There are homers and there are homers, but none are bigger than college football fans; especially those at major universities. Just ask Zack Meisel, a 21-year-old senior who is editor-in-chief of The Lantern, OSU’s student newspaper. Meisel has overseen and helped write a number of pieces that contributed to the demise of Jim Tressel, including Thursday’s recent, damning interview with former Buckeyes wide receiver Ray Small. Buckeye Nation was not amused.
Of course, most Buckeyes fans are rational human beings who realize that the press — even the student paper variety — has a job to do. But then there are those who would like to (perhaps literally?) kill the messenger. Meisel says he’s received several threatening emails, including one from a Buckeyes student who wants to track him down on campus and beat him up. From Gene Wojciechowski at ESPN:
“I did read through most of them, if not all of them,” says Meisel. “There were definitely more than 100. Some were, ‘Thanks for trying to take down our program.’ For all the fans who reacted negatively, half wanted me to move to Michigan, half wanted me to move to Nashville with Kirk Herbstreit. I wish there would have been a consensus.”
“I’ve learned more about journalism and the way the media works in the last 72 hours than I did probably in my first 21 years of living,” says Meisel. “It’s been a whirlwind.”
Brooks Melchior of Sports by Brooks can relate. He’s been on the Tressel story from day one, being the first to report the names of Ohio State players who exchanged autographs and memorabilia for tattoos at the Fine Line Ink tattoo parlor in Orlando last year.
“I’ve received a lot of hate mail over the years for stories I’ve done on Alabama, Auburn, Cal, etc,” Brooks told Off the Bench, “But Ohio State takes it to a whole new level. On balance the majority of Ohio State fans are generally reasonable. But there was a two-day stretch there, after I did the Dan Harron helmet post, that things got really nasty. The invective unleashed by Ohio State fans after that post was unbelievable. One of their tactics is to go on message boards and call you a child molester. It was incredible.”
Brooks said that this is only the beginning in the Ohio State saga, by the way.
“There are so many loose ends to this story,” he said. “And everybody knows it.”
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Blaming the student messenger at OSU [ESPN]
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- cleanslaton - Jun 1, 2011 at 3:41 PM
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Way to go, Ohio State. You’re making Michigan Wolverine fans out of all of us.
-sincerely,
intelligent College football fans
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- elvoid - Jun 1, 2011 at 5:44 PM
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All this for a team that habitually plays a cake schedule that inflates their ranking, then – if they make the national championship game – they make a habit of getting torched by whatever team from the SEC that shows up?
All this for that?
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- randysavage4ever - Jun 1, 2011 at 6:40 PM
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I dont think any fan should threaten any writer for reporting or their opinion…
SO MUCH STUFF GETS SAID IN THE MEDIA- and in that case…
it comes down to what it ALWAYS COMES DOWN TO – JUST WIN! (BABY!-) haha
buckeye fans will not care about any of this as long as they start winning again, with all this going on it will be tough this year in 2011, but the program will be back in the next 2-3 years…
I mean it’s got to with a fan base like this…if they dont win by 2014 expect more then rioting!
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- edgy and imtalking are one in the same - Jun 1, 2011 at 7:35 PM
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who is blaming zach meisel? he is just a douche bag…..I would direct you to read any of his other articles and tell me what you think
He wrote a negative story about the football team after the sugar bowl because he felt the basketball team wasnt getting enough attention
please explain that to me
