Students + players at practice = happy family – Ohio State Buckeyes
4/11/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
April 11, 2015
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State football program held its fourth annual Student Appreciation Practice Saturday morning at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. The team practiced a little later than usual and went for a good two hours before stopping to engage in some student-centered activities. About 1,700 students and guests were at the practice.
“This football team is a part of the students and the students are a part of this team,” head coach Urban Meyer told his team prior to the practice. “And together, we are a family.”
Chaos and noise and excitement and fun were the descriptive terms for the day. The team only used about two-thirds of the indoor field for practice as the students were allowed sideline-to-sideline seats across the 30 yard line. And they packed in five and six rows deep with those in back standing to watch the 11th practice during this spring season.
The rap musical group FBA was stationed high above the field in the camera viewing area playing music. Along the southeast corner were photo booths – one with the College Football Playoff national championship trophy and one with three sousaphones from the Ohio State Marching Band – where students could snap “selfies.”
“Coach Meyer gets the student body so involved in this football program,” journalism/communications major Kaley Rentz, from Granville, Ohio, said during practice. “He makes us feel as if we won the national championship … as if we had a part in winning the title. He includes us in so many activities and it is such an honor that he thinks so highly of us and puts so much emphasis on us.”
No one should have gone hungry, as food trucks were outside on a cool but gloriously sunny morning…offering up tasty fare at student-friendly prices.
Near the end of practice the field of play was reduced into a red zone-sized area. That’s when Meyer had the students surround the players during an “inside drill” with close to a dozen plays being called. Three different students attempted field goals and Katie Olinger, a junior athletic training major from Oregon, Ohio, set up in the shotgun formation and handed the ball off a couple of times to junior running back Warren Ball.
Following practice, student competitions including push-ups, a wheel burrow race and a fastest student race were held on the middle of the field. An autograph and photo session capped the day.
