For many scholarship students, the ’Shoe fit
Residents of the Ohio Stadium Scholarship Dorm gained access to college, work experience and lifelong friendships.
Residents of the Ohio Stadium Scholarship Dorm in the 1950s peer from the Horseshoe’s windows, which were scarce in the living quarters. (Photo from University Archives)
They scrubbed pots, pans and toilets to pay for college. They also had one of the coolest backyards in the nation. Collectively, they are the students who — for 66 of Ohio Stadium’s 100 years — called the Horseshoe home. And inside those sturdy walls, they cemented bonds that endured for decades.
“It was a special environment,” recalls former Provost Bruce McPheron ’76, who lived in the stadium throughout his undergraduate years, beginning in 1972. “That community defined who I felt I was as a Buckeye.”
From 1933 to 1999, the west side of the ’Shoe housed the Stadium Scholarship Dormitory, which got its start after then-Dean of Men Joseph Park envisioned it as a means to make college more affordable and accessible. The dorm expanded through the years, peaking at more than 350 students, but the mission never changed: give students with academic merit and financial need a significant break on room and board.
Students’ part? They worked, and not just on their studies.
While details varied through the years, the university generally employed a couple of cooks and a maintenance worker, and residents did the rest, cleaning bathrooms, serving food in the cafeteria, even producing a dorm newspaper.
Along with being within reach financially, stadium living had other perks, such as football and softball games at night on the turf, track meets in the spring, sunbathing on C Deck and watching the marching band practice in the parking lot. And the best part: Living, working and playing together led to close friendships.
“We never envied the Greek system — we had our own fraternity,” McPheron says. “People in my wedding, people I still send texts to every day, many came from those days in the stadium.”
As provost and executive vice president from 2016 to 2021, McPheron kept Ohio State’s access and affordability mission top of mind. The seed was planted more than four decades earlier when he moved into the Stadium Scholarship Dorm.
“An emphasis on affordability is part of the fabric of Ohio State,” McPheron says. “Having a portion of your students living in the football stadium is a unique example of that, and it really added this sense of community to our experience at a big university.”
McPheron so loved stadium life that he didn’t want to leave. He could have graduated in the winter of 1975 but stayed an extra quarter to play intramural basketball with his brother, David McPheron ’79, who moved in the previous fall.
Though the McPherons weren’t first-generation college students, many stadium residents were. And as they left home for Ohio State’s teeming campus, the stadium community was everything.
“I didn’t really know anyone who had even gone to college, so I had no idea what to expect,” says Barbara Letcher ’79, ’90 JD. “But from the start, I felt like I was part of something. The beauty of living in the stadium was you had the comfort of that community.”
Letcher had the added challenge of being one of the first female residents when the dorm went co-ed in 1975. But the transition was so smooth, her sister moved in two years later. After graduation, like many fellow residents, Letcher joined the Stadium Scholarship Alumni Society, a tight-knit group of graduates who enjoy supporting current students and staying in touch with one another. She was the group’s president in 1999.
That also was the year Ohio Stadium’s massive renovation began, leading to relocation of the Stadium Scholarship Program, first to Mack Hall and then to Scholars House East and West. The program continues to thrive there under its original mission, currently serving about 100 students.
And while the rooms of today’s scholars may not be in iconic Ohio Stadium, they’re a significant upgrade from the original barracks-style rooms that accommodated 20 men in bunk beds. Throughout the dorm’s nearly seven decades, few of the rooms had windows, prompting residents to use creativity to catch the plays on game days. That ended with a renovation in the 1980s that cut off their access to stadium ramps.
Join the crowd
Do you have ties to the Stadium Scholarship Dorm? There’s a society for that! Learn how you can get involved with the Stadium Scholarship Alumni Society.
During her two-year stadium residency beginning in 1988, Paula Santa ’93 recalls, a season football pass cost students $40.
“The first game I went to was Ohio State vs. LSU in 1988,” says Santa, now vice president of the Stadium Scholarship Alumni Society. “Ohio State was down 33–20 with four-and-a-half minutes left, so I went back to my room. I remember hearing what sounded like a horrible thunderstorm. I found out we came back and won the game. I’ve never left a game early since.”
Game days were especially busy for Greg Daniel ’76, a stadium resident from 1971 to ’75 and the first blind member of the Ohio State marching band. With Braille books scarce and assistive technology nonexistent, Daniel often had help from dorm mates who served as “readers” to assist in his studies.
“Everyone accepted me. I loved every minute I spent in that stadium,” Daniel says. “I marched in the alumni band for years. Every time I felt that sun and the shadow of where the dorms were, I knew I was home again.”
