Michigan Teaches Ohio State ‘The Script Ohio’ (1932)

October 10, 1936. That is the precise date when the Ohio State marching band first performed and thus invented their beloved Script Ohio formation.  But there’s a problem with at part of that.

Feel free to inform your friends from Columbus of this fact: Rest assured that the folklore is true, it was indeed the Michigan Marching Band that first performed the ‘Script Ohio’ – four years earlier.   Yes, the MMB literally spelled it out for the Ohio Stadium crowd on Michigan’s trip to Columbus on October 15, 1932. 

Need evidence?  Here’s an opposite-field photo of the mega-sized writing lesson:

image

Backing this up, enjoy this description from the Michigan Daily, published a day after the October 15, 1932 game. Mr. W. Stoddard White shared a few sights & sounds from the Wolverines’ 14-0 victory down at the Horseshoe, including the band formations:

Script

Not that this fact has been disputed, but the article confirms that this happened – not just spelling it, but scripting it: 

Probably the most effective single formation was the word “OHIO” spelled out in script diagonally across the field in the double-deck Ohio Stadium, to the accompaniment of the O.S.U. marching song, “Fight the Team.”

I love that apparently, the band didn’t stop there, mixing in a MICH (was it a script MICH?) along with the traditional block ‘M’.

Yes, you will find lovers of the Buckeyes and @TDBITL who will tell you that this formation is something different from what the OSU band forms today. To these diehards, I offer my pity.  Just accept that it was done before you and appreciate that you perfected it.  Just like we did with the winged helmet.  And winning football games.

P.S. A sidenote on the Daily article:  I’m sure the Wagner prelude was powerful. I’m guessing it was dropped from the regular MMB rotation after the rise of the soon-to-be Chancellor over there in Germany.  Yikes.

7 Comments

  • TBDBITL-Dad

    Indeed, but this has little to do with what later became Script Ohio. Firstly, it was a static formation, not the dynamic cursive writing that forms Script Ohio. Secondly, the lettering in Script Ohio was copied not from this, but from the canopy on the Ohio Theater in Columbus. Also the OSU Band had been performing more complex dynamic maneuvers for some time, such as the moving “floating anchor” at the OSU-Navy game in 1930. So this static “Script” was really neither as exciting as the newspaper man imagined, nor does it really have a lot to do with today’s Script Ohio. Sorry.

  • TBDBITL-Dad

    @wright
    All you need do is read up a little more about this formation. This “Ohio” was a simple block formation – it was not “written” on the field, letter by letter, in the way that Script Ohio is.