From Woody's Couch

Our Playbook on OSU History

Month: March 2012 (page 1 of 2)

Trip to the Final Four a familiar journey for Buckeyes

Basketball team after their National Championship victory

Overall, Ohio State has played in nine Final Four tournament games (not including the game tomorrow or the 1999 game vacated by the NCAA). Pretty impressive, huh? Here’s the breakdown:

  • The first NCAA tournament in 1939 featured Ohio State versus Villanova University in the Final Four matchup. Ohio State defeated Villanova to move on to the championship game versus the University of Oregon. Unfortunately, the Buckeyes lost that game, 46-33.
  • In 1944 the Buckeyes played their first of three consecutive Final Four games. That year, they lost to Dartmouth University, 60-53.
  • The following year Ohio State again lost in the semifinals to New York University, 70-65.
  • The 1946 tournament had Ohio State losing another Final Four game, this time against the University of North Carolina, 60-57. OSU did, however, play a third-place game, in which the Buckeyes beat University of California, 63-45.
  • In 1960 Ohio State defeated NYU, 76-54, on its way to winning the National Championship.
  • During the 1961 and 1962 seasons, Ohio State returned to the Final Four, defeating St. Joseph’s University, 95-69, and Wake Forest University, 84-68, respectively.
  • The Buckeyes returned to the Final Four in 1968, losing to North Carolina, 80-66, but once again winning a third-place game against the University of Houston, 89-85.
  • The last official Final Four appearance came in 2007 with a win over Georgetown University, 67-60.

Harold Olsen, 1935

And one more quick fact about the NCAA tournament and Ohio State:

Did you know Ohio State’s longest tenured basketball coach, Harold G. Olsen, played a pivotal role in the creation of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament? While head coach at Ohio State (1922-1946), Olsen organized a push for a postseason national playoff tournament. The first year of the tournament featured eight teams, including Ohio State, and was played at Northwestern University.

Olsen led the Buckeyes to four Final Four appearances during his tenure as head coach. Olsen also led the Buckeyes to five Big Ten Championships in 1925, 1933, 1939, 1944, and 1946. As president of NABC (National Association of Basketball Coaches), chair of the NCAA Basketball Committee for eight years, and a member of the 1948 Olympic Committee, Olsen earned a place in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Tracking the early history of African-American fraternities at OSU

Patrons sometimes are baffled that we don’t know the exact chronology of certain individuals, organizational entities or student groups on campus. They wonder aloud, “Haven’t you made a list?”

And the answer usually is, “No, we haven’t.” We’re archivists, so we’re very busy collecting, organizing and preserving our materials. We rarely have time for research; we rely on our patrons for such things.

Keith Johnson and Herman Jones Jr. work with University Archivist Tamar Chute

Such was the case when two students – Keith Johnson and Herman Jones Jr. – walked in one afternoon looking for information about the first African-American fraternity on campus. They didn’t assume we had a list; we’re pretty certain they had no expectations at all. But what a find they ended up making to add to our chronology of African-American Greek life on campus.

They had in their hand a book called Black Greek 101: the culture, customs and challenges of Black fraternities and sororities, by Walter M. Kimbrough (2003). Inside was a comment from the author citing a 1906 article in The Chicago Defender about a new African-American fraternity at OSU called Pi Gamma Omicron. The two students’ professor had posed a challenge to them and their classmates: Anyone who can find evidence of this group here at OSU gets extra credit.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence left of student groups at Ohio State from the time that Pi Gamma Omicron was founded. This means the Archives has very little information about African-American Greek Life from this period. The Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity’s web site states that it was chartered at Ohio State in 1911, although the earliest reference of the fraternity here at the Archives is 1918. The Archives also has found references dating back to 1919 of another African-American fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi, as well as the African-American sorority, Delta Sigma Theta.

So when Herman and Keith told us what they were seeking, we weren’t sure we would be able to help them.

