The Ohio State Scoreboard Animation Staff was created prior to the 1984
football season through a collaborative effort involving the OSU
Department of Athletics and the OSU
Department of Computer and Information Science. These students and their advisor were in charge of creating
graphics and animations for the new scoreboard in order to add to the experience
of the OSU football games. White
Way Sign of Chicago, IL provided the black and white matrix board, which
consisted of 9,600 individual 40-watt light bulbs and was over 14 stories
tall. The scoreboard made it's debut on September 8th, 1984 as the
Buckeyes hosted Oregon State in the Horseshoe.
Financed exclusively by sponsors of OSU Athletics, the $2.6 million
dollar structure loomed above the south stand bleachers in Ohio Stadium for the
next 15 years.
The scoreboard was handed over to graduate student advisors by 1987,
making it the only student-run scoreboard staff in the nation. At this time, the OSU Department of Athletics purchased
another scoreboard from White Way Sign
for St. John Arena. This 16-color matrix board hung from the roof of St. John and
was used for all OSU basketball, volleyball, wrestling, and gymnastics events.
By the early 1990’s, the student scoreboard staff had begun to change.
There were now nearly twice the number of students working on staff (8-10
per any given time) and they weren’t all exclusively computer science
students. Fine Art, Industrial
Design, Communications, and Journalism were just some of the fields of study
that were represented on staff. This
was due primarily to the integration of commercial software into the creation of
animated graphics and the scoreboard software upgrades from QNX-based versions
to PC-based versions.
Next door to St. John Arena is the
French Field House, which houses the third scoreboard purchased by OSU.
Installed in 1994, this black and white matrix board was built by Daktronics,
Inc. of Brookings, SD and is used primarily for indoor track and field
events.
The Jerome
Schottenstein Center was built in 1998, adding to the list of
responsibilities for the scoreboard staff.
Daktronics, Inc. created the
four 16-color corner matrix boards and two ribbon (balcony) boards to be used
for all OSU basketball and ice hockey games.
Additionally, the scoreboards in operation for Ohio High School Athletic
Association (OHSAA) events such as wrestling
and basketball, and are also used for science and food fairs, coaches clinics,
and other miscellaneous events.
Also in 1998, the fifth and final
scoreboard was installed in Bill Davis Stadium, which is located directly across
the street from the Jerome Schottenstein Center. This black and white (16-shades of gray) matrix board was
created by Trans-Lux/Fair-Play
of Logan, UT and is used primarily for all OSU home baseball games.
With the addition of the Jerome Schottenstein Center and Bill Davis
Stadium, the staff needed to grow again to cover these extra events. A full-time manager was hired in 1998 and the number of
student animators increased to fifteen.
As part of the stadium renovation in 1999, the black & white matrix
board in Ohio Stadium was demolished to make way for a massive (90 feet wide by
30 feet high) video board. However,
the scoreboard animation staff was able to keep alive the tradition of
entertaining fans by displaying video animations on one-third of the board.
With full resolution and millions of colors at their disposal, the
animators were able to take a giant leap forward in the look and detail of their
work for this new video board.
The year 2004 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Ohio State Scoreboard Animation Staff. Over this time period, there have been nearly 70 students who have created a few thousand animations for The Ohio State University. Many of these students have landed their dream job as a result of being part of this unique and talented group.
The OSU Scoreboard Animation Staff hires new students on a yearly basis; if you are interested in becoming part of the tradition and are a full-time college student, please click HERE.