the reason OHIO is acceptable as a reference to Ohio University is because of the precedent set by many other universities named after a state- Florida, Michigan, Texas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon, Tennessee, Georgia, Wyoming, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, etc., and on and on and on. And for that same reason Ohio State should refer to itself as Ohio State just as Arizona State, Oregon State, etc etc never refers to itself without the word "state." When schools are named after states if the only word listed is the state's name then the word "university" is implied, whether it is before or after (University of Kentucky, Indiana University). Never in any of these scenarios is the word "state" implied when just saying the name of the state. If I said I went to Florida, you would not think I went to school in Tallahassee or Miami, you would think I went to school in Gainesville. Its a precedent that's well established across the country, we just want to see it applied in the same way in Ohio.

I wasn't saying you should only go to the school that you are a fan of, I'm saying that you should be a fan of the school you go to. Does that mean if you grew up as an OSU fan and go to OU that you should switch and become an OU fan? Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. I too grew up a Buckeye fan, I didn't even know OU had a football team, and I didn't really have a chance to know. That's part of the reality of OSU having a monopoly of the media coverage in the state. Like my signature say, "Buckeye by birth, Bobcat by choice". Once I made a decision to get a degree from OU I switched my loyalty because these are not professional teams, they are college teams. Its important for me to support the teams that represent the school I have my degree from, not the school I don't. Fan support = $$$$ = improved school = increased value of my degree. Because OU does not have the luxury of having bandwagon fans we have to fight to keep all the ones that we can. Its nothing personal against OSU, its about financial necessity. Every dollar an OU student or grad spends on OSU's athletic dept is a dollar not spent on the school listed on my resume. If there were a bunch of Shawnee State fans on campus at OU I'd be railing against SSU instead. Like I said, nothing personal.

Let me add, if we hadn't agreed to the out-of-court settlement in the famous "name case," it is likely Ohio State would have had to change the name of its stadium and the words to its alma mater.  They still might have gotten away with the OH-IO cheer because they claim they are cheering for the state and not their school.  That's pretty dubious though.  I, for one, wish we hadn't agreed to the out-of-court settlement.  The Evil Empire was going to lose big time in court.

JCW, that was a real worry of the OSU attorneys and one of the reasons they counseled the OSU Prez William Kirwan to accept the settlement.  The settlement exempts "traditional" OSU uses of "Ohio" and specifically mentions "Carmen Ohio" and "Ohio Stadium."  If they weren't worried about the possibility of losing the rights to those words they wouldn't have insisted that it be spelled out so explicitly in the settlement.  If you want the full  story just ask John Burns over a beer sometime and expect to spend an hour hearing all the gory details.  If this had gone to court, it would have created a real mess -- mainly for the Evil Empire.  The irony of it all is that THEY started the process by suing US.  How obnoxious and arrogant!  

An interesting sidelight to this whole affair was that Kirwan and Glidden were actually close personal friends.  The suit had been instituted under the previous prez -- the once and future Gordon "Bow-Tie" Gee of The Ohio State Agricultural and Mechanical School and State University . 

Well, Ringo, many -- but not all -- of the details were in the news stories at the time of the signing of the out-of-court settlement.  Some of the stories mentioned such things as the exemptions that we granted for the use of Script Ohio and the naming of Ohio Stadium.  This wasn't hidden under a drum.  These documents are still a matter of public record and could be obtained with an FOI request to Ohio University and/or The Evil Empire.