It was a close match, but Ohio State football players were defeated by the student members of the Schottenstein Chabad House in the first Franks For Life hot dog eating contest.The duel, held on the Oval Thursday afternoon, featured 11 football players and 11 fraternity members battling it out. The rules were simple. Each team had five minutes to inhale as many hot dogs as it could. Students made pledges on how much each team could eat, and proceeds will go toward research for Lou Gehrig’s disease.Adam Simon, a member of Sigma Alpha Mu, said he wasn’t intimidated by the OSU players.”We wanted to show the football players even the little guys can compete,” said Simon, who ate nine hot dogs and said he believes he was the deciding factor in the win.Freshman defensive tackle Joe Brown was not upset to have been defeated.”Everyone wins with something like this,” Brown said.His fellow team members agreed.”For sufferers of Lou Gehrig’s disease, your heart goes out,” said junior running back Joe Montgomery. “I had to come out here and help. You feel something for those who have the disease,” he said.The event was sponsored by the Chabad House to honor Mark Levison, who has had Lou Gehrig’s disease for seven years, said Lana Covel, a member of the house. Levison was also captain of the Chabad team.”He has been active in campaigning for new drugs and a cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease,” Covel said.Members of the Chabad house agree that Levison’s fight against the disease is an inspiration for everyone.”Mark is a real warrior, a fighter who doesn’t give in,” said Aryeh Kaltman, executive director of the Chabad House. “He sends a message to all that if you hope, you will prevail.” “He is suffering from a disease, and he still wants to go for it,” said Zalman Deitsch, program director of the Chabad House. “He liked the idea for a hot dog eating contest and said he wanted to be in on it.” Levison said he needs more time to help find a cure. “I want to stay here long enough to find the cure,” he said. “I want everyone to know, the answers are there, and we need to raise the money and let the researchers go and find them.”Levison said he remains optimistic about a drug called Myotrophin, which is being tested in labs in Pennsylvania.”We need to bring it here to Ohio State,” he said. “There are great researchers here. We just need the funding to get it here.”