Buckeye Blogger Network
The Tressels
Jim Tressel is a great coach and will have a legacy at Ohio State that may be tough to match. From the relationships he forged with his players to the overall record that dominated the college football scene for ten years. He will be a tough act to follow in Scarlet and Gray even for Urban Meyer. One area in Coach Tressel’s life that will go unmatched by anyone is his involvement in charities. It will be difficult for me to honor all of the charities that Coach Tressel and his wife Ellen have been involved in. That is exactly how he felt when he responded to my e-mail asking him to answer some questions.
“Chris – I would not know where to begin to list all the charities that we have been involved with….I think I’ll opt to go with Paul Brown’s advice on your email template…..so as not to forget someone !! Happy Memorial Weekend !! JT”
What he is referring to is one of my favorite quotes. “When you win say nothing. When you lose, say less.” I am sure that this is a quote he is very familiar with and basically means to let your actions do their speaking for themselves. I had hoped for more out of Coach Tressel but got something that was perfect for what I am writing about. It helped me sit back and reflect on a lot of things that I was considering writing about and all of the charities I was going to try to mention in this article.
I had the opportunity to interview Jennifer McDonald, Senior Director of Development, OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center, James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. She has spent a lot of time with the Tressel’s with the Tressel Family Fund there and it is the charity they spent a lot of time being involved in for good reason. Read More
On this anniversary of James Patrick Tressel’s last day at work, several of the folks from tBBC are joining others in the BBN to talk about the impact that The Vest had in Columbus, both on and off the field.
We were fortunate to be able to talk with former Buckeye Roy Hall about his time at Ohio State and the ways that Coach Tressel shaped his life beyond football. Our conversation was over the phone, and we’re thankful that Roy took time out of his schedule to connect with us.
Can you talk a little bit about your favorite football memory from your time at Ohio State?
Wow- it’s gotta be The Game in 2006, #1 vs #2, Ohio State versus That Team Up North. I was finally healthy after being banged up for a couple of games, and Troy was looking for me early. I made a few key catches, and will never forget being able to score in my final game in The Shoe.
Hall For Six!
I was a freshman when we won it all in Glendale, so that’s something special as well, but the 2006 game is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life
That was an amazing game, and will go down in the history of OSU, Michigan, and B1G Ten Football! What about your time with Coach Tressel- you were part of one of his first recruiting classes. Can you tell me something that stands out for you about your time under him?
What has always stood out to me is that he was a man of faith, and let it guide him in all that he did. That was incredibly important for him- even when he recruited, he wanted to find young men who had high character; 40 times and bench press amounts were important, but always secondary. He realized that we were only football players for a brief time, and challenged us to find what will sustain us after that was done- how do you make the most of your education and your faith. He always treated us as men first and football players second. Read More
We interrupt your regularly scheduled dose of self immolation and national schadenfreude so you can enjoy some good news from Columbus.
On May 10th, the Ohio State Athletic department hosted the 5th annual “Buckeyes Got Talent” competition, and raised over $11,000 for the Boys and Girls Clubs.
What does this have to do with football? Perhaps Evan Blankenship can answer that for you…
He finished third (third!?!?) behind the fencing club’s Michael Jackson review, although Mark Titus said that the competition was over once he heard Evan sing.
Happy Friday… would it have killed him to do a little Mumford and Sons?
If you’re a Buckeye fan living in Northeast Ohio, or if you were a part of our NCAA Tournament challenge you should be familiar with the work of our newest partner, Fresh Brewed Tees.
Hang on!
We’re excited to work with this great organization, especially because they are active in giving back to the community- $1 from every order goes to assist the work of the Cleveland City Mission. “Paying it forward”, indeed.
Oh, and in case you hadn’t noticed- since FBT released their great WINdians gear, Cleveland’s squadron has been doing pretty well. I also hold them personally responsible for helping Peyton Hillis surge to victory in the Madden vote.
Help them, help us, help the Cleveland City Mission, help the Indians keep on winning… whatever floats your boat, you should help yourself to classy gear from an amazing company. Just click the link up in the left corner and get in the game!
If you’ve got some time this weekend (when you’re not making macrame potholders or macaroni pictures for mother’s day- so what if I’m over 40… don’t you judge me), you should take a trip to Tuscaloosa via the great work that Vico has done over at Our Honor Defend.
There, he recounts his experience through the storm and as a part of the recovery; the good, the bad, and the unfortunate that our neighbors in another state are dealing with on a daily basis. As someone who’s survived incidents no where near the magnitude of the Tuscaloosa Tornado (look, some people count on their daily Diet Coke being a certain temperature), I’m thankful that a) he survived and b) he’s reminded us that this needs our attention.
