Product Description

The Ohio State Buckeyes, one of the most storied college football programs in the nation, have a rich and colorful history that spans more than a century. In Buckeye Madness Ohio native Joe Menzer tells the exhilarating story of the Scarlet and Gray from the days of Woody Hayes in the late 1960s to Jim Tressel and OSU's recent national championship.

In the fall of 1968, Hayes's Buckeyes went 10-0 and won the national championship -- a feat that the Buckeyes wouldn't repeat until January 2003, when an underdog OSU team upset the heavily favored Miami Hurricanes in an epic double-overtime national title game. In between those championships, scores of outstanding players took the field in Ohio Stadium, such as the legendary Archie Griffin, the last (and likely the only) player to win the Heisman Trophy twice. Ohio State fans will enjoy Menzer's descriptions of such Buckeye greats as Rex Kern, Chris Spielman, and Heisman winner Eddie George, among many others, along with his accounts of some great, and not-so-great, Ohio State teams in recent decades. Menzer explains how the game has changed in the years since Woody Hayes called the plays, and especially how the coaches themselves have had to change as concerns about off-the-field activities grew in importance. Hayes's immediate successors -- Earle Bruce and John Cooper -- were very different personalities from the incendiary Hayes; Tressel is a throwback to the Hayes era in many ways, yet he must deal with different issues as dictated by the changing times.

But as Buckeye Madness makes clear in some unforgettable anecdotes, one thing will never change: the Ohio State-Michigan game remains the greatest rivalry in college football, a date circled months in advance on calendars in Columbus and Ann Arbor.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #749412 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This history of the Ohio State Buckeyes opens with their national championship in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, then backtracks to the glory days of the team's greatest leader, Woody Hayes. With the volatile, demanding coach front and center, the story has its strongest momentum—but Menzer is careful to show that it wasn't all upbeat. The legendary undefeated team of 1968 and the consecutive Heisman trophies of running back Archie Griffin in '74 and '75 are matched by Hayes's physical abuse of his players during practice and encouragement of the dangerous "chop-block" tackling technique. Hayes was eventually fired for attacking an opposing player during a game, and his successors found it hard to live up to his reputation or his skills, especially when it came to the school's rivalry with the Michigan Wolverines. Though Menzer, a sportswriter (The Wildest Ride) and Ohio native, tries his best, the second half of his chronicle falls just short of the standard set by the first. Recruiting scandals and boorish behavior by star athletes, even when well reported, just don't have the same dramatic impact as Hayes's obsessive discipline of his players. Buckeyes fans, however, will likely be satisfied just to relive that era. B&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Jim Tressel's fiery eyes flashed as he scanned the young men dressed out in scarlet and gray Ohio State football gear that sat or stood, or even bounced on their toes, all around him. Some of the players could not sit or stand still; some were listening intently to his every word; some already had drifted off into their own private world of mental self-motivation. Kickoff against the Miami Hurricanes was only twenty minutes into their future. A national championship would be at stake.

In his heart of hearts, Tressel knew he already was looking at a championship college football team -- a team that he had molded, prodded, and flat-out coached into this game for the ages. But first there was the matter of some unfinished business against an opponent that hadn't lost a game in more than two years, in front of millions who mostly didn't give the Buckeyes a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Tressel knew all of that, too, and knew how to get his players to feed off those facts like the hungry underdogs that they were.

"Men," he started out in a low voice, "tonight you embark on the last portion of a journey that you started twelve months ago when we walked off the field after our last bowl game. Part of the journey involved some of our friends leaving us for various reasons to go their separate ways.

"But those of you who remain are a part of something special here at Ohio State University. You stayed for a reason."

Tressel paused for effect. Then he went on, his voice slowly rising.

"You stayed on because you cared about the school, what it stands for, your teammates, and yourselves. All of you recognize that you are part of something special here to-night. You recognize that you've come a long way from last January. I encourage you to savor it. Absorb this moment -- and seize it! Embrace it and take it in the direction that you want it to go.

"There comes a point in each person's life when he or she asks himself or herself: How do I want to be remembered?"

