Whither Mirror Lake?
Not pictured: a wet & wild Tressel wearing nothing but a sweater vestContrary to an ideology making the rounds circa these parts a little too much of late, Ohio State is coming off one of the program’s most riveting wins of the last decade, a ten year stretch that’s been rather good to the Bucks. If that wasn’t enough, there’s only arguably the biggest rivalry in sport just ahead on the horizon. I concede this weekend likely won’t live up to the lofty expectations I usually give it – less of course Rich Rodriguez is given that long overdue life contract. None the less, I remain confident the rivalry will go on. A tradition whose future is far less assured is that of the now infamous Mirror Lake Jump.
The old timers amongst us may have little exposure to the jump beyond the back-from-commercial-break lead ins commented upon by Kirk Herbstreit during the now immortal 2006 #1 vs. #2 epic (and naturally co-narrated by Brent Musberger, whom all but suggested “liquid coats” were in play, either in jest or more likely envy). Virtually all graduates anytime in the last two decades now the tradition in any number of senses: either they themselves were survivors (perhaps multiple time veterans) of the Lake’s near hypothermia inducing conditions and the subsequent after-party that ensued, knew someone that was, or made it a point to take in the insanity during their time occupying the 43210 zip code and surrounding areas.
To a generation of Ohio State fans, risking pneumonia for the chance at being able to brag foolheartedly to your dismayed parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents a week later at Thanksgiving, while also “guaranteeing victory” for your beloved Buckeyes is as much part of the Buckeye ethos as “Dotting the ‘i’”, or as “Hang on Sloopy” is to the ones that came before and after them alike. With Ohio State-Michigan returning to Thanksgiving weekend a year from now, as has been the case just 16 times in the previous 68, with the entire student body sure to be markedly absent from the campus area, one has to wonder whether the often frozen pond jump will be the casualty of the conference’s plan to try and further increase exposure.
Per University folklore, the history of the modern jump goes back the 1989 season, which happened to be one of the sixteen times The Game fell on Thanksgiving weekend. With the typical ‘Beat Michigan Week’ festivities 86′ed, an ad-hoc marching band was assembled (including some members of the actual TBDBITL) and what few students happened to still be around the campus area. As legend has it, the parade, fueled by an absence of tryptophan and abundance of rye whiskey, turned ugly, resulting in the flipping of covers and multiple arrests. A year later, to pay homage to the madness of year’s past, many of the same band members reunited for an impromptu march again, this time ending with many of those on hand plunging into the bitter waters. The tradition took on a life of its own, eventually evolving into an event surrounding specifically the act of the plunge itself.
A Lantern article from a few years back confirms many of the legends surrounding the history, also adding in that arguably the earliest roots of the Lake related festivities go back to the roaring 20’s, when hapless freshmen were tossed into the lake during Michigan week (NERDZ!!!!!!!!!). Several other jumps of varying magnitudes took place in the decades that followed, likely setting the stage for the idea to take root in the early 90’s.
The question still lingering at this point: what do 2010 and future incarnations of The Game have in store for the pre-requisite-to-graduate for many jump? Should the ‘89 season be any barometer, wanton violence and chaos the only way the cliches would dictate Buckeyes know how. More realistically, per a few turn-of-the-century Bucks, the 2001 jump went off as planned (the last time the game took place after Thanksgiving weekend) though with a far smaller than normal crowd and less fervor than the years that would follow. While convenient for the University, who’s stuck footing the refinishing of the lake’s bottom year-after-year, diminished jump participation, a poorly coordinate rescheduling of the jump, or little excitement surrounding the happening in future classes could spell the end what’d often devolved into Woodstock with hypothermia.
While hardly superstitious in the least, I played the “tussy” card my freshmen year and saw the Bucks fall to the hated squad from up north. After taking part the next 3 years, 3 entire Ohio State teams had 3 more pairs of Gold Pants. In a sport riddled with irrational transference, future classes may have to settle for other targets for their glee or malaise.
The Dispatch’s Tim May goes into the reasoning behind the seemingly spontaneous emergence of what Jim Cordle calls the “Buck Wild”. Football strategy memes aside, while the Bucks certainly reaped the benefits of a Boom Herron touchdown strike from the package and certainly seem to be saving some of the wear and tear on TP, can the package really be qualified as any kind of success when seemingly 75-85% of its execution results in minimal gains and what almost feels like the element of ‘unsurprise’?
