Rare footage of The Snow Bowl & WOSU

Tom Rieland — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:34:25 +0000

I see several stories this week about the 1950 Ohio State-Michigan game played at Ohio Stadium in 5 degree temps with 30 mile per hour winds and snow. The blizzard bowl was a tough loss for the Buckeyes and was blamed on a controversial coaching decision that led to the only Michigan touchdown. A new coach came to town the following year — Woody Hayes. Of course, it was WOSU radio that was on the spot with the play by play of the game. WOSU’s announcer from that game, Marv Homan, was quoted in the Mansfield paper and described the game in a previous interview as follows – “The field was totally covered with snow. What many people don’t realize is that the game was played with half the field covered with a tarpaulin because it was frozen to the ground. It didn’t matter because there was so much snow on it. There were times when it snowed so hard I could not see the other side of the field,” said Homan, who estimated a foot of snow had accumulated on the field by the end of the game. “It was totally enveloped in snow.” Makes 35 degrees and partly cloudy sound pretty good!

WOSU has a rich history of covering Ohio State sports on radio and television. That has gone by the wayside now due to the expansion of TV network coverage of games and big money radio contracts. Last year was the final year WOSU covered live sports on WOSU AM with our play-by-play of the OSU Women’s baskeball games. Here is some of what we believe to be Homan doing play by play combined with some silent film of the game.

Tom Rieland » 1950 game

Rare footage of The Snow Bowl & WOSU