COLUMBUS, Ohio — With the clock in the stadium ticking nearly seven minutes before game time, no one could be within 25 feet of the flame when Ohio State unveiled its new pyrotechnic machine.
In the press box at the top of Ohio Stadium, Ericka Hoon and Caleb Clark focused on the flame and communicated with field staff to make sure no one was in danger. As the cheerleaders took their spots, their flags were too close. They had to be moved.
Then the countdown began for Ohio State’s game-day operations staff. Three. Two. One. The team’s introductory video rolled and the Buckeyes gathered in the tunnel. Smoke began to fill around them and a crowd of more than 100,000 rose to their feet in anticipation.
But just as Ohio State was ready to run away, a couple of coaches from Western Michigan ran past to their bench. When the video ended, the Buckeyes ran away, leaving only small flames. The big flame remained dormant, an anticlimax for those who had spent much of the week preparing for the new introduction. It will have to wait until Saturday’s game against Marshall.
Every match is a new challenge in the fifth largest football stadium in the world.
Hoon, a graduate of Ohio State University, has been with the athletic department since 2007. She is now the associate athletic director for event management, which means she is responsible for game-day operations at the 102,780-seat venue, alongside the likes of Clark, the associate athletic director for marketing and live events.
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The Buckeyes have over 1,000 concession stand workers, a few hundred merchandise workers, about 1,100 chaperones, over a few hundred Ohio State Athletics employees, and a few hundred police officers and security guards in and around the stadium. Everyone has a job to do to make sure the game is safe for the tens of thousands of people in attendance.
The fact that the flame didn’t go off may have been disappointing, but it was an operational success. The pyrotechnics supervisor, who doesn’t work for Ohio State, felt like a victory for Hoon when he stopped the flame. If there’s one thing Ohio State’s operations team needs on game day, it’s confidence that everyone involved will make the right choice in a difficult situation.
“I trust him and his expertise about what should or shouldn’t be done,” Hoon said. “I’m grateful that he saw the situation and knew it wouldn’t be safe. … It shows our relationship with some people where they know they have the power and the ability to make a decision — especially when safety is a factor.”
Ohio State defeated WMU before a crowd of 102,665. (Adam Cairns/USA Today)
At 5:09 p.m., 20 minutes before the gates opened, Hoon grabbed her radio and a piece of paper from the wall. The paper listed the names of all the gate managers in the stadium. Fans would be coming in soon and it was time for roll call.
She called each manager and asked if they were “ready for the gray card.”
The grey cards are a way for gate managers to know exactly how much staff and security they need to have on site before they open their gate. Every gate is different, so if the manager answered Hoon and said yes, they were allowed to open their gates at 5:30. If they said no, that meant the team had to fill in who was missing.
Ohio State has only been doing roll calls for a few years. In the past, gate managers would answer by listing everyone who was there and then Hoon would do the math and give them permission to open. The gray cards simplify the process.
“We were having trouble getting some of our security personnel deployed in a timely manner,” Hoon said. “Instead of me trying to follow along on a sheet, I give them all a sheet when they can open their gates so they understand what they have and what’s going on.”
Operational work is a lot of logistical coordination. But it is also about being creative.
At the start of this season, Ohio State is faced with changes to the team’s traditional walk to the stadium. The Buckeyes previously stayed across the street at the Blackwell Hotel and could easily walk with the coaches’ families. Now, the team stays at a hotel in downtown Columbus. It has to be bused to the stadium and walk from there, meaning the operations staff has had to figure out ways to get families to come along.
After the walk is over and the Ohio State players take the field for warm-ups, fans begin to file into the stadium and find their seats. In the depths of the stadium, the “100-minute meeting” begins. Held in the visiting team’s press conference room, it is crucial to ensuring the football game goes off without a hitch.
The Sept. 7 meeting, led by Hoon, included representatives from multiple departments that lent a hand to ensure the prime-time game against Western Michigan went smoothly. There were people from the Big Ten Network, a referee, another member of the referee association, someone from the NCAA replay committee, a WMU track and field staff member, several people from Ohio State’s events staff and more.
After everyone introduced themselves, Hoon quickly ran through a list of last-minute plans. She informed everyone that Ohio State would be the first to take the field and the first to leave at halftime. Everyone agreed. Even though Ohio State is the home team, no detail can be assumed. Planning is essential to minimize the chance of on-field altercations.