I’ve jumped in mirror lake five straight years now (four years of undergrad, one year of grad school).
It’s worked out pretty damn well so far, I’m thinking I might have to keep going until I’m 90 if it keeps working.
i’m so glad you wrote this, because the question of what will happen to mirror lake has been on my mind too. i’m thinking maybe the day before thanksgiving break? it has to be during michigan week, and after the game probably won’t fly.
i jumped in twice, saw it four times, and i’ll be extremely sad if it goes away
also re: the wildcat, you KNOW Tressel has run it like 10 times the exact same way just so he can do something completely different with it for the michigan game
I love the name Buck Wild that’s the best name.
For the sake of posterity and keeping the factual record straight, I personally participated in a “phantom band” pep rally, toilet papering the Oval, and the traditional swim in Mirror lake as a freshman in 1986… So I think the so-called “modern era” must have been pre-1989.
Good to know. I’d always heard ‘90 or ‘91 was “the first” real swim (and that 2005 Lantern article seemed to confirm as much), but I have no doubt there were others before that.
3 time jumper (once in a leisure suit) and I’ve lived through one of the aforementioned Thanksgiving week games: It SUCKS! The energy level wasn’t a quarter of it normally is on M*ch*g*n Week. Then there was a lot of confusion and rumors about when the jump would actually take place (ah, the days before Facebook). My sincere hope is that they’ll see how much this sucks the life out of the game and maybe switch to two bye weeks or find some other way to move the game off of Thanksgiving weekend. Failing that, I think the jump should be moved to the Saturday before the game at the stroke of midnight. That way the jump can be used to usher in M*ch*g*n Week.
One tradition I wish they still allowed is when the band would march by all the dorms and then lead everyone down to Mirror Lake for the jump. Did that actually happen at one point or was someone just feeding me a line?
This is how it happened in the early to mid 90s. The band would start by going to each dorm and serenade participants. The collecting crowd growing larger at each stop. As I recall the roving party moved to the oval where old Oxley would be defiled and decorated. Then to the icy waters.
Strongly considering jumping into the US Capitol Reflecting Pool on Thursday night for the sole purpose of doing what I can to beat Michigan.
I think I will have to jump in to my pool Thursday night since I will be 2500+ miles away from mirror lake. jus doin what I can to guarantee a win….
I’m stuck in Germany for the game…I will take a cold shower in place of the ‘jump.’
A new record amount of run on sentences
:)
Three-time jumper (’98, ‘02, ‘07) and long-time visitor.
I met a girl down there in ‘98 and ended up dating her for three years. One of the great memories ever.
I’ll be there tomorrow at the ripe age of 30 … still look 25 though!!
I jumped in in 2002, 2004, and 2006. All as an undergrad, too.
Tellin ya, it damn near guarantees a home victory. I wonder if the nekkid guy on the bike is still around.
I wish some student leadership could organize something for next year but hard to get anything done without the university condoning it. Anyways, it’ll be my 4th year in a row. Doesn’t look like its going to be cold as usual.
3 time jumper myself. I took pictures my freshman year, but after that I wasn’t going to be held out of the fun the next three years. I believe I made a shirt one time that said, “If Ann Arbor was a baby I’d shake it.”
Hey, I was interviewed for that linked Lantern article…I didn’t think the guy was going to put in the line about my shoes. :)
Here’s a couple of my old blog posts on the subject:
http://boonedocks.net/mike/archives/50-Fond-Memories-of-Freezing-Mirror-Lake.html
http://boonedocks.net/mike/archives/100-More-Memories-of-The-Game.html
All hail the Phantom Band, which did show up outside my Taylor Tower dorm and lead us to the Oval and then to Mirror Lake.
Hey Mike,
This is the guy that interviewed you. Thanks for helping me with the story and being nice enough to talk to a young, inexperienced reporter.
Thanks 11W for reposting what I consider the best piece I ever did at The Lantern. I’m a four-time lake jumper (2002, 2004, 2005, 2006). I didn’t do it my sophomore year because I had a night class on Thursday and a test at 8 a.m. on Friday.
And finally, to all, if this doesn’t get you pumped for the game and feeling something on an emotional level, well, then I probably don’t want to know you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PymIQ3BuNYA
Perfect ending to that video!
It was a good article…I wish I remembered it all better. :) Maybe next year when the jump is Thanksgiving week and I’m in town I could sneak over from the relatives and hit the lake.