Tressel had known for years how he would want to be remembered. He simply had kept redefining his legacy -- upgrading it -- at every available opportunity along the way. Critics would charge at times that he sometimes did so at the expense of others, sticking his head in a pile of sand he called morality. But Tressel always plodded ahead toward the goal, figuring that whatever methods he employed, the ends usually justified the means. This was the grandest of all opportunities he had been presented, one that really began roughly two years earlier when he was named the twenty-second head coach in Ohio State's glorious but sometimes tumultuous history.

Like the legendary Woody Hayes more than half a century before him, Tressel overcame tremendous odds to beat out better-known candidates to land the job in the first place. Most thought the position would go to Glen Mason, the head coach at the University of Minnesota, who had played for Hayes in the early 1970s and later served as an assistant coach with the Buckeyes for eight years. Other more high-profile candidates had included Jon Gruden, then head coach of the Oakland Raiders in the National Football League; longtime Ohio State assistant Fred Pagac, who also had played for Hayes; and one of the greatest and most popular players in Ohio State history, Chris Spielman.

When Hayes became Ohio State head coach in 1951, he beat out Paul Brown, among other notables of the day, for the position. Brown had won a national championship as coach of the Buckeyes in 1940 before leaving the school to join the U.S. Navy, and was almost akin to a politician seeking reelection with the considerable dual backing of important alumni and respected former players. Hayes at the time was a relatively unknown candidate who had made his mark at smaller schools: first at tiny Denison and then at Miami -- the university in quaint Oxford, Ohio, not the behemoth in Florida that later would stand in Tressel's path on the biggest night of his coaching career.

Like Hayes, Tressel gained the job by winning over a panel of Ohio State bigwigs. First Tressel wowed an eight-member advisory committee and then, in a one-on-one interview, he had greatly impressed school president William E. Kirwan. School officials would later say that what had convinced them the most about Tressel was his plan not only to make the Buckeyes winners on the field, but also to emphasize improved player behavior off the field and the pursuit of academic excellence as well. More than anything else, Tressel was thorough and prepared.

Plus Tressel had deep Ohio ties, perhaps the single most important quality any head coach needed to succeed at Ohio State University. He had played at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, where he was a quarterback for four years under his father, Lee, a firm coaching disciple of Woody Hayes. Jim Tressel did not become head coach at Division I-AA Youngstown State until he had served as an assistant coach at Akron, Miami of Ohio, and then on Earle Bruce's staff at Ohio State, where for three years he coached quarterbacks, receivers, and running backs. In 15 seasons at Youngs-town State, he won 135 games, lost 57, and tied 2, winning four Division I-AA national titles in the process. His résumé was impressive enough that Jim Stillwagon, a former Buckeyes teammate of Mason's, had written to Kirwan recommending Tressel, and not Glen Mason, for the job. Stillwagon and others who recommended Tressel figured it didn't matter that he hadn't played for the Buckeyes.

"Woody Hayes wasn't a Buckeye when he came here. He didn't go to school here and he had never coached here," Stillwagon noted. "And he went on to become one of the greatest Buckeyes of all time."

Spielman, who wasn't called back after his initial interview with athletic director Andy Geiger and associate athletic director Archie Griffin, applauded the hiring of Tressel, recalling Tressel's tenure as an assistant coach while Spielman was chasing down opposing ball carriers for the Buckeyes.

"I remember him as a detail guy, a go-getter, and that's why I think he will do a good job," Spielman told the Columbus Dispatch at the time. "And I think it's important that everybody in the state get behind him and back him. I know I'm going to."

They were backing him tonight. This was the national stage. Though Tressel had been in six national title games at Youngstown State, winning four, he knew this was dramatically different. The world was watching this time. More important, so was the whole state of Ohio. Tressel knew the speech he was giving now was one of the most important of his life.

"The reality is that so few people have the chance that you have tonight," he told his players. "You have the chance to affect the answer to the question of how you want to be remembered. The moment is at hand. It is not about tomorrow. It is not about yesterday. It is not about what you did ten minutes ago. But part of your future and how you'll be remembered will be shaped by you over the next three and a half hours!"

By now Tressel was almost shouting when he hit the high notes, and his players were responding like ardent followers listening to their favorite preacher at a gospel revival meeting.

