Blue White Illustrated

HORSESHOE CURVE The Lions' 1978 season began trending in an upward direction after a visit to Ohio State in which they shut down the Buckeyes' celebrated freshman quarterback Art Schlichter ne of my most treasured memo- ries was the first time I saw a game in Ohio Stadium. It was Sept. 16, 1978, and I was getting a chance to see my favorite team, Penn State, help Ohio State open its season in the famous Horseshoe. Little did I know I would be watching one of the greatest Nittany Lion teams, the first one in school history to be No. 1 in the polls. I was just a fan then, no longer part of the Penn State media contingent as I had been throughout the 1960s. My career had taken me into the Midwest and broadcast news management positions in Detroit and Chicago before landing me in Dayton, Ohio, in late November 1977. I already had a dislike for Ohio State after my years of working in De- troit during the exhilarating Woody vs. Bo era. Although my full-time job in Detroit was running a radio and television newsroom, I joined our station's radio broadcast team at home games to be the spotter for our play-by-play sports- caster, Don Kramer. What a pleasure it was to become a diehard Michigan fan and watch the teams of Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler in their annual brass-knuckle tea party. I'll never forget the famous 1971 game in which Hayes flew into a mad rage when officials failed to call pass interference on a Michigan interception that ended Ohio State's hope of winning the game with a late field goal. He ran onto the middle of the field, screaming and shaking his fists at the officials, drawing a 15-yard penalty. Woody picked up the sideline marker, broke it over his knee and threw pieces on the field, and then tore the bright or- ange first-down marker to shreds. The home crowd went wild, and the press box shook with laughter. Now, seven years later, I was the news director of a TV station deep in Ohio State country, or, if you're a Michigan fan, "behind enemy lines." Because my true allegiance was still with Penn State, I didn't have the animus toward Ohio State that loyal Michigan fans had for generations, an enmity that was re- ciprocated by Ohio State partisans to- ward their Michigan counterparts. That animosity would come later after Penn State joined the Big Ten and became a perennial patsy for the Buckeyes, espe- cially in the Horseshoe. Of the 24 con- ference games that have been played since 1993, Penn State has won only eight, and just two of 10 in Columbus: the 2005 and '08 games. In the 16 de- feats, Ohio State's average victory mar- gin was 19 points, and that includes four losses by 31 points or more. That history is no doubt going to be on the minds of the many Penn State fans who will soon be filing into Ohio Stadium for the much-anticipated 33rd game of the se- ries. Behind enemy lines During my undergraduate days in the late 1950s and early writing career in the '60s, Penn State upset Ohio State three times in Columbus, and I looked at the Buckeyes with respect. In 1962, while working for The Associated Press, I had a one-on-one interview with Woody during the off-season at a high school banquet in my hometown of Indiana, Pa., and found him to be a cordial, de- lightful and friendly man. My attitude began to change about Ohio State during my Detroit years, but in the fall of 1978 I had not yet encountered the faction of Ohio State fandom that would accelerate it: the hostile, arrogant, often profane boors, most of whom never attended, let alone graduated from, Ohio State. Dayton is loaded with a lot of great Ohio State fans, not just proud alumni. My wife, Carole, and I became good friends with many of them, including a former Buckeye cheerleader and her husband, and Carole even went to work for a dentist alumnus. Years later, our second daughter, Lori, married a zealous O

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