The Vibe at Michigan and Ohio State

Which Tradition is Cooler?

Michigan's The Victors

The University of Michigan marching band perform on the field before the start of the Notre Dame football game. John Biever/SI

By Sharad Mattu

When John Philip Sousa declares a song to be one of the best he's heard, it's worth a listen. And that's exactly  what Sousa said more than 100 years ago about The Victors, the only fight song in the country that is guaranteed to lift 110,000 fans out of their seats and prompt them to sing in unison. Tennessee's Rocky Top, you say? Sounds more like a dog's plaintive wail.

After a 12-11 win at powerhouse Chicago in 1898, Michigan music student Louis Elbel decided that "such an epic should be dignified by something more elevating," so he wrote the song on his way back to Ann Arbor. Two days later The Michigan Daily ran the final words of Elbel's classic -- champions of the west -- as the headline above its Page One game story.

Ohio State's weak dotting of the i does not even compare to The Victors. On each "Hail!" fans pump a fist in the air. Our song has phrases such as "victors valiant," "the leaders and the best" and "conqu'ring heroes" that -- unlike a lot of other Hotty Toddy fight songs -- have real meaning. And it's easy to learn; even the dopiest freshmen figure it out by the end of the home opener.

And Buckeyes, chew on this: Your "great" tradition wouldn't even exist if it weren't for us. The Michigan marching band created the script Ohio when the teams met in 1932. Sure, from there you came up with the dotted i, but that's like claiming to have erected the Eiffel Tower when all you did was add some lightbulbs.

And if this goes down to a tiebreaker, we're busting out the head-to-head record: 57-37-6, Michigan. Hail to the Victors.

Mattu, a senior, is a sports editor at The Michigan Daily.

Ohio State's Dotting of the I

By Aaron Stollar

The reason the dotting of the i is the greatest tradition in college sports is that no matter where you're from or for whom you cheer, when you see that senior sousaphone player take his place at midfield to the roar of 100,000-plus, you remember it. Forever.

The Victors is a great fight song, no doubt about it. But how deep a mark does it really leave? The assigning editor of this piece -- a college football junkie, no less -- initially called it The Victory March, which is Notre Dame's fight song.

Listen, fans from Miami, Kansas State and Washington have, at the sight of the Best Damn Band in the Land, put their beers down, stopped booing and watched, transfixed, as the band spells out ohio with perfect precision. Crusty, cynical radio broadcasters from Miami were mesmerized as the band performed it at the 2003 Fiesta Bowl and said, "That was really cool." It's the truth.

The tradition becomes even more special on those rare occasions when the band invites a VIP to dot the i alongside the sousaphonist. Only two people in 68 years have received the honor -- entertainer and college football fan Bob Hope and legendary OSU coach Woody Hayes. When a retired Hayes returned to Ohio Stadium for the first time, to dot the i in 1983, there was hardly a dry eye in the house, including Hayes's.

Those who were at the Horseshoe that day won't ever forget that moment. Hail to the true victors of college football's finest tradition.

Stollar, an Ohio State senior, is sports editor of The Lantern.

Issue date: September 30, 2004