What started out as a football tailgating tradition has become a unique fund-raising event to benefit academics at Ohio State.A group of seven Dublin residents – five OSU alumni and two “implants” from the University of Illinois – are hosting the Ninth Annual Ohio Stadium Cake fund-raiser to benefit the Scarlet and Gray Scholarship Fund before Saturday’s game against Iowa.The fund-raiser is based around offering pieces of a 200-pound cake in the shape of Ohio Stadium for donations to the scholarship fund.The Ohio Stadium Cake was created nine years ago as a way to celebrate Buckeye football while raising money for OSU.”About 10 years ago, we had a friend who baked wedding cakes and we thought it would be neat if we could do one in the shape of Ohio Stadium,” said Beth Tucker, a 1987 graduate of OSU and one of the Stadium Cake founders.”She didn’t think we could, so we did it,” Tucker said.Each year, the group serves a 200-pound, 3 1/2 foot cake during a tailgate party following one of OSU’s home football games.This year, the group selected the Iowa homecoming game for the honors.The cake will be on display at about 8 a.m. outside St. John Arena’s northeast entrance. Pieces of the cake will be available immediately following the game for donations to the Scarlet and Gray Scholarship Fund.Tucker said the cake has become such a tradition that people will come and ask at the beginning of the season when the Stadium Cake will make its appearance.”We’ve been tailgating at the same spot for 12 years. Everyone knows to ask when the Stadium Cake game will be,” she said.The group gets many of its donations from people who just happen to pass by. They encourage the public to stop by and take a look and a piece, Tucker said. In addition to a piece of cake, any $10 donation will receive a professionally reproduced copy of this year’s invitation, created by Deborah Papesh, one of the Stadium Cake volunteers.In the past, the group has raised between $800 and $1,300 per year for the scholarship fund, Tucker said.”With good weather, we don’t think we’ll have a problem raising $1,300 this year,” she said. Trying a piece of the Ohio Stadium Cake was included in ESPN’s “99 Things To Do Before You Die” list and the cake has been featured in several Ohio and national magazines.According to the Ohio Stadium Cake website, the cake takes about 100 hours to cook, construct and decorate. The construction of the cake involves 48 boxes of cake mix, one gallon of vegetable oil, 96 pounds of powered sugar, 144 eggs, 15 pounds of shortening, one gallon of milk and 16 ounces of vanilla extract. “Everything is donated, so all the money raised goes to the scholarship fund,” Tucker said. All of the ingredients for the cake are donated by Krogers in Gahana. Various restaurants, including BW-3, Gibby’s Riverview, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut donated meals during the cake preparation for the volunteer baking staff. The invitation reproduction was donated by Office Depot. This year’s tailgate party, at which the cake will be displayed, is being sponsored by The Education Resources Institute. “Without the generous support of these organizations, and the volunteers who bake and decorate the cake, this creative fund-raiser would be impossible,” according to the website. Tucker said that the group chose to support the Scarlet and Gray Scholarship because everyone in the group from OSU had received it when they attended OSU and because it is based on both academics and need.