Photo Credit: Grindstone Media Group/Shutterstock
From the banks of the Olentangy River, there lies a stadium that lays dormant eight months out of the year. For nine months, she waits for 100,000 screaming fans to return and once they arrive, she sees chaos for three months. A modern coliseum that hosts our modern day gladiators going to war on Saturdays in the fall.
Ohio Stadium broke ground back in 1913 after Ohio Field could no longer hold the large crowds that were being brought in due to joining the Western Conference, now known as the Big Ten. She took nearly a decade to complete due to shortages caused by the first World War. She first opened her doors in 1922 with a max capacity at the time of just over 60,000. For her first game, the stadium was only half full as Ohio State opened the season against Ohio Wesleyan, a game the Buckeyes would go on to win 5-0. The stadium would be over max capacity for the final Saturday in November as the Buckeyes took on their rivals in Michigan to the tune of over 70,000 fans. Fast forward 100 years. and the old stadium now seats just over 100,000 fans and has a record attendance of almost 110,000.
Ohio Stadium, the Horseshoe, the home of the world famous Buckeyes of Ohio State, is now 100-years-old. If walls could talk, oh the stories these ones would tell. From the only two time Heisman Trophy winner in Archie Griffin, to the "Ten Years War", to one of the greatest Olympians to ever walk the earth in James Cleveland Owens. The birthplace of legends and the final resting place of dreams, The Shoe we call Ohio Stadium has seen and heard it all.
Now she enters into her 100th season standing tall in the 614. The old stadium, which has recently been given a much needed facelift, is hoping to see her team claim another title this season and add another line of history into her weathered walls. This is number 100 to the shoe and may she stand for a century more.
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