By Buck68 on 09:14:50 09/10/05
The Horseshoe - what hath we wrought?
the Rose Bowl is the only other stadium that approaches its massive Goliath stature from the outside. But the Bowl's round shape detracts from its vertical effect and there's no depth and envelopment to the shell that our archs provide. There's also no character features to it like the enshrinements at the N and S ends of the outside of the Horseshoe.
the ability to see into the field through many of the archs is tantalizing.... The spaciousness everywhere inside brings a gracious comforting relaxed anticipation - instead of that usual pushed, rushed, and bumper car feeling.
there are no massive vertical effects anywhere like the several inside the Horseshoe. The angle of C-Deck. The slight arc and length and overhang of the pressbox. The scoreboard, jutting upward like a skyscraper. The closeness yet walled separation of A deck. The entry angles either side of the south 'stands'.
the aerial views are simply spectacular; the surrounding setting unmatched for college atmosphere, matched colors, access, foliage, and the Olentangy. The long strings of people approaching on the several spacious walkways says pilgrimmage of faithful legions from the far corners of earth, compared to a coagulation of crowds to be shoehorned.
The silence of the Horseshoe is that of a faint hum, of slight echoes - harbingers of what comes and reverberations of great things past. It commands one to silence, to stopping, looking, sweeping the eyes...searching for what it is that so impresses, and finding this, and this, and this...and still the urge to keep looking, grows. You find yourself having to 'snap out of it'.
It is age, it is youth. It is an Atlas eager and well able to carry any burden and settle any challenge. Yet it imposes so much, with such graces.
It resonates with time and change. It is a fitting place to strive for character, to ask the great and simple questions about motive and merit. And stands and stands and stands, to show those questions should be always asked, and are never fully answered in life. Yet it answers in abundant illustration and welling up emotion: what is the difference between quantity, and quality.
The Horseshoe bonds like the wedding vow - to you, and no other, for life.