Weekends at OSU can be often fulfilling, but in many different forms. You can go home, and essentially miss the entire weekend, missing out on the events people will be talking about until the next weekend, and exhausting yourself with the headache of travel and... .too much family! You can sit around doing nothing, literally nothing, or even hard-core studying, and feel as though the whole weekend has been wasted by the time Sunday night rolls around, and that the weekend didn't even exist. Or you can get out there are enjoy it — it's for some a rare occurrence, but trust me, you'll be glad you did it.

The Spring Game was today — in case you haven't heard, football's kind of a big deal around here. (For those of you who aren't OSU students or Buckeye football addicts, it's when people from far and wide crowd into the stadium and pay $5 to watch the football team... well, practice.) I missed out on the tradition today, and I thought I would be the only one in the whole world (that being my narrow perspective of the OSU campus world) who wasn't there. But that, in fact, wasn't the case at all.

I started out my morning bright and early, taping an on-site Buckeye TV interview. We drove to a rough-looking residential neighborhood in Columbus to interview Habitat for Humanity. And it was inspiring... students giving up their Saturday to build a house. An entire house! (Not all in one day, of course.) In fact, they work on it all the time. And they couldn't have looked happier with their choice of Saturday activities. Ok, so maybe I wasn't the only one not hoping on the football bandwagon.

Then, on a bit of a whim, I decided to run the 5K Earth Day race that started at the Oval and went to Goodale Park in downtown Columbus. I had never run a 5K before, but I was counting on a low turn out, because of the game. Not at all the case... students ran with smiles on their faces the whole way, while student volunteers cheered us on. When we reached the park, there were 2000 people there, and many were students. It was incredible to see so much passion for an event like this, people just like me trying to make a real difference in the world, even if they were just college students.

In an interview this week I was asked what it meant to be a Buckeye. I said it was a term often associated with sports, but to me it meant pride for our school. Today I saw some real Buckeyes. These students represent OSU proudly, and with great intentions. They are discovering a deeper meaning in the college experience. They are shaping and improving our university for the future Buckeyes to enjoy. Just like the football fans and the class presidents and the Greek lifers, these students are creating the community that is Ohio State.