A Student Life employee dressed up in a hotdog costume delivers hotdogs to students following the gathering limits in the off-campus area. Credit: Courtesy of Tracy Stuck

When regulations and suspensions fail to keep college parties at bay, the obvious next step is to get up bright and early on the first game day of the season, slip on a hot dog suit and hit the streets.

Tracy Stuck, assistant vice president for the Office of Student Life, was the mastermind behind the unofficially dubbed “Hot Dog Initiative,” which involved her and other members of Student Life handing out goody bags with hot dogs, chips and water to off-campus students who were following COVID-19 guidelines on game days. Stuck and other members of Student Life began distributing game day bags with COVID-19 risk-reduction stickers on them when the delayed football season began Oct. 24.

Stuck said Student Life was able to squeeze in three weekends of handing out hot dogs before having to shut down operations.

Stuck said she is a firm believer in the power of positive reinforcement — she said she wanted to reward people who were staying physically distant, wearing masks and gathering in groups of 10 or fewer, rather than solely punish the wrongdoers.

“I’ve been out there every weekend. And I can sincerely say, of course there’s a couple of bad apples,” Stuck said. “But the majority of our students are doing everything, they are trying so hard to follow the policy and do the right thing.”

Stuck said the Hot Dog Initiative was the product of student focus groups organized by Student Life. She went into it with the intention of making game days feel more authentic, and when the groups had the idea to hand out stadium staples such as hot dogs and chips, Stuck took the idea and ran with it.

“I had no idea that college students liked Doritos that much, but apparently they are a very important part of that,” Stuck said. “So we were trying, once again, to in this moment provide small moments of joy. And I did have to laugh. When people saw Doritos, they were really excited.”

Yana Tomassian, a third-year in neuroscience, said she was highly incentivized by the Hot Dog Initiative. Although she and her nine roommates were confused when they saw the parade of golf carts, she said they thought it was a great way to encourage responsible gatherings.

“There were 10 of us, and we were outside social distancing, and they came around and just dropped off the hot dogs and all this stuff. It was literally the best day ever, and so we kept doing it,” Tomassian said.

Stuck said on game days, goody bags were packed into carts and delivered almost anywhere with an off-campus student presence. She said the project would have been impossible to carry out without Student Dining Services, which prepared the food, and members of Student Life facilities, who drove the carts.

Dave Isaacs, a spokesperson for the Office of Student Life, said because of the many factors that contribute to COVID-19 cases, it would be difficult to look at the correlation strictly between hot dogs being handed out and a change in COVID-19 cases.

“We were very pleased with the response. Anytime you’ve got streets full of people cheering for Tracy, hot dog suit or not, you’ve got a good thing going,” Isaacs said.

The Office of Student Life has been unable to hand out hot dogs since the Nov. 14 football game against Maryland was canceled. After Ohio State banned all gatherings Nov. 12, including those of 10 or fewer, there is no expectation of visible positive behavior to reward. 

Because winter is just around the corner, and cold weather will make it difficult for students to gather outside, Issacs said that Student Life will have to remain flexible about its COVID-19-combatting strategies — a sentiment shared by Tomassian, who said she thinks that a combination of “carrots and sticks” may be key.

“I hate to say scare tactics are potentially more effective for college students. I think that the positive reinforcement is really good because there’s so many other ways that it can be done, too,” Tomassian said. “But I think there needs to be some type of balance between the two, because if it’s only being rewarded for good behavior, the bad behavior will still ensue if people don’t care enough about the reward.”