Lantern cover, 1906

This is where technology comes in: Recently, the OSU Libraries digitized the full run of The Lantern, OSU’s student newspaper. Every issue from 1881 through 1997 is now available in a searchable database. (The Lantern’s online archives can be found as a link on the right-hand side of our home page at go.osu.edu/archives.) So after looking through our paper records here at the Archives and finding nothing, University Archivist Tamar Chute decided to try The Lantern’s online archives. And there, she found it. (Click here to see the story.)

W.E. Davis, 1908

 

A story in the Jan. 10, 1906, issue said that a new fraternity called Pi Gamma Omicron had been founded, and it listed all of the founding members’ names. Herman and Keith had discovered the evidence they needed to show their professor that the book citation was correct. But they wanted to know more – who were these founding members?

This is where our patrons help us out tremendously in our reference service. The Archives has a copy of a 1983 dissertation by Pamela Pritchard, “The Negro Experience at Ohio State University in the First Sixty-five Years, 1873-1938,” in which she had compiled a list of African-American OSU graduates from 1892 to 1950. Some of the founding

Elmer Shackelford, 1906

members of Pi Gamma Omicron were listed in the dissertation – W.E. Davis and Elmer Shackelford – and we were subsequently able to find their graduation photos. (Pritchard’s dissertation lists Shackelford as the first African American at OSU to earn a certificate of law – then the equivalent of a law degree.)

With the other fraternity members, we were able to find how long they attended OSU, what their majors were, where they lived and some of their extracurricular activities. (See the list here.)

Near the end of their afternoon of research, one of the students said, “I’ve never had so much fun doing research in my life.” We were very proud!

Herman and Keith later made a class presentation, which we were very happy to attend, after which they received not only extra credit but applause from the entire class and their professor.

It might seem like a small thing to have found just one article about a fraternity; after all, we don’t have any evidence – at least, yet – of how long Pi Gamma Omicron was on campus. But every such find pieces together the historical puzzle of this University’s past. We thank Herman and Keith for their research, copies of which we’ve placed among our reference materials so future patrons can build on it. Who knows what else they might find?

Keith Johnson and Herman Jones Jr. pose with the book that started it all: "Black Greek 101"

 


March Madness Part II: The offbeat side of OSU

Prince Orizu, 1942

Ohio State Royalty?

Prince Akweke Abysinnia Nwafor Orizu of Nigeria studied at Ohio State in the early 1940s. Prince Orizu, or “Chris” as hewas known on campus, came to OSU around 1940 to study political science; he had previously received his Junior Certificate from Cambridge University in England. The then-22-year-old prince was a member of the Nwei, a progressive monarchy in the then-British Protectorate of Nigeria. Why did he choose Ohio State? He told the alumni magazine it was because it was in the heart of America. Apparently, it was known on campus that he was part of the ruling family. After returning to Nigeria, Prince Orizu had a long political career, followed by service in education. He died in 1999.

Donkey at Univ. Hall, 1893

 

Roaming Livestock

How can Ohio State forget its roots when it has—and seems always will have—livestock running amok, with or without the aid of students? In the early years of the University (prior to the turn of the century) a group of students carried a (very quiet and cooperative) donkey up to the third floor of the old University Hall. They put the donkey in a professor’s office and waited until morning. Students who arrived early for class that morning were rewarded with helping to carry the donkey back down the stairs. Sounds like fun, huh? Once again it is clear that the Internet had not been invented yet.

 

Students with cannon, 1884

If You Give a College a Cannon…

You get chaos. For that, we can thank Luigi Lomia, OSU’s first U.S. Army drill instructor. He arranged for cannons to be brought to campus as part of the military training that was required for all male students at the time. He was, after all, an artillery man himself. However, it appears it soon became a common prank to drag a cannon off to the river, or to push one into Mirror Lake. The following morning, the students in drill would have to lug it back into place. There is also an account of someone attempting to fire a tree trunk from the cannon. Amazingly, there were no casualties among students, faculty or livestock reported after any of the stunts.

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