Schott Outline

Nick Hiltbrand
Dan Caterinicchia
Final Paper Outline
As was discussed on Wednesday, I plan to do my article on the Ohio State Athletic Dept.’s decision to build the Jerome Schottenstein center, when they already had St. John’s arena, and how the “Schott” has come under fire in recent years for being a very dull college basketball environment.
While not really comparable to that of North Carolina, Duke or UCLA, Ohio State has a basketball tradition to be proud of. With a National Championship over the University of California in the 60's and countless All’Americans and future NBA Stars (John Havlicek, and Michael Redd just to name a few), Ohio State should still be a perennial threat to make some noise in the world of college basketball.
At the time, the University didn’t have enough to pay for the construction of the new arena, so numerous Alumni pitched in money in return for the best season tickets in Schott. The arena was then built in the late 90's, but the method in which they have gotten the money has come back to bite them. Unlike most universities, Students cannot get tickets on either side of the court, and the only tickets moderately close to the floor that students can get are behind either basket, which seat only a few hundred at most, and most other schools already have. Those students who are not fortunate enough to get seats behind the baskets, are forced to sit up in the upper bowl, which has proven to be a reason that many do not even show up. When The Dukes, and the Michigan States have students screaming within 50 feet of the players from all sides, Ohio State has mostly older alumni who tend to remain seated even when the game is on the line.
The arena has lost a lot of money over the past few years, and is really struggling to get its attendance up. For a team ranked in the top 25 most of this season, it had it’s first sellout last Wednesday against Purdue, which was only accomplished because they managed to sell the rest of their tickets 24 hours before the game started thanks to a buy-one-get-one-free deal.
I have contacted the athletic office about speaking to both Thad Matta, and Gene Smith about the subject. I have a friend who has said that PJ Hill, a player on the team would be happy to talk to me about it, and a classmate who thinks he can set me up with William Buford, another star on the team. I have an interview set up with a long time season ticket holder later this evening, and another meeting with yet another season ticket holder awaiting. If I can, I might also try and get Mark Titus, a player on the team and a more national sensation as he is author of ClubTrillion, one of the most read sports blogs in the country.


... you asked us in class today to use social media websites to see if we couldn't use any of them to potentiall add to our articles.

When I first check facebook and search "Jerome Schottenstein Center," a few groups come up that relate to it. Some of them, like the group for kids who were at the 2005 basketball game versus Illinois when we were their only loss of that regular season, were more or less meaningless. However there was one group called "Schottenstein Center Student Team Members," that came up, and it seems like it might provide some use. The site seems to be for the students who work at the Schott and could potentially have some strong opinions as to the Schotts lackluster college basketball environment.

searching for it on twitter provides tweets about ticket sales to upcoming games, and tweets about the games from people like Lori Schmidt who works for the local ESPN Radio affiliate 97.1 The Fan.

Myspace does not seem to have turned up anything of use to help with my article, as the only thing it links me to are Schottenstein Center Websites where I can just go to buy tickets.