Buckeye fans see the Ohio State drum major on fall Saturdays leading “Script Ohio,” but few know the man behind the garb.

OSU head drum major Jason Stuckert said he is excited to travel to the University of Minnesota on Saturday, the only away game the marching band will travel to this year.

“Hopefully we get a warm welcome,” he said.

But getting to the Minnesota game and Ohio Stadium has been a long time coming for Stuckert.

Even with almost 10 years of experience, Stuckert was anxious the day he made his debut in the ‘Shoe.

“I was very, very nervous right before I ran onto the field,” he said. “Once I started moving, I just had a big smile on my face because this is what I had wanted for so long. I had the time of my life.”

OSU has had a drum major since 1878, but Stuckert is the second person in OSU’s history to win the title of head drum major as a first-year student.

Despite his age, Stuckert was confident in his abilities.

“In my head, I think I knew that it was possible that I could get it as a freshman,” Stuckert said.

His interest in being drum major and joining the marching band was evident from a young age.

Marcia Lowe, Stuckert’s mother, said their family had season tickets to the Avon Lake High School football games by the time Stuckert was 2 years old.

Though they usually made it only through the halftime show, Lowe said Stuckert and his sister, Abigail, a 2009 graduate of Miami University, were fascinated by the band.

“He watched that drum major, and by the time he was in fifth grade, he started horsing around with his sister’s baton, which is a totally different baton,” Lowe said.

Lowe said she was surprised when Stuckert asked for a ‘Gray Baton,’ an all-metal baton designed by former OSU Marching Band member John Gray, for his 12th birthday.

“He was outside in the front yard … twirling that thing every day — sometimes twice a day — between two trees, so we had a mud hole sitting there that he’d worn in the grass,” Lowe said.

As a child, Stuckert was “always happy, always smiling” and “a big entertainer,” Lowe said.

Stuckert caught his first glimpse of the OSU drum major program in the seventh grade at Avon Lake’s annual homecoming parade, where he saw Avon Lake High School alumnus Scott Sommer and his brother, Eric, perform.

Scott and Eric were the 1998 and 2004 OSU head drum majors, respectively, and were the first siblings to hold the title.

After the parade, Stuckert went to a short drum major clinic taught by the Sommer brothers for students interested in becoming drum majors at Avon Lake High School.

Eric said Stuckert was “rough around the edges but had a real desire to learn.”

Stuckert’s story will conclude on Monday.