Kyle during one of his famous “miss it” chants.
If you have been to or watched a Buckeye basketball game on TV over the last five years, you undoubtedly have seen the kid in this photo, OSU senior Kyle Blizzard. Kyle is originally from Trenton, Ohio and will graduate in June with a communications degree and business minor, hopefully parlaying his education into a job within the sports realm.
I have marveled at Kyle’s enthusiasm, cheering antics and of course his killer seats, I thought he would be an excellent person to talk Buckeye hoops with and he definitely did not let me down.
The atmosphere at the Schott has been a major disappointment since the facility opened in 1999 and if more people took on the attitude that Kyle does for every game, it could be one of the toughest places to play in the country. Kyle was kind enough to take some time out of his job search and school schedule to discuss a variety of topics about the Schott and Buckeye hoops.
11W is very appreciative of his time and I hope his insights will spark another lazy Thursday discussion on these topics.
Do you get special treatment to make sure you are in the front row?
The answer to this question is a little detailed because it depends on the policy of that particular game. Students can buy “splits” which are basically season ticket packages for the Big Ten games and all other games are sold separately. I had to approach the splits differently than the other games.
I’ll talk about the season ticket packages. I originally started sitting in the front rows when I was a freshman. I was involved in Block “O” and its NutHouse committee. At that time there were very few students who actually came to basketball games. Those two things were what allowed me to get those seats. My sophomore and junior years, I was an officer in Block “O” (president during my junior year). Block “O” and the athletic department work together on a lot of things and that relationship allowed us to reward our hard working officers with good seats. Last year we had assigned seats which didn’t work out as well as hoped and I bounced around from game to game.
This year, the athletic department tried a new policy for students in which they could buy general admission tickets that would allow them to sit in the lower bowl based on when they showed up to the arena. I and many other dedicated, (even in cold, snowy winter) absolutely crazy basketball fans would sit outside in line waiting for the doors to open so we could get as close to the action as possible.
Or for a less descriptive answer, being very involved in Block “O” helped me get seats up front for most of the years while this year I had to show up hours before the doors opened with all the other crazy Buckeye fans.
How or what is the process to get students to choreograph cheers/chants? Any meetings? Coaches involved?
Basically, just yell one out and get others to join in. There are some chants/cheers that we do that take some practice to learn. In the past, we would just do them a lot during the games and people would pick them up. Block “O” has always worked to find ways for students to join in on them and last year there was a big “tip-off meeting” to help teach everyone the tricks.
Again, it’s just someone feeling the game and what’s going on, knowing what would be good for that moment, and taking a leading role to get everyone to join in, kind of a lead by example method. Really, anyone can do it, and the more creative the better. Coach Matta has encouraged us all along to be loud and get into the game with chants and cheers. He even said he’d take a technical foul for us if he had to.
Read more »
Looks guilty to me…
