Comments on: Whither Mirror Lake?

By: MirrorLakeJump

MirrorLakeJump — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:04:23 +0000

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!

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:17:14 +0000

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.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:10:34 +0000

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.

By: Bhors

Bhors — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:46:02 +0000

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.

By: KE

KE — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:18:43 +0000

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.

By: Mo

Mo — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:15:18 +0000

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

By: flipsaari

flipsaari — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:35:04 +0000

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.

By: E Gordon Gee

E Gordon Gee — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:05:11 +0000

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.

By: DJ

DJ — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:45:24 +0000

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.

By: DJ

DJ — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:42:54 +0000

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!!!