As rankings go, the one determining Ohio State to be the all-time best college football program is as reliable as it is disorienting; that is to say, go figure.
The Associated Press has done just that, having at its disposal 80 years of numbers and, one assumes, a calculator adding up the number of weeks each program has been No. 1 in its poll. The result is that the Buckeyes, of my old school, now are entitled to raise the largest foam finger. We’re Number Won.
What practical or meaningful distinction this is for a university is vague, or should be, like being designated as having the best bike path or freshest salad bar, not that those aren’t a consideration.
Education ought to be the primary factor, and when the usual academic ratings come out and the usual suspects are listed, alas, I must admit, nearly none of them is a football school.
It was a president of the University of Oklahoma, ranked second to the Buckeyes among AP leaders, who once proclaimed he wanted a school his football team could be proud of.
Notre Dame, third on the list, generally meets both standards, though not lately on the football side. The Irish have not won a national title in 27 years, yet the fumes of fame still can be sniffed.
There are no real surprises on the list, most traditional powers, most happy to have their reputations tied to athletics. Most, including my old school, identified first by athletics.
Bear Bryant, legendary coach of Alabama —fifth on the AP list — fixed football’s role in university life when he observed it is hard to rally around a math class. Sad and beside the point, but true.
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The conflict between pride in athletics and academics may never be resolved, but as Bryant pointed out, we know where the cheers come from. Balance should be the goal, yet one inevitably weighs more than the other.
My first return to campus and Ohio Stadium was as a columnist covering Miami — this was when you had to put (Fla.) after the name to distinguish it from Miami (O.) — and my greatest dread in front of my newspaper friends was, because it was alumni band day, that one of the four marching bands would misspell “Ohio” in the famous flowing band formation, Script Ohio.
After all, there was a four-in-one chance it would come out “A-hi-a” as it is pronounced, inevitably and without blushing, by the faithful. Not only did it come out fine, but all four i’s were dotted where they should have been, including one by an alumni tuba player who had grown large enough to be considered an umlaut.
How important is football? As I once was told about the Super Bowl, it isn’t bigger than death but it comes in a bigger box.
My freshman year at Ohio State, we students rioted because the faculty council voted not to allow the Buckeyes to go to the Rose Bowl. Something silly about academic accountability. Other campuses were unruly over civil rights and war. We knew our priorities.
We broke windows and set fires and I remember helping hoist a flaming effigy of the offending school official up the flag pole at 15th and High.
As the fire licked its way up the dummy to the sign around its neck, I swear “Ohio” was spelled “A-hi-a.”
Probably made by a band member.
My attention is drawn back from time to time to those fond days crossing the Oval, serving at Pomerene Hall, a job that paid off in all the macaroni and cheese I could eat, standing in wet-eyed worship to the fading, melancholy strains of “Carmen Ohio.”
Summer’s heat or winter’s cold, the seasons pass, the years will roll. Time and change will surely show, how firm thy friendship … where was I?
Oh, yes. Time for a confession. In considering a college to attend after my military service, my choices came down to Ohio University — where I was offered a scholarship — or Ohio State, where I was not.
I picked Ohio State for the most sensible of reasons. It had a great football team. As it turns out, the greatest football team over time. That’s something to be proud of, I suppose.
Bernie Lincicome is a special contributor to the baiduhai.