OSU Scoreboard Staff Collects Award At Annual Conference – Ohio State Buckeyes
2/9/2001 12:00:00 AM | General
Feb. 9, 2001
Congratulations to The Ohio State University’s Scoreboard Animation Staff for bringing home a Golden Matrix Award from the 19th Annual IDEA (Information Display and Entertainment Association) Conference. There are over 80 sports organizations represented at this conference, which includes audio, video, matrix board, and marketing personnel from the NCAA, NHL, MLB, NFL, and NBA. This year’s conference was held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, February 4-7.
Ohio State has long been recognized by IDEA for it’s cutting edge graphics and humorous animations which are created for the matrix and video scoreboards located in The Jerome Schottenstein Center, Ohio Stadium, Bill Davis Stadium, St. John Arena, and The French Field House. Since joining IDEA in 1989, Ohio State’s Scoreboard Animation Staff has brought home 18 Golden Matrix Awards (GMA’s), which are sponsored by Mitsubishi Diamond Vision and Sony Jumbotron. The eighteen GMA’s rank Ohio State first in total awards given out by the IDEA since 1989. Ohio State has won at least one award each year since 1991.
This year, the Ohio State Scoreboard Team entered work in the “Best Original Matrix Animations” and “Best Matrix Board Overall” categories. OSU took the top honors for the “Best Original Matrix Animations” for the ninth year in a row, but came up short in the bid for “Best Matrix Board Overall”. Ohio State has won the “Best Matrix Board Overall” category five times in the past 12 years.
The Ohio State Scoreboard Animation Staff is made up of one full-time scoreboard director and eleven OSU students. During the course of one year, each student is required to create several animations for the on-campus venues listed above. Students are also required to operate the scoreboards during games and create message and statistical files for 14 of the 35 sports at Ohio State. The scoreboard staff hires new students each spring as they replace those wonderfully creative individuals who graduate each year.
A big thanks to all of you within the Department of Athletics for supporting us year after year, especially our Electronics Staff for keeping the scoreboard equipment up and running. We look forward to having another great season in 2001-2002!
