COLUMBUS, Ohio - "Grandpa, how crazy was Columbus about football back when you covered the Buckeyes for that thing that used to be printed on paper and thrown on your porch?"

Well, there was one time, the week of the Indiana game, that a TV station did a whole two-minute story about a pizza man and a football coach.

"What? Why?"

I have no idea. But the TV reporter got to thrust a pizza box at the screen as a visual.

"What did Ohio State do?"

Ohio State issued a six-point statement to address the pizza controversy. The TV report, which showed the pizza man in an interview but for some reason didn't make him give his name, claimed that the pizza man was fired for making a joke to Luke Fickell's wife while taking a delivery order on the phone. Something about the OSU defense needing to get better. He said Mrs. Fickell then called to complain and he lost his job.

"Huh?"

Well, then Ohio State sent out this message about the, uh, incident:

A slight (or a flippant remark or an inappropriate comment) was made by an employee of a retail establishment to Mrs. Fickell.

The Fickells DID NOT call the manager to complain.

The manager found out about the incident (presumably from someone at the restaurant).

The manager called the Fickells to ask what was said by his employee. They told him.

And just like they did not place a call to complain, they also did not ask that anyone be fired. In fact, they feel terrible that this person lost his job.

All they did was order pizza.

"Wow. People must really have gotten fired up about football. And pizza."



They did, they did.

"What did you do?"

I wrote a blog about it. But now let me tell you about the time the Ohio State marching band did a halftime show about video games . . .