Kirk Herbstreit and his family have moved out of Ohio. Take it from one who knows: moving it tough, not fun. It must be even less fun when you are heckled out of town. According to Herbsteit, that’s exactly why he and his family chose to relocate to Nashville, Tenn.
Herbstreit was a quarterback at The Ohio State in the late 80s and early 90s. Although he works as a college football analyst for ESPN, he insists you won’t find a bigger Buckeyes fan in the country. “Nobody loves Ohio State more than me,” Herbstreit told The Columbus Dispatch. “I still have a picture of Woody Hayes and my dad (Jim, a former OSU player) in my office, and nobody will do more than I do for the university behind the scenes.”
However, Herbstreit said there is a small fraction of the Ohio State community that takes issue with his responsibility as an objective analyst, and it was their criticism over the years that forced him out of Ohio. “I’ve got a job to do, and I’m going to continue to be fair and objective,” he explained. “To continue to have to defend myself and my family in regards to my love and devotion to Ohio State is unfair.”
“Eighty to ninety percent of the Ohio State fans are great. It’s the vocal minority that make it rough. They probably represent only 5 to 10 percent of the fan base, but they are relentless.”
We all know fans can be tough, and Ohio State’s are some of the most rabid in all of sports. Herbstreit can’t wear a Brutus mask every Saturday on College Gameday Live, and for every 10 fans that can live with that there’s always going to be one who takes it personally when he says something negative about the Buckeyes. Another option for Kirk would have been to move to Michigan. At least then he would have realized how great he had it at home and gone crawling back to Ohio.
