BLING!Last week, when Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin announced plans to stop printing athletic media guides, I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. I get the reasons for the move, but we're talking the retirement of Buckeye man's greatest bathroom companion.
If you bleed scarlet and gray, the raw amount of information is delightful. You have the quality stats like playing minutes, results when ranked and televised games. The history section includes heroic tales of great seasons, players and bowls and the season outlook, player capsules and other copy is unadulterated Buckeye porn and propaganda of the finest degree. How else would you know that Baseball America once rated Bauserman as having the best changeup in the Pirates' farm system or that Chekwa's sister played hoops for Mississippi State or that Lawrence Wilson's favorite cartoon character is Riley?
Okay, so maybe you will still be able to unearth those nuggets. The media guides will be published online and will be much more accessible in that form than the limited print run that went out to a select few or were available for purchase. In fact, if you're so motivated, you can grab a copy of the 2009 Spring Guide and ship it to your nearest Kinkos (scratch that last step, the founder was a USC grad). The university will be saving a couple hundred thousand dollars and besides, the PDFs offer one killer benefit: you can search them.
But I'll definitely miss the covers, which were great at getting a snapshot of the expected season or a tribute to the one that came before (though they have trended towards a slick branding effort as of late). Over the years there have been some memorable covers and here are just a few (click the image for full size):
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1981 Heading into Schlichter's senior season, the quarterback was given three spots on the cover and national championship hopes were abound in Columbus. It was not to be, however, as the Buckeyes were upset at home by Florida State in game four and followed that with a loss at Wisconsin the following week on the way to a... 9-3 finish. |
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1984 Love the shot of Byars on his way to a 99 yard kickoff return against Pitt in the Fiesta Bowl. With Tomczak suffering a broken leg in the spring game, the cover delivers optimism. |
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1985 Byars gets the star treatment on the cover after rushing for 1,764 yards as a junior. On page four is the awesomely titled "Keith Byars - A Special Kind of Athlete". Damn you broken foot god! |
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1987 Spielman graced his only cover in 1987 which, surprisingly, is only half the number of covers that Steve Tovar appeared on (1991 and 1992). This would be the last media guide with an Earle Bruce bio. |
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1988 The new coach gets the cover treatment and even the most partisan of us will admit that scarlet doesn't exactly look great on everything. Coop is joined by Vince Workman, Michael McCray and Jeff Uhlenhake. |
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1990 Minimalism was in for 1990 as the cover featured Greg Frey and his tinted visor executing an option pitch to the cameraman. Scottie Graham, Jeff Graham, Dan Beatty and Alonzo Spellman grace the back cover. |
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1994 After jumping out to a 9-0-1 start in 1993, the Buckeyes were shutout by Michigan relegating the conference co-champs to the Thrifty Car Rental Bowl. No matter, Coop was still down to show off the Big Ten and bowl trophies for '94. |
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1995 Hopes were high for both Eddie George and Bobby Hoying headed into the 1995 season. So, let's play around with the first-ever set of Photoshop filters for the cover! Really, was 1995 the year of the ugly or what? |
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1997 The cover in 1997 celebrated the Rose Bowl win over Arizona State (and rightfully so). The trophy appears along with photos of Pepe Pearson, Stanley Jackson and Damon Moore. |
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1998 The guide recognized the sheer amount of talent on the '98 team by featuring six of the stars of that team on the cover: Katzenmoyer, Rob Murphy, Winfield, Germaine, Damon Moore and Boston. |
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2000 Coming off a sub-par 1999, the 2000 guide featured a pensive John Cooper staring off into the distance with an action photo of Bellisari. If you look closely at the background gradient, you can literally see the hot seat engulfing Coop. |
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2002 Patriotism was the theme for 2002 as the nation was still smarting from 9/11. This is the only media guide to feature the American flag on the cover. |
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2003 OUR TROPHIES, BEHOLD THEM!!! |
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2006 Pitcock, Datish, Patterson and Smith displaying a bit of the swagger that accompanies a preseason national championship favorite. |
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2007 Spring 2007 marked the first season Ohio State issued two media guides (mostly to wiggle around the new NCAA limit on size). While the fall guide was more geared towards recruits, the spring guides packed the heavy numbers. |
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2007 Fall The fall edition for 2007 features an amazing cover. Some enterprising soul should be selling notebooks with this design. |
So there's that. Anything to avoid talking about the BIGGEST ROUT IN THE HISTORY OF THE NCAA TOURNAMENT. Sigh. At least we knocked Georgia out.
Comments
I have a copy of the 2006 media guide at home... I flew to Columbus for the 2006 opener against Youngstown State. My friend's wife works in security at Port Columbus and she grabbed one after a bunch of Media people headed strait for the airport after the game and took turns throwing them in the garbage before they entered the security checkpoint (it seems the decision to save $$ is valid). Many of the security people grabbed them up, and she knew I was the biggest Buckeye fan that she ever met (more than her husband, just a little). That team had so much talent and was on the cusp of something great (#*#!@).... seems a waste that they go in trash so easily. Anyway, I have mine and it is autographed (along with my 2002 commerative Sports Illustrated Book) by Chris Gamble, whose step-dad was the UPS man at my previous place of employment in South Florida.
LiC coming in at #8 on the B11 player rankings.....I understand, but don't necessarily agree. I am truly drawing a blank as to who will be ranked above him. Don't think he was necessarily #1 (curious as to who will be) but definately top 5. I mean, who is left, Darryl Clark?, c'mon.....really!?! Who else is there? Maybe I'm just too blazed all the time, but I really don't see any contenders.....
