The speakers at the Saturday event commemorating the playing of the first Ohio State football game at a spot on Ohio Wesleyan's campus in Delaware, Ohio, on May 3, 1890, did a good job of reminding the 1,000 or so people in attendance that the two schools have many connections that few would suspect today.

OSU football historian Jack Park noted that the two schools have played 29 times in football, more than the Buckeyes have played any non-Big Ten opponent. Those games all came before 1930, of course, but it shows how close the two schools were, both figuratively and literally, before Ohio State grew into the massive school that it is today. If OSU hadn't grown into the giant it is now or if Ohio Wesleyan hadn't stayed so small, OWU might be the Buckeyes' principal rival today.

Wesleyan's place in athletics in the late 19th and early 20th century is shown by some of the prominent figures who came out of there. Branch Rickey, the longtime major league baseball executive remembered for helping Jackie Robinson break baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, was an athlete and coach at Wesleyan. As Delaware historian Brent Carson pointed out, as a student Rickey rented a room in a large house just across Delaware Run from the field where the first OSU football game was played. Fielding Yost, known today as one of Michigan's most successful football coaches and athletic directors, coached at Ohio Wesleyan before moving to Ann Arbor and came into prominence by leading his Battling Bishops to a 0-0 tie against the Wolverines. Retired OWU coach and AD Dick Gordin said that Yost was so unhappy with the way his troops played in the first half that he played himself in the second half, much to the chagrin of the Michigan fans. Lynn St. John, longtime OSU athletic director and the man for whom St. John Arena is named, coached at OWU before going to Columbus. St. John replaced Branch Rickey as Wesleyan's football coach in 1909.

As Park pointed out, the Buckeyes and Bishops shared one other distinction, which drew a large roar from the mixed crowd of Ohio Wesleyan and Ohio State backers: Both teams defeated Michigan in 1928. The coach of that Wesleyan team, George Gauthier, was the one to whom 1890 OWU player C. Rollin Jones wrote his 1948 letter, giving details of that first game that included a description of the playing site.

Without that letter, the site of that first game would still be a mystery, and fans of both schools would be a little poorer for it.