Longtime sportswriter and columnist for The Columbus Dispatch, Bob Hunter, discussed his 40 years on the Ohio State beat with Buckeye Sports Bulletin for the Interview Issue.
Unfortunately, space did not allow for all of Hunter’s insight to fit into the issue. However, BSB will share the content that did not fit into the paper via our website, BuckeyeSports.com.
We asked Hunter to recall some of his favorite Ohio State players from his time on the beat. Hunter willingly shared some stories about select players, but made it clear that he did not want to leave anyone out.
“It’s hard for me to pick out too many,” Hunter said. “If I sat down and looked through the rosters of teams, I could probably say, ‘Oh, this guy is a great guy!’ Right off the top of my head, I’d hate to start throwing out names.”
While Hunter made the point that he feared omitting anyone from his list of favorite players, he shared some interesting details about a few players who came to mind.
Hunter mentioned Jeff Logan, who won four Big Ten Championships with the Buckeyes from 1974-1977. Logan backed up two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin before taking over as the starting tailback for 1976-1977, serving as co-captain in 1977.
Logan was one of the founding members of the “Logan Family Foundation.” The foundation holds a charity golf tournament each year, with proceeds going to a variety of charitable organizations and causes benefitting children and families in Stark County, Columbus and Ashland, Ohio. Through 2015, nearly $400,000 had been committed to charitable organizations.
Logan might be more known now for his broadcast work as color analyst on CW Columbus “Thursday Night Lights” high school football telecasts or pre- and postgame for all Ohio State football broadcasts on Best Buckeye Coverage 610WTVN.
Back in the 70s, however, Logan became known in Iowa for talking about his fiery coach, Woody Hayes, and poking fun at Hayes for always taking the team to the same places when it traveled for road games. Maury White, a clever, award-winning writer, saved Logan’s comments for the right time — publishing the story when Ohio State arrived in Iowa to take on the Hawkeyes.
“When I first covered the team, I liked Jeff Logan, which I still do,” Hunter told BSB. “Jeff’s still around and is still a good guy. Jeff was kind of the irreverent guy who would go on the Woody Hayes Show and contradict Woody, which nobody ever did, just because that was his personality.
“He went to the Big Ten preseason press conference and everybody was interviewing him and he was telling all these people about how Woody always takes them to these same places on the road — that they go to the Lincoln Lodge in Champaign, Ill., because of President Lincoln.
“And Logan yucks it up with all these reporters at this preseason luncheon, just because it’s him. And then, they play Iowa that season. And when the team lands in Iowa, Maury White from the Des Moines Register had saved this stuff and ran this story about Jeff Logan and all this stuff that he said about Woody on the road — on the day the Buckeyes landed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
“And they have all these copies of the Des Moines Register — somebody sees one of these, sees all that stuff that Jeff said, and the managers are buying up all these papers so Woody won’t see them, which is pretty funny.
“He’s one of my early favorites, but there are so many over the years.”
BSB will continue to publish pieces from the interviews of Bob Hunter and J.T. Barrett that could not fit in the print Interview Issue, so stay tuned to BuckeyeSports.com throughout the summer.