Hoon then said that kickoff could be delayed by 5 minutes if the Maryland-Michigan State game went too long.
Communication is key to running a game at Ohio State. Hoon may be the leader, but she is just one person in a big machine that is Ohio State athletics.
“You can’t do it alone,” she said.
Hoon attributes that atmosphere to former sports director Gene Smith, the first AD Hoon worked for. Smith was known as personable and trustworthy, which trickled down to the entire department.
“His leadership for so long has been about empowering people and letting them be the decision makers,” Hoon said. “You’re the expert in your field, you know best, so make the decision. If you’re willing to live with that, help us understand why and we’ll support you. That’s a small piece of empowering people while still having a good time.”
Ohio Stadium has grown from its original capacity of 66,210 in 1922. (Joseph Maiorana/USA Today)
Long before the press box at Ohio Stadium fills with reporters and communications staff, the command center on the other side of the box begins to buzz.
There are six large screens in the room. One has a live update on tickets, one has an updated weather radar and forecast, one has a live feed of highway traffic, and two are pointed at cameras around campus.
Those two monitors have multiple internet tabs open, with each tab showing feeds from 12 to 16 cameras around Ohio Stadium and the surrounding buildings and parking garages. Operations staff can keep an eye on traffic, tailgates, parking garages and every entrance to the stadium. They can also zoom in and out and watch anything they want live.
If something goes wrong, they can quickly call to fix the problem.
Just below the TVs, on a few desks along the wall, are four monitors with students in front of them. They are the dispatchers, a key part of the process. Their job is to answer the many radios in front of them, recording and logging information so that security or other staff can address any concerns.
The shipping process is done in conjunction with the Schottenstein Center basketball arena next door. The arena is less than 20 percent of the size but holds many more events than the football stadium, meaning it has an experienced staff. Ohio Stadium uses them to train interns who work football games.
Saturday work requires concentration from everyone involved. The attendants in the stadium have radios that go directly to the dispatchers so they can talk to them with any questions they may have. From there, anything that is radioed goes into the system and is marked with a color. Red means the request has been made, yellow means someone has been sent to the problem, and green means an employee is on site.
The questions are broad. Wheelchair requests were a big part of the job, with operations staff coordinating exactly which gate and seat they needed to go to. At one point before the game, an usher also asked a question about where a fan could find cotton candy. Twice, there were calls about a child who had lost a parent at the game, and the command center was able to help by locating seats. In each case, the parent was found shortly after the call.
The command center is relatively quiet once the game starts. There’s not a lot of stressful yelling; in fact, staff often crack jokes. They even have a weekly contest to see who can guess the closest to the actual ticket number.
It keeps the stress level relatively low. Even if something goes wrong, there is a bonding feeling, thanks to the interns in the room helping out.
Hoon wants people to learn, to ask questions and to find solutions. There were times when she would leave the room to do something else and others on her staff would handle calls, like when the Western Michigan cheerleading bus went the wrong way and had to be redirected through traffic to another gate. Or something bigger, like rerouting one of the traffic patterns at halftime because fans were leaving a 35-0 blowout early and the staff didn’t want cars and fans driving through the same area.
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Many fans stayed to watch the 56-0 victory end. After the game, the operations staff’s job wasn’t over. They helped people get into the stadium safely, and now they had to drive them home, while also keeping an eye on the traffic flow outside. One change that has been made in the last decade is turning on the lights on all the surrounding sports fields, so fans had more light as they walked back to their cars.
Every week, Hoon goes home with a list of things they can improve or make easier for the following week, or sometimes the following season if it’s a big idea. One of those things during Ohio State’s inactive week was working on ways to smoothly light the pyrotechnic flame this Saturday.
Once the crowd has dispersed, staff will split up and head to the home and visiting team locker rooms to ensure the teams board the bus and exit the stadium safely. They will then exit the stadium through the rotunda and take a family selfie in front of the new statue of two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin.
It’s a ritual to mark the end of a match before a new week dawns and they prepare to do it all again.
“That’s when everyone can laugh,” Hoon said.
(Top photo: Jason Mowry/Getty Images)
