I'm lost.

Maybe I'm just not familiar enough with the case -- what are the things the previous administrations "weren't strong enough to change?"

We are most commonly referred to as Ohio, Ohio University, OU, and Ohio U in that order. Ohio U appears basically nowhere in official university merchandise; "Ohio" appears everywhere. We own the trademark for Ohio, not Ohio U. Ohio State, meanwhile, basically never goes simply by Ohio.

What don't we have that you all want, exactly? Still not seeing why people are so upset about this.

DCF nailed it...we have taken back what is ours, something the previous administration did not do. It has improved drastically over the past 20 years, and that is largely due to a concerted effort by the University and us folks that make up the contingency of people you can't understand. The protection of our trademark must continue forever.

OSU's block O, script Ohio, Carmen Ohio, Ohio Stadium, O-H-I-O, and all those god awful gas station hats that say Ohio should piss you off as an Ohio grad. That's not their name, it is ours. Again, there are ZERO instances in the entire country where another school so often uses the name of a different school.

The main irritation for me is literally no other university that simply bears their state's name has this problem. "Where do you go to school? Michigan. Utah. Texas. Nevada. Florida." And so on. Why should we be any different? Because our neighbor has a good football team? Who cares. My school's name is Ohio. [/QUOTE]No, it's not because OSU has a good football team. it's because we're a regional school, with a much smaller budget, that the state of Ohio chose not to treat as a second flagship (like is the case with Florida and Florida State, or Michigan and Michigan State, Iowa and Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State, etc).

It doesn't seem that complicated to me. We're just not a national school. Nothing wrong with that. Plenty of very good schools don't have national name recognition.

By previous administration, I think you're talking about 6 or 7 administrations ago, right? It sounds like we stopped using Ohio U around 1960, and the trademark was filed in the mid-90s.

I guess I'm glad you all have been fighting this fight? However, I'm really sorry, but if I hear somebody say "Ohio U" I'm still not gonna care, and I'm definitely not going to assume they're insulting OU.

A quick google, and the O-H-I-O chant started in 1947. That's a solid 50 years before we filed a trademark. Ohio Stadium was built in 1922. Script Ohio showed up in 1936. Not sure what you know about trademark law, but we're not winning those cases. And I don't see much good reason to get pissed off about things that pre-date my affiliation with Ohio University by 70 years.

Also, let's be realistic here: they're not using the name of another school. They're using the name of the state they are in, and the state in which they are the flagship school. They're far and away the most popular school in the state, and it's not some wild mystery why they use the word Ohio. It's not like they're spelling out Duke in cursive.

When somebody's name is Bill Smith and they tell me their name is Bill, I can logic out how they managed to shorten it, you know?


[QUOTE=Andrew Ruck]
While that previous rant is a rabbit trail, it is all related to Ohio U. Certain people, OSU or not, clearly do not think we are worthy of bearing our state's name, so they put a U on the end. You don't have to be a dick about it, but at a minimum you should not participate in it. We are Ohio.

Yeah man, I'm gonna need a bit more evidence to reach the conclusion that "certain people do not think we are worthy of bearing our state's name." [/QUOTE]Here is one example of this type of thinking I saw somewhere recently:

[QUOTE=Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame]it's because we're a regional school, with a much smaller budget, that the state of Ohio chose not to treat as a second flagship (like is the case with Florida and Florida State, or Michigan and Michigan State, Iowa and Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State, etc).

It doesn't seem that complicated to me. We're just not a national school. Nothing wrong with that. Plenty of very good schools don't have national name recognition.

Here is one example of this type of thinking I saw somewhere recently:

A quick google, and the O-H-I-O chant started in 1947. That's a solid 50 years before we filed a trademark. Ohio Stadium was built in 1922. Script Ohio showed up in 1936. Not sure what you know about trademark law, but we're not winning those cases. And I don't see much good reason to get pissed off about things that pre-date my affiliation with Ohio University by 70 years. . . .

We have some incredibly insecure fans. It's very strange.

I posted a theory about why our our name recognition isn't on par with other examples you cited,and you interpret it as me saying we're not worthy of our name? How are those things connected?

It isn't insecure to want to be able to use your own name and not have others use it.

The connection is obvious...you are baffled at my suggestion that people think we aren't worthy of the name Ohio and ask for evidence all while spouting reasons why we aren't worthy of the name. That we shouldn't be upset by those who refuse to just call us Ohio, or refuse to stop calling themselves Ohio, because we're just a itty bitty thing and we should just get out of their way.

I also cited 2 other examples with Pennsylvania and Louisiana. The fact this is not an issue anywhere else on the planet can't just be easily dismissed.

We have some incredibly insecure fans. It's very strange.

How about Penn State? Do they constantly go around calling themselves Penn? Spelling out Penn? LSU is another very similar example. Never would LSU call their stadium Louisiana stadium or just spell out Louisiana. It would be absurd to do so.