I can think of 5; D.Clark(PSU), Eric Decker, A.Benn, Evan Royster and Navarro Bowman.
TP should be in the top 5 by the end of the year.
Kids got a lot to prove this year.
Since you brought up the fact Kinko's was founded by a USC alum, I thought I'd mention Walgreen's was founded by a UM alum. So, please, avoid Walgreens at all costs.
In 1981 my high school team played Nettie Lee Roth high school out of Dayton Ohio in the first round of the state playoffs. In route to a 31-0 victory, our mighty defense held Roth's star tailback to a mind-boggling -4 rushing yards. That tailback's name, Keith Byars.
We'll see how good Clark and Royster are this year without the senior-laden receiving corps and with a dismantled O-line.
I agree, but don't be surprised to see at least 3 Penn State players in the top 7, it could be 4, is he adds Sean Lee.
Sean Lee could give you 6, anyone have an idea who the other 2 could be?
Dufrene maybe....but without a corrupt ref straight handing him a TD, he hasn't done anything. And he might have graduated, as I really could care less about the Illini and dont follow.
MichiscUM has a terrible squad, minus Graham, so dont see anyone there. MSU.....Kirk Cousins had 1 good drive against us LOL
Maybe the QB from Minny? But never ahead of TP. ugh. This will bother me all day.
that 2007 is pretty cool... melikes that minimalism sitniz...
This is just to funny not to share:
http://www.theonion.com/conten...
Here's the funny thing.
As soon as I'm done reading this post the mail comes into the office, and what's in it? The 2009 spring media guide.
It's pretty nice. It's an aerial view of Ohio Stadium the night of 2006's The Game. The wild thing is that the stadium is jam packed but there doesn't seem to be a soul anywhere else on campus. There's only about three cars on the roads.
Sorry to be a thread-jacker, but I had to say this about your LeBron leaving Cleveland poll...if he leaves they might as well blow up the Q, pave it, & make it a parking lot.
did anyone hear the segment on 97.1 the fan this morning about wanting to schedule an OOC team to play every year to make a new rivalry or whatever? It sounds like a great idea, but I don't know who the heck we could get. I like Krenzel's idea of Texas. They also said like ND, Cinci, LSU, not sure who else cuz i didn't listen to the whole thing, but what do you guys think? I really like the Texas idea personally
link?
check good shizzy
Notre Dame makes the most sense. They are independent and can schedule whoever they like. Plus there is some blood loss between the two schools.
How about West Virginia? The Ohio River Rivalry?
I like Texas as well.
I love Texas and its fanbase, but I'm not sure about it. Two out of the three games were very competitive, sure, but it would still feel contrived. As would a rivalry with UC, who we'd pwn year-in, year-out.
West Virginia would be crazy, provided they immediately fire Coach Stew and get good again.
yeah, i definitely do NOT like cinci, we want a big time school in my opinion. Personally, I'd like a team where it's not a given that we'd win
When I was in college the FIRST time (87-91), me and some buddies used to play what we called "Greg Frey Football" - the most important rule was that for a forward pass to be completed legally, the receiver had to catch the ball below the waist.
Uh yeah, no doubt, they would be better off releasing every player on the team, and signing all d-league players. They'd go just as far in the playoffs, thats for sure.
To me, Texas/Ohio St. would be a natural rivalry. Both states are equally ape-shizzy about football and i think both have the best HS football in the country.
I way, way prefer the current approach to scheduling home-and-homes with serious (i.e., BCS Conference) competiton from all over the country as long as it becomes a permanent thing. Screw Notre Dame; if we get locked into an annual matchup with them it only burns us further along the same "weak Big Ten" lines of media argument in their down years.
Also, if you think about it, we've already got a rotating sort of rivalry in place with the scheduling of Ohio schools. Not in the quality-of-opponent sense, but in the sense that the opponent will be jacked for that game and we'll get their very best shot. And remember that simple math dictates that we WILL lose one of those games sooner or later.
I was thinking about that, and so far I like the home-home, but what happens when that team suddenly starts sucking, or in that one random year where we aren't able to schedule anyone and back into the MNC game, and the bitching starts all over.
Well, you rolls the dice and takes your chances - it's still the best strategy AFAIK. I think trying to establish another ANNUAL rivalry, regional or otherwise, is kind of silly when we've already got the privilege/burden of the best rivalry around.
Sorry - hit 'Submit' too fast. I also wanted to mention that we've insured against that risk by scheduling top-tier programs (at least when the schedule was made) from the other BCS conferences rather than bottom-feeders or the middles of their packs. There's a big difference between scheduling Tennessee (even though they might still be struggling when we get them) vs. scheduling Miss. St. just to say we've scheduled an SEC team.
The parity created by scholarship limits has made all these choices a bit of a lottery.
All the Buckeyes have to do is work hard, get better every week, and smash people's faces. Sure, new rivalry's are interesting talk in these 4 god forsaken football-less months, but history shows that good OSU football teams get their shot at the title. Despite the current " big ten fatigue" trend, I don't see OSU losing any real cred anytime soon. No gimmicks, just win games.
I was standing with my toes on the sideline, at the 3 yard line, when Byars rushed for his 274th yard and 5th TD of the day against Illinois in 84'. I was also lucky enough to see Eddie's 314 yard day against the Illini.
true, we definitely don't "need" a rivalry as we've seen recently, but it would be fun to have another big game to get excited for every year
i'm sorry, that should say need "another" rivalry