I wish they’d bring the Phantom Band back…if the marching band can’t play, it’s time for some students to dust off their high school instruments and learn a couple songs!
dumb question: “university is stuck for the bill for refinishing the bottom of the lake.” the Jump damages the lake? really?
haha i get the feeling you haven’t been to one
Like you wouldn’t believe. That lake is disgusting for days afterward.
That lake is DISGUSTING AT ALL TIMES.
//fixed
In the middle of summer when there are zero people on campus and it’s a beautiful day you still can’t see the bottom of that lake.
Very true. Michigan week merely adds an extra dose of flip flops, bathing suits, and fresh STDs
Actually, the redone lake has a solid bottom now, if I’m not mistaken. The real cost is the damage primarily to the grass on the South Oval as well as surrounding Mirror Lake (obviously). Since it’s late fall / early winter, that grass looks bad until mid-spring.
I’m a 4-time jumper/swimmer myself. Only time I didn’t go in was when I had 2 fresh sets (1 day old) of surgical stitches so that dirty water wouldn’t have been good for the wounds. So instead, they wheeled me to the lake in a wheelchair and used a well placed blanket to hide a case of beer and some handles of tequila and whiskey. Lets just say, I ran into a lot of people, including the poor saps at McDonalds that happened to be in front of us in line.
GREAT memories
This from John Cooper: “Of course, my record wasn’t very good against Michigan, but I’ll point this out — I never lost to a bad Michigan team.” Maybe, but you had the better team in 1993, 1995, 1996 for sure and took undefeated teams into those games and got embarrassed you Jackass!! The 1993 team was undefeated and got shut-out in Ann Arbor…. so shut up and go away!
1 time jumper here (2004) as a law student, but we did make the most of it by running around the law school afterwards, soaking wet, shirtless and still in our bathing suits, and posing in all sorts of inappropriate places (main entrance, moot courtroom, law review suite, etc…)
Hope they find a way to keep the tradition alive. One of those little things that makes college life so special!
What are the odds that the Big Ten extends the season one more week, moving Michigan week to the week after Thanksgiving? That would accomplish more of what the Big Ten wants and give more exposure, along with removing the crazy delay before bowl games, and would be great for OSU.
Having participated in “the jump,” it would make me very sad to see it disappear.
Did you notice how when, the team won bowl games every year, the conference and the fans never thought the delay was that big of a deal? I hate moving the game to Thansgiving weekend, but at the same time I hate bye weeks in the middle of the season too. I don’t know what I think is better.
Man, Saturday can’t get here fast enough; but I wish the season wasn’t ending. What an effing dilema.
Totally off subject but I was looking on MGO Blue and their entry for today gave mention to the possibility of Harbaugh being their next coach. Then I saw this comment:
Harbaugh
Even though he may be a great coach, and able to turn around a program that really needs some help, I’m not sure I’d want him here either. There really is something to say for being a Michigan Man – or someone who understands that a coach is more than just the record. Yes, the record is important, but the players are people who are in very formative years and need someone to look up to, someone to help them become better men. I don’t think Harbaugh would really be able to set that example.
I find it funny that they don’t like Harbaugh for being a douche, yet DickRod is one of the biggest douches out there and he’s a failure. AND if a coach is more than just a record why get rid of Lloyd Carr to begin with. He was a great man! I think this is hilarious myself.
I could see the Mirror Lake Jump being moved to the Tuesday before Thanksgiving next year. It’s a big “bar” night anyway as very little gets done on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving on campus.
I could see it actually falling on Friday night too. A lot of students would want to come back to campus on Friday night just for Kegs and Eggs the next morning, especially if the game is in C-bus.
I bet they’ll move Mirror Lake to Tuesday next year too. As for this year, Thursday is my 21st birthday, and I don’t have any classes on Friday. Survival seems questionable…
Godspeed.
survival is not questionable, you are a true champion!
mirror lake + 21 shots = beating scUM. don’t let us down, private.
I bet if you puke in Mirror Lake it’ll do even more to beat UM. Or not.
Either way, you’re pukin’.
I was never a student at OSU, but in ‘95, my HS senior year, I came to campus to jump and attend the game next day. The jump went fine, but Tim “you mother fucker” Biakabutuika ran for 313 yards the next day. Sorry for the jinx, never happen again.
I’m making it a point to come home for thanksgiving next year just so I can jump in the lake and of course get to the game.