Given that the news cycle has shifted to other things (Operation Osama, Mississippi flooding), it’s inappropriate for us to let our collective ADD shove these survivors to the back of our subconscious.
With that, there are ways to get involved. Vico recommends the Salvation Army and Samaritan’s Purse; my experience with World Vision is such that I’m confident recommending them to you as well.
We call ourselves “Buckeye Nation”, and rightfully so. My hope is that we can respond with as much passion when people are in need as we do during Script Ohio.
Ready to Lead, Ready to Follow, Never Quit
Lots of things to catch up on… Some of this has been around for a bit, but we’re not all edgy and trendy and stuff.
The Story Of The Week
Although it’s not really sports related, the capture/death of Osama Bin Laden did have some ripples throughout Buckeye nation and the sports world, particularly on the twitterverse:
Draft Update
It’s easy to lose sight of what’s really important if you’re an Ohio State fan- the men’s and women’s teams got bounced from the NCAA tournament earlier than we would like, and then there’s the whole thing that’s going on in the football office. Heck, the sacred start of spring practice even comes with a cloud, as our excitement is tempered by the seemingly endless drip of “new” revelations and speculation.
But, in the bigger scheme, those things really aren’t that significant. What’s really important is family, faith, legacy, and health. And with that in mind, we bring you this…
One of our long time listeners and frequent denizen of the comment queue has been recently diagnosed with a medical condition that’s pretty significant. As we keep him in our thoughts and prayers, he also wanted to tell a little about his situation, as encouragement for us to be more invested in our wellness. Here’s Ken-
It has been an interesting couple of months, between the abrupt ending to basketball season and uncertainty regarding the football program, but let me tell you, life is good. Briefly, I have a son whom I’m proud to call a son, and have a beautiful, loving wife.
And, I’m a lifelong Buckeye fan, so life is good.
I had a watershed event recently, just turned 60, and other than expected aches & pains, I’ve only had to deal with a couple low-level, ongoing chronic issues, one being eczema. The problem is, it wasn’t eczema. It was confirmed to be mycosis fungoides (MF), a type of CTCL. I managed to get a bit of squamous cell carcinoma while I was at it (too much golf, too little sunscreen, per my wife). Fortunately, I’m in stage 1 with these and after a month of treatment, the MF appears to be heading towards some remission, and my outlook is more positive than it’s been in years.
What’s the takeaway from this story? If you have been dealing with chronic symptoms, for goodness sake, have it checked and dealt with.
After all, life is good.
Ain’t that the truth.
Never a good idea to beg to a guy in a towel
Here at the Buckeye Battle Cry, we try our best to keep the focus on the world of Ohio State sports. And, judging by the numbers of folks who are stopping by for nachos and stuff, we’re doing a pretty decent job.
But every now and again we need to lift the curtain and let you know what’s going on with the great and powerful Oz. Whether it’s adding new writers or highlighting a great design update, we’ve been fortunate to add to the site in ways that hopefully enhance your ability to get Buckeye news, talk college sports, and generally avoid the TPS reports at work.
And we hope this announcement will continue in that trend. As we grow, there’s a couple of next steps we’re looking to take- we’ve got some internal upgrades brewing, we may expand the staff in the future, and we’re excited about being able to bring you “live” coverage of the Buckeyes from practice and from the games.
To do that, though, we’ve got to get some funding. So, we’ve begun working on ways to address step two of the business model that we have as one of our guiding principals. We’re infinitely grateful for our current sponsors (that’s them over in the right sidebar), but will be exploring some new advertising on the site. As usual, we’ll make sure that it goes with the overall vibe of our mission and readers; we’re not featuring anything from the Martha Stewart collection hereabouts.
So, one of the first things we’ve done is create a partnership with Amazon.com that will allow you to help our efforts. By clicking on the link over in the left sidebar or this one (Shop at Amazon.com!), tBBC gets a small percentage of anything you buy from them. If you were feeling particularly helpful, you could drag that link to your Chrome or Firefox toolbar and make it your Amazon start page for any future purchases.
Oh, and this doesn’t do anything to your order- Amazon does not share any information with us regarding who bought what or anyone’s account information, only the total amount that all of the people who have used our “launching point” have purchased. They don’t charge you any extra either, the amount comes straight out of their profits.
Thanks again for all that you’ve done to make our little slice of the World Wide Woody Hayes Appreciation Network such a success, and for your part in the future development and growth of tBBC.
