Here's how Ohio State's Jerry Lucas could be picked to dot the 'i' in Script Ohio
Adam Jardy
There have been a number of non-band members to earn the Ohio State Marching Band’s highest honor. Bob Hope, Woody Hayes, Buster Douglas and others are on a short list of roughly a dozen non-sousaphone playing honorees who have dotted the ‘i’ in Script Ohio during an Ohio State football game.
What would it take for a representative of the men’s basketball program to receive the honor? In a May 11 episode of “The Gene Smith Podcast”, the Ohio State athletic director said that while the athletic department tries to recognize former players when possible, the decision to have someone dot the ‘i’ doesn’t lie with him or his employees.
So when asked if there was a way that Smith could have Jerry Lucas dot the i in Script Ohio, Smith offered a course of action to fans who would want to see that happen.
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“Relative to dotting the ‘i’, that’s something that the band determines,” Smith said. “We don’t touch that at all, really. The band just does that. Anyone that wants to promote Jerry to do that needs to contact the band director, Chris Hoch, and make that recommendation.”
Hoch is in his fourth year as the director of Ohio State’s marching and athletic bands.
Part of the question to Smith, which was submitted by “Tim in Gallipolis,” also asked about how the university attempts to recognize program greats.
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“We try our best to make sure that we recognize our greatest student-athletes, especially when they come back to sporting events,” Smith said. “Talking about Jerry, he’s attended a number of our basketball games so any times he’s there we spotlight him and make sure that all of our fans have an opportunity to celebrate him and recognize him while he’s there in attendance, which I think is an unbelievable feeling for him to know that he’s still loved.”
A three-year letterwinner from 1960-62, Lucas averaged 24.3 points and 17.2 rebounds while helping Ohio State win its lone national championship in his first year and finish as national runners-up in each of the next two seasons. He was a three-time all-American, the only three-time Big Ten player of the year and the national player of the year during both his junior and seasons. Despite freshmen not being eligible to play at the time, Lucas holds several records: his 1,411 rebounds and 438 made free throws are still the most in Ohio State history, and his 1,990 points are tied for the third-most.
His No. 11 jersey was retired in a halftime ceremony at Value City Arena on Feb. 23, 2000, and was the first men’s basketball number and only the second athlete in Ohio State history to be so honored.