Nine OSU seniors backups, some of them walkons, will start preseason camp for the last time Thursday with no promises, but plenty of perspective.
Among the crowd of OSU players celebrating the Rose Bowl win over Oregon in January were nine athletes who will be senior backups with modest goals this football season.Columbus -- There are 25 seniors on Ohio State's football roster, including 12 projected starters and four others who should contribute. Seniors like Cameron Heyward, Justin Boren and Ross Homan could be All-Americans.
Nine other OSU seniors, some of them walkons, will start preseason camp for the last time Thursday with no promises, but plenty of perspective. Offensive linemen Scott Sika and Chris Malone are hoping to earn scholarships. Senior receiver Ricky Crawford just wants to get into a game for the first time.
"I'm glad I did what I did," said Sika, a backup from Strongsville High who picked walking on at Ohio State over a scholarship in a lower football division. "I wouldn't trade it for the world."
From the top of the roster to the bottom, most players see the 29 practices of preseason camp as the worst time of the season, their minds and bodies tested while they're confined to a team hotel, away from friends and family.
"You just kill yourself every day," said fifth-year senior Josh Kerr, a scholarship offensive lineman from Strongsville who's beginning another season as a backup fighting for playing time. "But I always have butterflies going into camp, and it's my fifth one."
All the Buckeyes will start this season thinking about Ohio State's legitimate chance at a national title, whether they admit it or not. But it's individual motivations that vary.
Sika will continue his battle as a primary backup on the line, hoping that he does enough to earn one of the scholarships Jim Tressel typically awards to contributing walkons each fall. Having finished his undergraduate degree, Sika would appreciate the assistance with his sports management graduate degree. Malone, a pre-med major from the Columbus suburbs, is hoping for the same.
"That would be huge," Malone said. "I'm getting married next year, so the scholarship would ease the financial burden just a little bit. But I'm one of those guys that's happy to be here. It's really humbling. I feel lucky to be a part of it."
The walkons knew what they were getting into. When Malone received a scholarship offer from FCS school Wofford College and wasn't excited about it, he knew he had to give Ohio State a shot. He remembers entering as a walkon with Sika and never officially hearing he made the team, but just continuing to show up.
"We kind of never left," Malone said.
Defensive lineman Don Matheny, from Lancaster, Ohio, is entering his fifth year of college football with the first shot at playing for the Buckeyes. He sat out last season after transferring from Holy Cross, and is now correcting what he said was a bad decision out of high school.
"I wasn't allowed on the field last year, but I still felt I was part of the team," Matheny said. "I was back home when we lost at Purdue, but I was just as mad as everyone else."
Crawford is waiting for that chance to play as well. He attended one of Ohio State's branch campuses as a freshman, made it through a 70-play walkon tryout as a sophomore in Columbus and made some plays during scrimmages in his third and fourth years on campus. Now as a fifth-year senior, he gained 16 pounds and is making a switch from receiver to tight end in a last attempt to squeeze onto the field for the first time.
Who are all those players that follow the cheerleaders and coach Jim Tressel onto the field at home games and bowl games such as this year's Rose Bowl? They are walkons and backups who inhabit a much different world than their famous teammates."If I got to play, I don't really know, I would be so happy," Crawford said. "It would mean the world to me. I've been waiting to do this since I was a kid."
That's primarily why players like this pay their own way and make practices their games. They're embracing what they always wanted as kids.
"My whole family had gone to Ohio State. I knew I couldn't pass up that chance," said Sika, who made his debut against Youngstown State in 2008, worked his way onto the travel squad and last season played against Toledo at Browns Stadium and at Penn State.
"Playing out there, there's nothing else like it," Sika said. "My ultimate goal is to play much more."
As Sika and the seniors like him prepare for their last season as Buckeyes, the goal is also to understand what they have while they're still part of it.
"A lot of us talk about it, because it's kind of weird," Sika said. "You don't realize it when you're here, but when I was a fan growing up, every Saturday I wanted to play at Ohio State. So you've got to sit down and look back and see how many people live and die by Ohio State, and how much they wish they were in your position.
"You've got to sit down and be grateful for the opportunity you've been given."