It was always Michigan versus Ohio State in the back-yard football games of Jon Jansen’s boyhood in Clawson, Mich.
Only one problem: Who would be the hated Buckeyes?
“The guys across the street,” Jansen recalled with a smile. “I was one of the bigger kids. I generally worked it out so that I played for Michigan.”
A 6-foot-7-inch, 298-pound offensive tackle, Jansen is still one of the bigger kids. He worked it out so that he plays for Michigan, on scholarship.
Jansen will relive his childhood in front of 106,000 people Saturday in Michigan Stadium. But the Buckeyes he’ll encounter will be from across the border, not across the street. They’ll be the fourth-ranked football team in the nation, come to deny No. 1 Michigan its rightful place in the Rose Bowl.
Bumper sticker seen in Ann Arbor: DIRECTIONS TO COLUMBUS–SOUTH UNTIL YOU SMELL IT, EAST UNTIL YOU STEP IN IT
For sheer nastiness, it doesn’t match Florida-Florida State, which will be restaged Saturday down in Gainesville. And it doesn’t stir the class prejudices found in Alabama-Auburn, USC-UCLA or Stanford-Cal, which renew themselves this weekend.
The Ohio State-Michigan madness started innocently enough on Oct. 16, 1897, when Michigan dispatched the visiting Buckeyes 36-0. A century later it has grown into the Midwest’s signature sports rivalry, a stomach-churning, nerve-jangling experience for all involved.
Unlike Jansen, Wolverine tailback Chris Howard had no clue about Ohio State-Michigan as a youngster growing up near New Orleans.
“It probably impacted me the first time I traveled to Ohio and saw the T-shirts that said, `Michigan (stinks),’ ” Howard said.
Ohio and Michigan seem to have much in common. Both are planted in the heartland, geographically and psychologically.
They also share a common dread of each other.
The players and coaches speak respectfully about the other side. The fans use terms that can’t be printed in a newspaper.
Even the highest officials can’t resist poking fun this week. As OSU President E. Gordon Gee’s car phone crackled during an interview Thursday, the interviewer wondered if Michigan spies were tapping in to eavesdrop.
“Oh, those guys up there can’t read or write anyway,” Gee cracked.
Michiganians smirk at Ohio State’s 49,600-student enrollment. Buckeyes roll their eyes when Michigan alums refer to their alma mater as a “public Ivy League school.”
But what the rivalry comes down to is football.
Michigan believes it invented the game. Ohio State believes it perfected it.
Bumper sticker seen in Columbus: M–GO BLOW
Michigan won 13 of the first 15 meetings and tied the other two. But Ohio State staged a midcentury rally with the 1951 hiring of Woody Hayes of Newcomerstown, Ohio.
Hayes deserves as much credit as anyone for turning up the heat in the rivalry. The portly, white-haired curmudgeon disdainfully referred to Michigan as “that school up North.”
A former Buckeyes assistant coach, Ed Ferkany, once told an interviewer about a recruiting foray into Michigan with Hayes. On the drive home, Ferkany noticed that the needle was pointing toward “E” on the gas gauge. But when he suggested that they stop at a filling station, Hayes turned and bellowed, “We do not pull in and fill up. And I’ll tell you exactly why we don’t. It’s because I don’t buy one drop of gas in the State of Michigan! We’ll coast and push this damn car to the Ohio line before I give this state a nickel of my money!”
Tensions escalated in 1969, when Michigan had the audacity to hire Bo Schembechler, a former Hayes assistant and–gasp–a product of Barberton, Ohio. Though Hayes and Schembechler admired each other, their “Ten Year War” nourished the rivalry.
“The thing that really makes it hit home is when you’re a freshman, sitting in a team meeting, and you hear Woody talking about how he despises the very ground they walked on up there,” said Tom Skladany, OSU’s three-time All-American punter and placekicker who owns a print shop near Columbus.
Joke heard in Columbus: Why does Bo eat his cereal on a plate? If it were in a bowl, he’d choke on it.
The “Ten Year War” came along just as college football was outgrowing its regional roots, with the help of television. Fans across the nation might not know Ann Arbor from Anne Hayes, but they sat riveted as the Wolverines and Buckeyes went at each other on the small screen.
In the “Ten Year War,” Michigan won five, Ohio State won four and they tied one.
Ohio State blew the No. 1 ranking and perfect seasons in 1969 and 1973. From 1972-75, Michigan went into the Ohio State game 38-0-2. It came out of those four games with three losses and a tie.
Joke heard in Ann Arbor: Did you hear about the fire at the Ohio State library? Both books were burned–and neither had been colored in yet.
Whenever Michigan played Ohio State, William Kolesar, a three-time Wolverine letterman, would turn down the volume on the television. The house would fill with Bob Ufer screaming “MEEEE-chigan” over the Wolverine radio network.
“I’d be in the bathroom praying, and I’m 7 years old,” son John Kolesar recalled.
The best part is that the Kolesars lived in Cleveland.
John Kolesar embodies an odd thread in the rivalry–Ohio-bred children who grow up and stick a dagger in the Buckeyes.
In 1988, Kolesar made the leaping touchdown grab that beat Ohio State 34-31. In Michigan’s 31-3 rout in 1991, Clevelander Desmond Howard returned a punt 93 yards for a touchdown.
And in the last two meetings, Ohio State’s final, desperate thrusts died on interceptions by Ohio boys–Charles Woodson of Fremont in 1995 and Marcus Ray of Columbus in 1996.
Ray, who went to Buckeye great Archie Griffin’s high school, doesn’t mind being called a turncoat. He once showed up at an Ohio State spring game wearing Michigan sweats.
“Last year I got some calls at home saying you and Woodson made a mistake, you’d better watch out,” Ray said. “For people down there to understand–maybe it’s not for them to understand.”
Joke heard in Columbus: What did Jalen Rose get when he left Michigan for the NBA? A pay cut.
By Friday afternoon, a convoy of cars with scarlet and gray flags fluttering will be rolling north along U.S. Highway 23. Once they pass Toledo, drivers had best observe the speed limit.
One veteran Michigan reporter says he often rents cars with Ohio plates when he drives down to Columbus for OSU-Michigan games. “Just to be on the safe side,” he explained.
Some Ohio State fans will boldly fly their colors on Ann Arbor’s State Street this weekend, but for most Buckeyes, the safe side is the living room.
“I won’t comment on the fans in Michigan Stadium,” said Columbus Mayor Greg Lashutka, captain of the 1965 Buckeyes. “I’ll stay home and watch this one.”
