a dynamic warmup lol. Once I was taped, I usually had 60-70 minutes to kill before we had to hit the field for pre-game warm up. I would grab my headphones and the Gameday magazine and head to a bathroom stall. I'd do my businessand look at the magazine for 10-15 minutes as I listened to the Al Pacino speech from Any Given Sunday and In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins. Once that concluded, it was time to get loose.
My stretching routine consisted of going through our normal pre-practice routine twice, then hitting any areas that were either tight or sore (remember, in football, everyone is always sore/hurt on Gameday). I did the routine in a Rampage Jackson shirt, since he was the big deal back then. He had knocked Chuck out at UFC 71, which was one of the best sporting events I've ever attended. So I was a fan. I also was blasting various music, including Rampage's walkout song and various other loud/profane music that would get me right. At the conclusion of the stretch, it was time to put the armor on (About 20-25 mins before we hit the field).
Getting dressed during pre-game is one of the final signals to your brain that it is almost GO time. I always would sit on my chair and put my knee braces on (which we universally hated, but that had saved my ACL on multiple occasions). From there it was pants, followed by shoulder pads with the jersey already taped onto the pads. I was a big fan of double sided tape for the jersey because I didn't want any defensive lineman to be able to pull my jersey. Additionally, Nike made their jerseys much tighter in the 2006 season, which I was a big fan of. As you can imagine, the guys with bad bodies weren't fans of that. But to me, functionally trumps style whenyou play football. After I pulled the pads down and tucked the jersey in, it was time to roll.
During the few remaining minutes before we big guys hit the field, we would all sit and listen to various songs that got us right in our respective headphones. By this time, Phil Collins and Aerosmith were phased out of the rotation in favor of Korn, Disturbed, and The Rampage Jackson Theme song "Can't Be Stopped". It was truly GO time now. When we got called up, I would immediately go to the front of the group. The leaders of the team ALWAYS want to be up front. When we got the signal, we would storm the doors and head down the tunnel to meet with our skill guys, who always would head out earlier to run routes and do individual drills (every school does this).
Once on the field, we would meet in the endzone and get lined up for the vaunted HIVE. It was one of the cooler traditions in Ohio State history. Plus, it was accompanied by AC/DC's Hells Bells, which is one of my top 3 songs of all times. That was the final trigger that it was time to go. We would do our HIVE across the endzone and jog to the middle of the field and get a quick breakdown. From there, we would all run to our respective position groups for individual drills. As an o-line, we did a brief warm-up to either a cadence or the movement of Boll's foot, which was to simulate going on the ball (a silent count). After the warm-up, we would pair up and get some run and pass fits to loosen up for going vs. the defensive line. When it was time to get together, we'd bring it up and breakdown "Kicka-- on 3, 1,2,3 KICKA--" We'd then jog over to the D-Line.
Once we met the d-line, the starters would all do the quick slap of hands/hug thing then we would get lined up to go against each other. We would all get one run fit and one 1 on 1 pass rush rep, then rotate out. The 2's would go, then we would all bring it up as a full lineman unit. When guys were done saying whatever needed to said, we did a breakdown that varied by year. My senior year, I coined "KNOCK A B***H OUT ON 3, 1,2,3, KNOCK A B***H OUT". The guys generally loved that one, so I was happy about that.
From there, it was time to go full team. We would all jog over and wait for the skill players and then we would team it up. The 1 offense always went against a base version of the 2's on defense, followed by the 2 offense vs. the one defense. After about 5 plays for each unit, we would kick a field goal and then punt the ball to midfield. At midfield, we would circle up and whoever our starting QB was would throw a ball straight up in the air(I think Troy Smith may have started this). Then we would bounce around and get a final full team breakdown and head up the tunnel.
Once back in the locker room, we had about 20-25 minutes before we would head back out. Guys would always take a final leak and grab a Gatorade before heading to either the Offensive or Defensive area of the locker room. I would always pound two Gatorades with GatorLytes mixed into them before the game. GatorLyte in basically additional salt product that tasted awful, but kept me from ever cramping in a game. As I drank those, coaches would go over last second adjustments and if there was anything noticeable from their pre-game warmups (defensive formations/players that didn't dress or warm-up, etc.) From there, the coaches who had to head to the press box would head out and the rest of the team would take a knee in front of the door in front of Tress. We knew we usually had about 5 minutes to go at that point.
Tress would address us one final time and get us ready to roll. From there, he would take a knee and we would say the Lord's prayer, followed by a brief saying:
"I am only one, but I am one
I can't do everything, but I can do something
And that I can do, I ought to do
And what I ought to do, by the grace of God
I SHALL DO!"
This always got us hyped because it really is all about doing YOUR job. From there, we would file out of the locker room and head out of the tunnel. I again always liked being first, as I didn't want any slow guys getting trampled when I charged to our sideline. When we reached the bottom of the tunnel, the band would just being finishing up and moving into the formation that would allow us run between them. Also, our cheerleaders would be assembled in front of us and I would say a brief prayer that none of them would fall and die an untimely death of getting trampled by a bunch of fat guys charging to the sideline (kidding, but I really did hope none of them would fall). When we got the cue, the band would strike up the fight song and we would sprint out to the roars of Ohio Stadium. It is truly as cool of a feeling as you could have. As you stand on your sideline and take in the chorus of boos that accompany the visiting team criss-crossing to their sideline, you realize it is time to go. It is a very exciting feeling...
Hope you all have a great rest of your Friday!
Kirk
