An Evening Update 7/24: More Than a Game
A small-town festival in Northern Michigan became an unexpected reminder that The Game is about far more than what happens on the field every November.
There are certain places that become part of your family’s story.
For my wife’s family, that place is Arcadia, Michigan. They’ve been vacationing here for more than 25 years. It’s where my wife and I got engaged, and for the past decade we’ve continued the tradition by spending a week every July enjoying the beaches of Lake Michigan with our own kids.
As an Ohio State fan, vacationing in Northern Michigan comes with one certainty: you’re outnumbered. Michigan flags fly from cottages, “Go Blue” shirts are everywhere, and the occasional Michigan State fan reminds you they exist too. I’ve never been one to hide my Buckeye pride. If anything, my family embraces it. Every now and then we’ll let out an “O-H!” just to see who responds. Sometimes we get an “I-O.” More often, we get a few playful looks from Michigan fans. It’s all in good fun.
This afternoon, though, I had an interaction that reminded me why Ohio State-Michigan is unlike any rivalry in sports.
We were attending a local festival when my kids convinced me they needed hot dogs. As every parent knows, they ended up eating about half of them before deciding they weren’t hungry anymore.
When I walked up to the register to place my order, I was greeted by an older gentleman who couldn’t have been much younger than 85. He was a military veteran, friendly from the moment I stepped up to the counter, and after I gave him my order I reached for my wallet.
Instead of taking my money, he smiled.
He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a homemade bracelet that simply read, “GO BLUE.”
With a grin, he reached across the counter, gave me a fist bump and said, “The greatest rivalry in sports.”
His wife, standing nearby, smiled just as proudly and replied, “Yes it is.”
I laughed and told them they were absolutely right.
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As I walked away, I kept thinking about that moment.
Neither of us was trying to convince the other to change sides. Neither of us needed to explain why we loved our school. We both already understood something that people outside the rivalry sometimes struggle to appreciate. Ohio State-Michigan is more than a football game. It’s a tradition that becomes part of a family’s identity.
That gentleman has probably been watching The Game for 70 years. He’s likely celebrated championships, suffered heartbreaking losses and spent decades reminding Ohio State fans that Michigan still leads the all-time series. Meanwhile, my kids are just beginning to understand why the Saturday after Thanksgiving carries a different feeling than every other game on the schedule. Someday they’ll tell their own children why beating Michigan matters so much.
That’s what separates this rivalry from every other one in sports.
The greatest rivalries aren’t built solely on championships or star players. They’re built because generation after generation chooses to care. Fathers teach sons. Mothers teach daughters. Grandparents pass stories down that eventually become family traditions. Entire households schedule holidays around kickoff. Friends spend a full year waiting for another chance to remind each other who won the last meeting.
The Game belongs to all of them.
It’s played in Columbus and Ann Arbor every November, but it also lives in conversations around dinner tables, at backyard cookouts, in local diners, and apparently, at small-town festivals in Northern Michigan. It exists anywhere two fans happen to cross paths.
That’s why it has endured for more than a century. Coaches come and go. Players graduate. Conferences change. College football evolves. Yet the importance of Ohio State and Michigan remains remarkably unchanged because the rivalry has never belonged to the people on the field alone. It belongs to everyone who has invested a piece of themselves in it.
Walking away from that festival, carrying a couple of hot dogs my kids barely touched, I realized I had just experienced one of my favorite moments of the entire trip.
Not because I met another Ohio State fan.
But because I met a lifelong Michigan fan who reminded me why I love this rivalry just as much as he does.
We may never agree on which school is better.
But we can certainly agree on one thing.
There isn’t another rivalry in sports that spans generations quite like Ohio State and Michigan.
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