There is no Ohio State-Michigan football game this year. So, for Buckeye fans the Icon provides this Bluffton account of the famous 1950 snow bowl game. The is an abridged version of the story, published in greater detail in "Bluffton Anthology, Essays on a small Ohio town," collected by Fred Steiner. The book is available from the author and in several downtown businessees.
A frozen Bluffton rabbit at the snow bowl
The Bluffton Triplehorn brothers, Charles, John and Don, attended the 1950 Ohio State-Michigan snow bowl. Charles said that his brother, John, was being recruited to play football for the Buckeyes and watched the game from the bench.
When John went to Columbus he brought Don, who was in graduate school at OSU at the time, some frozen rabbits. John sat with the rabbits throughout the game. It was so bitterly cold that the rabbits never thawed out.
Here’s a conversation we had several years ago with Charles about the snow bowl.
I was 16 and a Bluffton Boy Scout at the time. We went to the game to usher fans to their seats. My memory of the details is weak, but, my brother, John, knew the story very well.
Besides John and Bruce Hauenstein, I don’t remember who else was there. Harry Kettlewell, math teacher at Bluffton High School and maybe our scoutmaster, may have been the driver.
We wore our scout uniforms, somewhat unsuitable for blizzard conditions. Tarps were put on the field before the game, but that became a problem when the snow continued to fall and became deeper and deeper on the field.
Volunteers were recruited to sweep off the snow and roll up the tarps. I don’t remember volunteering, but we were out there with a sizable number of folks. The tarps had to be cut into smaller pieces and some of it was frozen to the ground.
Picture a line of poorly dressed, snow-covered guys shoulder-to- shoulder pushing a tarp full of snow that got several feet high. One person got carried over the top and almost rolled up. The wind was blowing, visibility was down to 10 yards or so, and as a result, it was not easy to stop the momentum once we were rolling.
This person was lucky that his situation was noticed, and he was saved. This may have spawned the later rumor that one of the Boy Scouts was missing, but this turned out to be false.
My personal memory was of a dense snowfall of large wet aggregates of snow that stuck to you. Specifically, when you blink the snow would freeze your eyebrows to your face and suddenly your eyelids were stuck.
Easily cured by rubbing your eyes, but somewhat startling: never has this happened to me before or since. Back up in the stands I remember the wind and the cold. The game itself was hard to follow and not very interesting.
It contained lots of clashes of two mobs on the line of scrimmage alternating with punting – lots of punting, because it was the only way to move the ball downfield.
People fell down a lot on the slippery field and passing was absurd; Michigan did not complete any and I don’t know about OSU. Michigan won on a touchdown scored as a result of a blocked punt that went out of bounds behind the goal line.
I don’t remember leaving the stadium, but we headed north in a continuing blizzard.The flat land north of Columbus became so uniform that you couldn’t tell where the road was.
Not too far out of town we pulled into the driveway of a farm house, and were quickly followed by several other cars. I read that 20,000 cars were on Ohio roads. So, a bunch of us – I don’t know how many – spent the night on the floor, guests of the generous residents.
Next morning came the need to feed all these people. Fortunately a semi-trailer full of baked goods was stalled just in front of the house and the driver opened up the back and provided food for all of us.
The snow and wind stopped during the night and in the morning the sun came out and snowplows opened the roads, so we continued homewards without further delay. What a day.
