Players take their cue from the band -- a rich tradition

The OSU band rivals the football team in celebrity and prestige on campus.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- It sounds like a trick play drawn up for Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith and speedy receiver Ted Ginn Jr.
"A triple-block O formation ... a solitary figure leads one contingent on a peel-off movement, curving around the field, in continual motion ... one group revolves counterclockwise and two others rotate in a clockwise manner ... the three unfold into a singular, looping line."
But it's not a long pass pattern nor a double-reverse designed by Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel. As incomprehensible as it may be, it's a marching band maneuver -- "the incomparable Script Ohio" as the announcer intones -- and it will draw one of the largest roars from the six-digit crowd in Ohio Stadium when No. 1 Ohio State plays No. 2 Michigan Saturday.
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This isn't just another marching band. It's the Ohio State Marching Band, a.k.a., The Best Damn Band in The Land.
This band rivals the football team in celebrity and prestige on campus.
"When our recruits come to visit, the pep band comes over and serenades them," Tressel said, professing his admiration for the military-uniformed band members. "They know on their way in [to the program] that the band is one of us."
When the Buckeyes win a home game, the victory bells peal and the players assemble in front of the band in the south grandstands. While the 192-piece, all-brass band strikes up the alma mater, Carmen Ohio, the Buckeyes pull off their headgear and sing like choirboys.
The name, as you might guess from that mild cuss word, was ordained by the high priest of Ohio State traditions, the late and volatile coach Woody Hayes.
"Supposedly at a pep rally one year, Woody stood up after the band played a song and said, 'That's the best damn band in the land!' That's all it took," current TBDBITL director Dr. Jon Woods said. "When Woody says something, it's law."
Tailgate tunes
Walk through the acres of tailgaters surrounding Ohio Stadium on a home football Saturday and you can hear marching band music emanating from the back of almost every scarlet-and-gray tent, trailer, RV and van.
Imagine what would happen if all of those band-worshippers really knew that the legendary "Script Ohio" -- a 3 1/2-minute parade, led by the tall-hatted band major, with the "i" usually dotted by a sousaphone player -- was actually invented by the Michigan band. Sort of.
The first Script Ohio, albeit a stationary, rudimentary one, was performed by the Michigan band on Oct. 15, 1932, as an homage to Ohio State on the 10th anniversary of Ohio Stadium.
"Yes, that's true, but certainly not in the complex form it takes on now with the OSU band," Michigan marching band director Jamie Nix said. He admits that he has heard UM bandies say, "Michigan taught OSU how to spell Ohio."
Woods -- don't tell anyone, but he has a graduate degree from Michigan -- concedes that it is possible that a Michigan band might possibly have once put the letters O, H, I and O together on a field somewhere. But that's about as far as he'll go.
Signature number
"It's very difficult to do. It's our signature," he says of the elaborate moving, writing that the band first performed in 1936. "We're the first one with an animated Script Ohio, and that's the one that counts."
Marv Homan, Ohio State's longtime sports information director, says that what separates TBDBITL from other university bands is early on it was seen as more than just a form of sedentary halftime music.
"Honestly, I've been all over the country and at the vast majority of schools, the band is something to fill in some open spots in halftime," he said. "There's nothing particularly sophisticated about it or particularly well organized. The opposite is true at Ohio State."
Ohio State football historian Jack Park -- who can tell you the name of the kid who got the holding call on third and 3 at the 19-yard line in the 1939 Michigan game -- said the Buckeyes band set itself apart.
"In the 1930s, the band went to all brass, which gave it a different sound -- rather than having woodwinds in there like other bands," he said. "It's very special. No band has such loyalty. Other bands try to have their alumni back but Ohio State gets 600-plus alumni band members back each year."
Oldies energized
And get this, when the old-timers come back -- some in their 80s and still high-stepping -- they show off and do a quadruple Script Ohio.
The Ohio State Band is so popular that it even turned a weird '60s tune into something that causes Ohio State's fans to jump to their feet and spell out O-H-I-O with their arms.
The McCoys, a seminal rock band from Ohio, had a hit with the song "Hang on Sloopy." The Ohio State band turned it into an anthem. Not only is it the most frequently played tune at football games, but it is the state's official rock song.
Even the stone-faced Tressel knows the words. And he doesn't feel the slightest bit self conscious singing them out loud and off-key.