"Look around this room and look at the person next to you. How do you want that guy to remember you? How do you want him to remember the way you played in this game? How do you want your parents, family, and friends to remember your performance on this night? Will you be remembered as ordinary or extraordinary?

"Thirty years from now when you have your team reunion, you'll see many of these faces again and you'll shake hands. Wouldn't it be nice to grasp the hand of that teammate thirty years from now and look down and see a giant ring on his finger? You'll reminisce and you'll soak up the common bond that you have with your teammates that can never be broken."

Finally, after touching several key points, which included imploring the team to "play with heart and passion" and to "play like champions" who weren't afraid to win, Tressel was ready to wrap up the biggest pregame speech of his fifty-year life.

"Own the championship, men! Claim it!...Don't let anyone take this moment from you! Not the press! Not the fans!...And certainly not the Miami Hurricanes! Go out there tonight and show the world what Ohio State football is all about!

"We talk about the tradition that exists here! We talk about great men such as Hayes, Kern, Griffin, Pace, and Paul Brown...You're not alone on that field, men! The ghosts of Ohio State will be with you!"

Tressel had always loved the ghosts at Ohio State. When he arrived on campus as an assistant coach years earlier, he wanted to learn as much as he could about the grand traditions that surrounded the program. There were so many of them. Because he hadn't attended Ohio State as a student-athlete, there was much to learn.

There was the tradition of placing the Buckeye Leaves on players' helmets, which had made the Ohio State helmets unique, and among the best recognized helmets in college football. It was a tradition started by Hayes in 1968 when he and Ernie Biggs, the longtime trainer, decided to change the look of the Ohio State uniforms. The new look included placing the names of players on the back of the jerseys and putting a wide Buckeye Stripe on the sleeves. The Buckeye Leaves were awarded on a weekly basis, given for outstanding plays.

There was the tradition of the Victory Bell. Located 150 feet high in the southeast tower of Ohio Stadium, the Victory Bell is rung after every Buckeyes victory by members of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity, honoring a tradition that began after Ohio State beat California on October 2, 1954. It is said that on a calm day the bell, which weighs 2,420 pounds and cost $2,535 to install, can be heard five miles away.

There was the tradition of Buckeye Grove, where since 1934 a buckeye tree has been planted in honor of each Ohio State player who is named an All-American. Located in the southwest corner of Ohi...

Customer Reviews

Not Great - Credibility is compromised.
There are two problems with this book. First, it begins with a speech given by coach Jim Tressel on January 3, 2003, just before the 2002 National Championship game. Except it never happened. The speech was a fake, written by Ken Pryor, a fan, and e-mailed and posted across the Internet. It wasn't even meant to be a hoax, but simply something like a speech the coach might give, most sites listing Pryor as its author. Until this book, I never knew anyone had actually believed it to be anything else. It seems more than a little odd that the author didn't contact Tressel or anyone on his staff to confirm the validity of the speech. It's even more odd that the book's editor didn't either, considering that this book wasn't published until August of 2005, more than two and half years after it was already widely known to be false.

This leads into my second problem: It seems like any "fan" of Ohio State football would have known this. But to be fair, I don't doubt that Mr. Menzer is a fan. (He mentions in his "Acknowledgements" that at an early age he had an uncle and aunt that dressed him in OSU wear when he visited them Columbus.) It's just that by his reasoning, all my friends would have to be considered "fanatics." They have the football schedule months, if not a year, in advance, they have a plan for each and every game, and -to a certain degree- plan their lives around football Saturdays.

In my experience, being a Buckeye fan is something that seeps into you, like osmosis. No one dressed us up. We spoke up first, with "Where's MY Buckeye shirt?" and "Can I have an Ohio State hat for my birthday?" or "I'm saving up for a -insert OSU item here-." It's a certain level of commitment that isn't really a choice; at some point it's just ingrained in you.

But is this a bad book? I want to say, `No, not at all, except for the opening, it's a very good book.' Unfortunately, that's not true, because the opening puts you in a pall for the rest of the reading. Credibility is compromised. Is it written well? Absolutely, it is. Menzer is great with the turn of a word, but the validity of what follows is always in doubt.

