Ohio State National Championship Games & other Bowl Games

I wasn't the biggest Ohio State fan growing up, at least not compared to so many who have bled scarlet and red in Ohio since birth. My older brother, Daniel, was a fan, so I watched games when he did. 

But things changed after high school. I started off at John Carroll University in Cleveland, where I followed Dani to also play soccer. But a couple of good friends of mine, Matt and John, were at Ohio State, and so I I transferred there for my third year. 

I quickly got a job at Ohio Stadium, and the fanatism took off. On football game days my job was to pull the nets for extra points and kickoffs - talk about close to the action!

So not only did I go to every home game during my three years, but also went to watch the Buckeyes play at Notre Dame, Penn State, and TTUN. 

In 1996 me and John went to the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida, where Ohio State - led by Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George - lost, 20-14, to Peyton Manning's Tennessee. 

The following year I flew out to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, this time watching Ohio State beat #2 ranked Arizona State in dramatic fashion. OSU was down by three with less than two minutes to play when they went on a long drive and scored a touchdown with only seconds remaining. That was the first time they'd won the Rose Bowl in 20-something years.

But the best bowl game I've been to was far and away in 2002, where Ohio State played #1 Miami in the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona for the National Championship. I was living in Denver at the time and belonged to OSU's Rocky Mountain Alumni Club. The group was taking busses but I didn't like their schedule so I rented a car and drove down on my own. I scalped a ticket for, hate to say it, $500, and witnessed the Buckeyes dramatic double-overtime win to claim the top prize in the country. A few months later OSU coach Jim Tressel came to speak to the Alumni Club in Denver and I had him sign my photo from the game. 

I also went to the watch the Buckeyes basketball at the 2007 NCAA Final Four championship game in Atlanta, meeting up with my good friend, Matt, on a half-day trip from Dallas. Unfortunately they couldn't pull it off and fell to Florida, but it was still worth the effort to be there.