We’re fortunate: Our mascot comes with a mission
From papier-mâché to campus icon, Brutus Buckeye brings kindness to Buckeyes everywhere, as Molly Ranz Calhoun can attest.
Brutus gives great hugs—just one of the ways our favorite nut spreads kindness. Here, he and Molly Ranz Calhoun share some love at a Cleveland Guardians game. (Photo by Becca Young ’21, ’22 MPA)
I’m thrilled to see our magazine give a shoutout to my longtime friend and colleague Brutus Buckeye.
You have to understand, I’ve grown up with Brutus. I attended my first Ohio State football games as a child, when the earliest version of Brutus was nothing more than a giant papier-mâché nut. As I grew, passing through various awkward phases, so did Brutus—from portly legume to disturbing humanoid to the lovable athlete/dancer/superfan we know today.
As Brutus transformed and matured, his defining quality came into greater focus: kindness. Whether snapping selfies with fans, shaking students’ hands at commencement or visiting recovering kids at Wexner Medical Center, Brutus always leads with kindness.
I’ve witnessed it a thousand times. I see how faces light up when his big, beautiful head enters a room. I’ve seen bawling toddlers turn giddy, arguing spouses make up and nervous first-day freshmen filled with newfound confidence.
For the people who dipped newspaper in glue to create that first Brutus, the goal was probably just to have some fun and delight the fans. After all, it was still fairly new territory. While teams had used mascots ever since Yale University named a bulldog Handsome Dan and trotted him out at football games in 1892, the concept didn’t take hold in college sports until 1940s and 1950s, paving the way for Brutus’ debut.
Born in 1965, Brutus Buckeye wasn’t universally loved. Some sports purists dislike mascots in general (to this day, That Team Up North still doesn’t have one), and Buckeye fans aren’t shy about letting their feelings be known. There were also logistical issues with the early costumes, which were so unwieldy, the student inside was often traveling blind, bowling over fans or careening into band formations.
But as Brutus grew, his reputation as a force for kindness grew with him.
At Ohio State, we train future doctors, scientists, teachers, entrepreneurs and other leaders, but our greater mission as a land-grant university is to uplift all of Ohio. We do that every day at the alumni association, and our work is made a little bit easier with Brutus on our team.
So let’s all be a little more like Brutus and lead with kindness.
