At the Urban Meyer Student Town Hall Meeting held today in the Union, Urban unveiled what he hopes to be a new tradition to add to the many football traditions here at Ohio State. The staff calls them "quick cals" (quick calisthenics) which they use during warmups for practices (and games) to make sure the team and coaches are high energy and ready to go. For home games starting this fall, after warming up, and before heading into the locker room for the final time before kickoff at home, the team will face the South Stands Student Section and together the players and the fans will do a set of "quick cals" to get the energy in the stadium and on the field up before kickoff. Please watch this video I have linked to understand what these are, and to watch Coach Mariotti teach a giant room full of students (and Brutus) how to properly perform them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIP1vD0f5gI&feature=youtu.be
I watched the team do these during the open practice, and took part in them today. I think this could be a really cool tradition if the student body embraces it and at least halfway decently learns what to do. Coach Mariotti really got us fired up, and I think the whole stadium would just spark every time we would do it.
Apologies to whoever posted a link to the video in another comment, but I thought it deserved a full write up and post of its own.
Ah, I forgot that this was tonight. Well, it's not that hard to learn, I bet we get it down by the last game.
I wouldn't cheer for Michigan if they were playing the Taliban.
Seems fun lol.
Haha thanks for writing this, I haven't been to a computer since I uploaded it, but this is exactly what I wanted to say!
Not a fan. Seems very "contrived." We did this in grade school and high school. Nothing special. I'm okay with doing it, just why try to sell it off as a "tradition"? Doesn't make much sense to me.
I think this could be fun for the fans if the students sorta know what they're doing in advance.
Gotta vote 'meh' on this one. First, I can picture a lot of bewildered fans getting everything wrong. Second, not enough room in a packed stadium. I see a lot of spilled food. Finally, even if it goes well it just seems like a gym teacher's version of Hawaii's Haka.
Block "O" will be teaching it prior to games, including Buckeye Kickoff, so there's less confusion on gameday, since chances are Marotti's voice won't carry all the way up the south stands.
@Ahh Saturday
It's not really for the fans (some of the older ones even seem reluctant to cheer at times), but for the students. I've watched the team do it and it gets the energy going and seems pretty cool to me. This video isn't quite the same as being in the room of several hundred people doing it at the same time. Seeing the team and a wall of students doing it would be a pretty cool site. Now, students in general are dumb and probably won't catch on very quickly, so we'll see how it goes.
I don't know if it will catch on much, but it's something to get the students going. We should have an amazing home field advantage with our stadium, but the only game last year that I remember fans showing up ready to go was Wisconsin (we were out for blood because of the year before), and we all saw how that went when our team had more passion and wanted it more. I guess we will see.
People looked goofy as heck doing it in a ballroom but I think if all the students and players were doing it in sync it will look pretty cool.
Coach Meyer is like a public utility.
I don't see this taking off at all. Most will probably be too drunk to pick it up or even notice its happening.
yeah, you guys are right. we should just stick with the stale, stolen, and generally lame seven nation army chant. how dare the coaches, playes, and students work on creating something fun and original.
swing hard in case you hit it.
^^^ I didn't realize that there were only two choices.
I'm open to third, fourth, and fifth choices, but to reject an idea because it might result in spilled food is just the kind of mindset in ohio stadium that drives me crazy. it's straight from the "sit down i can't see" crowd.
swing hard in case you hit it.
Shark - agree with you on this one. This has the potential to help get the students really involved. Don't know how it will do, but I certainly hope it will put a few more buts in the seats earlier. When I do go to a game I am always in the stadium at least an hour before kickoff. And it drives me crazy to see the stands fill up after opening kickoff. Anything that Urban can do to get them in earlier is OK in my book. Too much potential to spill food - really? That goes along with "I just hope they don't score when I'm texting my BFF". Watch and enjoy the pageantry and the game people!!!!
@ shark,
I don't reject the idea. It just isn't an interesting idea. You say it's fun. I say it's awkward. You say it's original, I say I liked it better when Hawaii did it. As far as the "spilled food" goes, it wasn't an argument. Just an observation. Enjoy your lap full of nachos.
As someone who actually participated in this drill last night I can say that it was alot of fun and will definately help pump up the students before the games. (Spilled food aside...seriously?)
I was the one who actually filmed it and I agree with the above statement.
And to the OP, yesterday I learned that it's not Mariotti (like to idiotic sports guy from Chicago), it's actually Marotti. Odd things eh?
Yeah, I actually looked up his name online to try to get it right but it seems to be wrong all over the place. Thanks for the correction.
I think there are alot of people that should stay home on Saturday's....I'm talking about the people that say "are these guys going to stand the whole game" or as one lady put it to her husband that I sat by one time "are these guys going to be this loud the whole game'?
"Quick cals," reminds me of the Zulu War Chants in the 1964 film, Zulu.
The massive vocal orchestration of the Zulu Warriors was VERY intimidating and used to scare the shit out of their enemies before the attack.
With a few good reps, I can see where this "New Tradition" led by the student section could be incredibly awesome in the Shoe before, and during games.
Here's a link to War Chants:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODM1RJe4FvQ
Go Bucks!
if it catches on, i think it could be incredible. if not, itll still be pretty cool, but just not insane.
For those of you that enjoyed this like I did may I revisit you to the Kyle Dodson announcement video back on NSD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLT6Zh0E8Ag
Wouldnt mind that chant incorporated in a new tradition as well... it would basically be something to remind us of the day Urban Meyer ushered us into a new era of OSU football since it was his first recruiting class.
Why not try it? What is there to lose? Especially since I think he said that it was going to be directed toward the south stands, not the whole stadium. Even if people cant do all the movements, it shouldn't take too much brainpower to do the "huh"s and clapping. On another note, did you notice Vrabel on stage? He looked like he was enjoying himself immensely. I can see how he was so valuable in the NFL-the guy looks like he always has his radar on. Brutus Buckeye also cracked me up-pretty funny guy, especially when he started to do the macarena.
Saw a few complaints about these, issues with seven nation army, and comparisons to Hawaii's drills. These "quick cals" are less original than seven nation army and if you were at the USC game when Seven Nation Army started, then you would want to keep it around.
These types of "quick cals" are taught to pee-wee and grade school football players all over the country, and have been for decades. I was originally taught them by my grade school coach who did them in the 1960s. I did a variation of these all the way through high school.
So to claim these as "original" is not accurate. They are however a very traditional pre-game activity that players enjoy and often times are accustomed to.
the in-stadium crowd pumpers that aren't cheerleader or TBDBITL-led are weak at best. remember that lame-brained idea to make us say "FIRST DOWN" every time it happened? that lasted about 3 games.
The getting the crowd ot say "first down thing" was really dumb. "And that's another Buckeye" doesn't sounds like it needs to be completed by "FIRST DOWN!"
Anyway, I think this sounds like an awesome idea. On top of just generally sounding neat, it's nice to see that Urban Meyer recognizes that students are what will make or break the noise level in the stadium. With this, the town hall meeting and the open practice the dude's bending over backwards to get the students on his side.
Frankly, this sounds kinda stupid.
Frankly, it was awesome to do as a student, it was very exciting.
If you don't want to do it, don't sit in one of the student sections. No one is going to make you do it. It's for fun.
Frankly you can watch the games at home.