When a young Earle Bruce sustains an injury and can't play football for Ohio State, Woody Hayes literally jumped into his car to stop him, and ask him to get an Ohio State education regardless? He uses the word literally. I've seen speeches by both men, and I have never heard either say Woody, not figuratively, but literally jumped into a car.

Later, defensive tackle Nick Buonamici says to coach Hayes, "Goddammit, I did it for you, Coach," and then jumped onto a table to reveal a tattoo. Really? He swore at Woody Hayes, in front of the whole team, then leaped onto a table? I didn't realize there was this much jumping in Columbus, Ohio.

And at a game, it was so cold that some people were physically unable to stand afterwards? Come on. That's way beyond even frost-bite. Hypothermia?

There are a lot of books about Ohio State football. Like this one, they all talk about the only two-time winner of the Heisman Trophy, Archie Griffin, about the undefeated team of 1968, about the legend of Woody Hayes, and the storied history of the Ohio State-Michigan game.

When picking up a book about the Buckeyes, let's just say this would not be my first choice.


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Joe Menzer is a sportswriter and contributor to NASCAR.com. Born in Hamilton, Ohio, and a graduate of Bowling Green State University, he covered the Cleveland Cavaliers and the NBA for the Willoughby/Lake County News-Herald. He has contributed articles to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Washington Post, the Sporting News, and Inside Sports, amongst others. He covered the Carolina Panthers football organization for over a decade, and is the author of several books, including Cavs from Fitch to Fratello: The Sometimes Miraculous, Often Hilarious Wild Ride of the Cleveland Cavaliers (1994), The Wildest Ride: A History of NASCAR (2002), and Four Corners: How UNC, N.C. State, Duke, and Wake Forest Made North Carolina the Center of the Basketball Universe (2004).
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Words Should Mean Something
There must be a credibility factor when a person puts words to press; whether it's a doctoral thesis, newspaper feature or a book chronicling a moment in time.

The plagarism scandels thay hounded historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Srephen E. Ambrose shows the shortcuts even the most respected writers will take, seemingly with an arrogance that no person will question their false research.

It is unfortunate that Joe Menzer - who, for years, was considered an excellent sports reporter/columnist in northeast Ohio - has traded fact for fantasy in the opening pages of what potentially could have been an excellent history of nearly 40 years in Ohio State football.

The reader is allegedly in the locker room before the 2003 National Championship game with coach Jim Tressel and his squad. Tressel gives a stirring speech - actually, one for the ages.

The problem - let me rephrase this, the major problem - is the speech supposedly given by Tressel is from an Internet posting on a message board that was written by a fan.

Well, nowhere do I see Tressel saying, "And men, according to the fan....," while he gives his version of Knute Rockne's legendary, but equally bogus, "Win One for the Gipper."

After this fraudulent opener, the book is classic Menzer, as he tramples over the myths and rumors surrounding the program from the late 1960s teams of Woody Hayes to the triumph by Tressel's team in the Fiesta Bowl.

But I cannot pull myself away from that false start. Words should mean something and Menzer has placed himself in the same category of Kearns Goodwin & Ambrose; but for all the wrong reasons.

good read on the history of ohio state football
I bought this book last year with a Barnes and Noble gift card and immediately got into it. Now I myself am a huge sports enthusiast, especially when it comes to history. This is a good read on the history of ohio state football. Starting with the early days of the team and covering the bases on Paul Brown and Woody Hayes-coached teams that won national championships, the author does not fail to impress. The book came out right after Ohio State's national championship victory over Miami in the Tostitos Bowl, therefore the beginning talked about the win and how good it was for Tressel to bring a championship back to Columbus.

What really interested me was how John Cooper was disliked in Columbus, the main reason being that he did not take the rivalry with Michigan seriously. If you expect to succeed as a head coach, you must motivate yourself and prepare yourself for that big game at the end of the year that may have national title implications on the line. It's the best rivalry in all of college football, next to Notre Dame-USC, and this year will be no exception. Number 1 vs. number 2 will be watched by everybody who's somebody.