From Woody's Couch

Our Playbook on OSU History

Month: December 2013 (page 1 of 5)

Happy 100th birthday to Rec Sports!

1910s

1910s

Athletic events have been held at Ohio State almost from the beginning, when student groups organized races from High Street to University Hall, tug-of-war contests across Mirror Lake, and informal football games on the grounds west of Neil Avenue. It wasn’t until December 1913, though, that the University decided to get involved and organize an “Intra-Mural Athletic Association.”

Intramural sports owe a debt of gratitude to former Director of Athletics Lynn St. John, both for his vision and his willingness to carry it out. In 1913 the University reorganized the Department of Athletics, appointing former student St. John as its head. J.W. Wilce (namesake of the Wilce Student Health Center) was also appointed as head football coach and director of intramural athletics. Ohio State had joined the Western Conference in 1912, and St. John was committed to providing “competitive athletics for every student.”

Women's track, 1929

Women’s track, 1929

The intramural program was soon a success, with other colleges asking for advice on starting their own programs. In fact, despite a brief interlude during World War I, the program grew from its five original sports (football, baseball, basketball, tennis, and track and field) to about 20 sports (both team and individual) in 1921. These included soccer, swimming, and bowling for team sports, and fencing, cross country, fowl shooting and golf for individual competitors. By 1937, there were 21 sports for men, with 10,000 participants, and 14 sports for women, with more than 1,000 participants.

Handball court in Larkins, nd

Men playing handball in Larkins Hall, no date

Many of the men’s indoor sports were played at Larkins Hall, first opened in 1931 as the Men’s Gymnasium and Natatorium, and located just east of where the Recreation and Physical Activity Center (RPAC) now stands. Women’s indoor recreational sports were played at Pomerene Hall, which opened in 1927.

By 1968, however, recreational facilities were deemed insufficient by a University committee charged with evaluating the program. The report found that while the number of students participating in intramurals had tripled since 1945, the number of facilities had decreased slightly. Ohio State, in fact, was far behind other Big Ten universities; for example, while Indiana University had 29 indoor basketball courts at the time, Ohio State had six.

Intramural softball group, 1978

Intramural softball group, 1978

By 1970 OSU’s intramural program was the nation’s largest, encompassing around 30 sports. Today, OSU offers more than 25 different sports throughout the year, ranging from traditional football, basketball and soccer to indoor cricket, chess, “wallyball,” and something called “Battleship” involving canoes and bucket-wielding participants in a pool. It does so at a wide variety of venues, from the Jesse Owens North, South, and West Recreation Centers, which opened in 1976, to the nearly 600,000-square-foot RPAC, which opened in 2005.

So if you are looking for something to do this year, check out the department’s web site. For more on its history, check out its historical timeline.

Filed by C.N.

Twelve Days: Herrick’s imprint on campus was past, present and future

John Herrick, 1965

John Herrick, 1965

Today’s featured Buckeye spent his career shaping the development of the OSU campus and his retirement documenting its physical history. John Herrick had such an influence on the look of this campus that a key thoroughfare was named for him.

John Henry Herrick was born to Henry and Mabel Kelly Herrick on July 10, 1904, in Twinsburg, Ohio. A three-time graduate of OSU (BA ’28, MA ’36, PhD ’44), Herrick, with the exception of a few years spent as a teacher and administrator in Shaker Heights and Cincinnati, spent most of his career at OSU as well.

Herrick's senior portrait, 1928

Herrick’s senior portrait, 1928

He initially joined the faculty of the Bureau of Educational Research and Service in 1947. In 1956 he was named Director of the Office of Campus Planning, a position he held until 1967. In this capacity he created a campus plan that was hugely influential to other universities in determining the futures of their campuses. After stepping down from that position, he continued to serve as a professor of educational policy and leadership until his retirement in 1972.

 

The above accomplishments would form a career of which anyone might be proud, but John Herrick wasn’t finished. In 1970, he conducted the research for a book titled The Ringing Grooves of Change for the University’s Centennial Celebration. This sparked an interest in the projects that would take up most of his free post-retirement time: researching and writing histories of campus buildings, the Oval, Mirror Lake Hollow, and campus planning at OSU.

 

Herrick looks at campus maps, 1982

Herrick looks at campus maps, 1982

Herrick spent countless hours at the archives researching this history, and the result now serves as an important part of the University Archives’ reference collection. The five-volume history of campus buildings has been digitized by the Knowlton School of Architecture as the Herrick Archives and is available for use by anyone in the world.

 

Furthering his legacy of service to OSU, Herrick served as co-chair for the University’s fund raising campaign in 1985. The campaign was so successful that it surpassed its goal of $350 million in five years by raising $401.2 million in four. It was, at the time, the largest amount of money ever raised by a public institution.

 

In 1989, the Campus Loop Road, a key element in his campus master plan, was renamed Herrick Drive in his honor. Herrick died one year later in 1990 at the age of 85.

 

 

Twelve Days: OSU’s ‘Doc G’ pioneered glacial research

Richard Goldthwait next to a glacial map of the U.S., 1958

Richard Goldthwait next to a glacial map of the U.S., 1958

Richard Parker Goldthwait must have had ice in his veins, but not in the way you would think. 

Goldthwait, the founder of OSU’s Institute of Polar Studies (now known as the Byrd Polar Research Center) was born on June 6, 1911, in Hanover, New Hampshire. He became interested in the study of glaciers at a very young age, working as a field assistant for his father, James, a geologist at Dartmouth College. He received his bachelor’s degree in Geology from Dartmouth College, and he earned his master’s degree (1937) and doctoral degree (1939) in Geology from Harvard University.

After working as an instructor and assistant professor of Geology at Brown University, Goldthwait moved to Ohio in 1944 to serve in the U.S. Army Air Force as a materials engineer at then-Wright Field. He started working at Ohio State in 1946 as an associate professor, and served as professor from 1948 until his retirement in 1977.

Goldthwait (right) and Dick Cameron look over a map of Antarctica, 1960

Goldthwait (right) and Dick Cameron look over a map of Antarctica, 1960

At the age of 25, Goldthwait began his own research into glacial geology and glaciology, and the next year, in 1936, he published the results of the first successful seismic sounding through glacier ice.  Much of his career was devoted to the study of the glacial history of Ohio, and he was one of the first to use carbon-14 dating in that study. He also conducted research on glaciers and glacial landscapes in Antarctica, Greenland, New Zealand, and Baffin Island, Alaska. Even after he retired, he continued to do field research, publish papers, edit books and organize sessions at professional meetings.

In 1960 he founded the Institute of Polar Studies at OSU, and he served as its director until 1965. (The center’s name changed in 1987.) There, he was known simply as “Doc G,” though he won numerous awards throughout his career (the Antarctic Medal from the U.S. Congress in 1968, the first Distinguished Career Award from the Geological Society of America  in 1986, to name a few. Mount Goldthwait in Antactica and the Goldthwait Polar Library of the Byrd Polar Research Center also are named for him.

In 1992, Goldthwait died at the age of 81.

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