Fat frat guys & amp; Buckeye backers: Ohio celebrates Michigan week

The rivalry game sparks a weeklong celebration, particularly in Columbus.
DETROIT FREE PRESS
COLUMBUS -- On Thursday nights during Michigan week, in the middle of The Ohio State University's campus, thousands of students (and maybe a few alumni) dive into Mirror Lake, swim to the fountain in the center and scream in the watery darkness. Most wear bathing suits. A few are naked.
"But those are usually fat frat guys," explained Chris McCarthy, a junior from Vermilion, Ohio, who plans on taking the plunge.
The whole delirious -- some might say, hedonistic -- affair is an unofficial component of "Beat Michigan Week," and it happens on the Thursday before every Michigan-Ohio State football game, no matter how cold or how icy.
But forget hefty, naked frat boys for a moment. For that doesn't begin to explain the near-biblical intensity felt in Columbus this time of year. A better explanation might be found in the Bible itself, specifically, in Proverbs, 31:21:
"She has no fear for her household; for they are all clothed in scarlet."
Diner devotees
Eric Peterson shared this verse Monday over a plate of steaming chicken and noodles at Nancy's Home Cooking, a Buckeyes-themed diner and Columbus institution on High Street, a couple of miles north of campus.
"You see," Peterson continued, getting spiritual about why the rivalry means so much down here, "this is God's team. You can just put Heaven, Ohio," for the dateline.
Here, college football inspires a mix of fealty and zealotry that can be found in few places north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Customers packed into the lunchtime eatery were talking about the game as if it were life and death, paying no attention to a couple of players quietly eating at a table in the back, including star wide receiver Santonio Holmes. At Nancy's, the rule is players get to eat in peace.
Much of the talk dealt with coach Jim Tressel, who took over five years ago and owns a 3-1 record against Michigan.
"He's made the Michigan game important again," said Eric Williams, 41, a Columbus resident. "He talks about it. He's a lighter, politer version of Woody Hayes."
It was Hayes, of course, who couldn't bear to utter the name Michigan, referring to U-M as "that school up North." But it was John Cooper, who went 2-10-1 against U-M in the '90s that left a part of Columbus ashamed.
When U-M beats OSU the atmosphere on campus the following Monday is "like a morgue," said McCarthy, who remembers walking around after his freshman year two years ago when the Wolverines won in Ann Arbor, 36-21.
"It's almost too much to handle," he said.
Big week
McCarthy is the chair this year of "Beat Michigan Week," a campus organization that plans year-round for the third Saturday of every November.
The festivities this week, by the way, include a pep rally (Tressel and a few players stopped in), a banner signing, a pillow fight, a flag-football tournament and a wing-eating contest called called "Wing the Wolverines."
Unlike the state of Michigan, which splits its rooting football interests between U-M, Michigan State or even Notre Dame, Ohio State has little in-state competition.
Think of Ohio as a sink, and Columbus as the drain, collecting loyalties from all the states' borders, except for Toledo and parts of Cleveland, where maize-and-blue traitors can be spotted.
"They're confused up there," said Chris Spielman, a former All-America linebacker at OSU. "I don't get it. If you grow up in Ohio, you shouldn't be confused."
Spielman, a four-time Pro Bowler who played eight years with the Lions, argues that football culture in Ohio is fundamentally deeper than in Michigan.
"Kids play hockey up there," he said. "In Ohio, they play football, even in the winter."
Big buildup
Everywhere in the city, signs point to Buckeyes football. Clocks that count down to the Michigan game year round. Newspapers that remind readers how many days are left. Streets named after Woody Hayes. Namesake bars, restaurants and arcades. Rental signs in front of apartments that entice renters with "stadium view," as though the "Horseshoe," as it's affectionately called, is a wonder of the world, a Grand Canyon-like opening in south central Ohio.
At Nancy's Home Cooking, owner Cindy King has watched Buckeyes culture from her perch for almost four decades.
Hers is the kind of place that exists only in memory in Ann Arbor, long before Ivy League aspirations and counterculture pot laws and boutique beer took hold. Until a year ago, customers paid by leaving their money in a bucket on the way out the door. Alas, she had to pull the honor system when someone started stealing.
Still, Columbus flocks to her joint and fills it with tales of Buckeyes worship.
"I once went to Cedar Point," recalled Williams, after finishing his plate Monday. "Everywhere I turned I saw Michigan fans. I was pretty much disgusted."