I have jumped in every year Tressel has been there except one. 2003. The only year we lost. Coincidence? I hope so, because I won’t be able to this Thursday either.
Are you on the ten year plan (if so, fist-bump), or do you still live close by?
a lot of people go to school for 10 years… they’re called doctors.
Never said it was a bad thing.
Agreed. There’s a reason I stayed for 5 years, other than a couple drops and 2 classes that fell under “freshman forgiveness”
…or True Buckeyes.
I live about 2 hours away and graduated in 05, but I have younger cousins that still go to school there and I would just take Fridays off of work, get real drunk and go swimming. After this year I am going to have to make friends with my really young cousins in order to pull that off. But then I’ll be “that old guy” (27) at the college parties. Ahh fuck it. Lets swim.
I have great faith that it won’t die by going to Thanksgiving. We didn’t let it die my senior year, and it was close to going away then.
There was an article in the Lantern during U-M week in 1994 that any band member participating in Phantom Band would not be in the band anymore. There were about six or eight of us in USG (I was the College of Education rep at the time, elected by a whole 290 of my peers) who found this unacceptable and decided that we would take matters into our own hands. So we made our own Phantom Band and met on the west side of the Shoe, complete with kazoos and a boom box (remember those?) playing TBDBITL CDs (Hang On Sloopy, to be precise) and proceeded to play the pied piper role that the Band had done so well beforehand. We marched around North Campus then weaved down through 15th Ave and down to South Campus, and by the time we reached Enarson Hall around midnight or so, we made a beeline for Mirror Lake with about 10,000 of our closest friends (or so we were later told). Our epic march that year was rewarded with the first win over U-M in the Cooper era, 22-6.
That was easily the highlight of my time at OSU. Long Live the Mirror Lake Jump!!!
as mentioned before by others, it will probably be moved to tuesday, since wednesdays classes before thanksgiving are usually cancelled by the instructors.
im not jumping this year. ive been in there 5 times, (only 3 times michigan related), totalling about an hour. ive had my share of that lake. i will definitely be on hand to witness the drunkfest though.
I’ve Jumped 3 times and plan on making it 4 here tomorrow. I can say this with all certainty: I’ve never felt a rush of sheer pride that I feel when jumping in the lake; and the colder, the better. Sure it takes more than your average booze jacket to muster up the confidence to to it, but that is just part of the process. The camaraderie felt when you’re in this lake is like nothing else! Also, I’ve always felt that this is the ULTIMATE F**K M*ch*g@n right before The Game
I really hope that there is something done to prolong the tradition so that it might be preserved for the buckeyes that follow myself and my peers.
Here is a video that includes the Preparation and the experience that i found on Fandome
http://buckeyes.fandome.com/video/106653/Ohio-State-Mirror-Lake-Drunkumentary/
Go Bucks! F**K M*ch*g@n
-Mo
Sounds like a good tradition. I remember the riot on High Street, which I watched from the law school steps after the win in ‘81. No jumping back then, only car flipping.
I question the tradition starting in the 80s. I was a student at OSU from 84-89 (and I don’t give away my age often) and it wasn’t anything that I remember. I do remember a couple of spontaneous band actions during Michigan week but not Mirror Lake jumping.
My freshman year (84) was a Rose Bowl game and I think it was Thursday night, we heard on the news or something that members of the band had left an event and we’re out on high street blocking traffic. We bolted from the dorm to find a huge crowd celebrating the excitement of the week in the middle of High Street. Every year after we’d seek out the “phantom band” but I don’t recall Mirror Lake as part of the event.
What I do remember very well (and not to put a damper on it) was that a girl on the swim team was tossed into mirror lake after a game, landed on her tailbone and was paralyzed. While I didn’t know her, I knew a number of girls on the swim team and it was tough for all.
The incident was well reported at the time and I think everyone was pretty scared of the idea of jumping into Mirror Lake. Maybe it was a thing for the south dorms but it wasn’t the event it is now. I tend to think it didn’t really take off until at least the 90s.
I just read the Lantern article and the “phantom” band is pretty much as I remember. I lived in Taylor and we heard on the news that the band was around Lane and High. We ran out of the dorms to find the crowd growing fast.
Like the article says, you never knew for sure what night it would be but that added to the spontaneity and excitement of it.
I do remember that 84 Michigan game well. The shops on High Street were boarded up days in advance, they brought the cops in by Grey Hound Bus and High Street was packed.