Whenever I’m watching Monday Night Football, I nearly vomit when I hear an athlete refer to his alma mater as “THE” Ohio State University during the introductions for the TV broadcast.
Naturally, I thought that this meant that these fine gentlemen were proud of their collegiate affiliation and wanted all to know that we should look up to them for going there. Let’s take a look at why these guys are so proud of that beacon of higher education whose mascot is a tree that produces these.
Is it because Columbus is such an amazing college town? No, it is lined with Skyline Chili , Steak N Shake, and Dollar stores. Actually, that sounds like a pretty legitimate college town. Let’s try something else.
How about heroes from the gridiron:
Proud men of character in Ohio State football history
Cris Carter (WR, 1984–86)
Prior to Carter's senior season, he secretly signed with notorious sports agent Norby Walters. When the contract was discovered, Carter was ruled ineligible. The absence of Carter in the 1987 offense contributed to a disappointing 6–4–1 season and the firing of Coach Bruce
David Boston (WR, 1996-98)
Left Ohio State a year early. Before the 2004 season, he tested positive for steroids and was ordered to serve a four-game suspension. Soon after, he tore ligaments in his knee and was unable to play for the entire season.
Maurice Clarett (RB, 2002)
Has a laundry list of well-known troubles. Ended up playing just one season. Instead of going on about what you already know, how about a humorous anecdote:
“He would take that water bottle everywhere, including the Bronco weight room, and the team started getting suspicious when, before minicamp practices, he'd grab the bottle and say, "I gotta get my Goose on.'' It wasn't a joke; the Bronco players were convinced he was chugging Grey Goose.”
Jim Tressel (coach, 2001-present)
Dresses like a class A prick while maintaining no class at all. Also has been accused of illegal activities involving players at every school he works for.
Coached at Youngstown State before OSU and led them to a division 1-AA championship by carefully allotting cash payments and car loans to players:
"That's what kept that city alive, the university and the hospitals," said Ray Isaac, quarterback on Tressel's first title team. "We were the toast of the town. We had parades. We had it all."
Isaac had more. As the NCAA would later learn, Isaac was taking money from a booster from virtually the moment he joined the team in 1988. A few hundred here, a thousand or so there, including $3,800 during the 1991 championship season.
At Ohio State, Tressel continued his sleazy ways:
From an ESPN article:
Maurice Clarett also says he likely would have been ineligible for Ohio State's national title season of 2002 if the football staff had not "aligned'' him with an academic advisor whose goal was simply to keep him eligible. He says the academic advisor enrolled him in Independent Study courses and also put him with hand-picked teachers who would pass him whether he attended their classes or not. He says his advisor also introduced him to a tutor who prepared outlines and told him what to write for assignments.”
Before anyone asks why I am assuming “Slow-Mo” is telling the truth, let’s consider who we’re dealing with. Do you really think that Clarett would be able to make this up? How else would he know the words “advisor,” “tutor,” “class,” or “outline”?
Also, there are teammates who agree the program was more corrupt than elections in the Middle East.
Academia
Now instead of making empty claims about how shitty academics are at OSU, I did some investigating. Of course, this research was done with the potential embarrassment of a co-worker seeing the course catalog for Ohio State on my computer screen.
Now, it took me a little while to find the “sports” major, as I began looking for the usual suspects, like “Physical Education” or “Athletic Studies.” Someone must have a PhD in Bullshit Major Names, since they somehow call “Gym” the “School of Physical Activity and Educational Services”
Not only does this “school” give major credit for participating in varsity and club athletics, but the course descriptions are so short it looks like they were written on Twitter.
I shit you not, these are credit worthy at Ohio State (just don’t try to transfer these to another school) :
- skydiving (“You do NOT have to jump in order to pass the class," according to their website)
- History of Physical Education and Sports in the United States
- Problems in Intramural Sports
- Sport for the Spectator (“A study of the great American spectator sports including football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey, golf, tennis, and others which meet the interests of the class.”)
- Movement and Self Awareness
- How to Avoid Dying from Cancer Now and Later (Is this a course title or a redneck's recent AskJeeves search?)
- Interpersonal and Coping Skills For College and the Workplace (a third-year class)
- AIDS: What Every College Student Should Know (two words: condom)
- College Sport (“Explores historical development of college sport; the influence of race, ethnicity, class, and gender.”)
- Officiating
If you were to give these guys Method Man’s truth serum from “How High” and asked what the best part of OSU was, the unanimous answer would most likely be “all dem white bitches.”
These dudes like going to school in Columbus because of the celebrity status and the ability to play Xbox all day instead of going to class. Since they didn’t graduate, I guess you could say these guys majored in giving nerdy white TA’s boners for having a football player talk to them.
But I don’t limit my hatred of Ohio State to the football team. I hate that they have hot girls. I hate that every guy is a douchebag. I hate that they accept Dave and Buster’s coupons for tuition.
And then there’s the Ohio State fans: what’s not to hate there?
My point here is that these students, staff, alumni, and fans have no reason to refer to their school as “The” anything. It’s not like the school is Princeton or Oxford, where this pompous behavior would be (slightly) more acceptable. But the fact is that you are going to a third-rate school in a fourth-tier state.
P.S. Don't think that I forgot about you folks at The George Washington University. Congrats on being the runner up here. I have a suggestion for you guys: it may be more accurate to replace “The” with “Thank you for your application to Georgetown, but you’ll have to settle for”
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