Tim May stands on the sideline at the end of the Ohio State football game against UCLA Saturday. Credit: Sandra Fu | Managing Photo Editor
The first time Tim May ever saw Ohio State and Michigan play, he had to squint at a black-and-white television in Demopolis, Alabama.
It was 1961, and he was a football-obsessed kid who watched whatever his antenna could pull up. He didn’t know it then, but those flashes of scarlet and gray would shape his career and ultimately, his life.
Now, as he prepares to cover his 45th Ohio State-Michigan game, May has become the rivalry’s living repository of information, an encyclopedia in a baseball cap, armed with nearly half a century of memories, anecdotes and context that no media guide can match.
“I am a huge college football fan, so I understood from an early age the ramifications of this game,” May said.
May moved to Ohio from Texas in 1976 and began covering the Buckeyes full-time for the Columbus Dispatch in 1984. That season was his first in-person Ohio State-Michigan game, where he was sitting in section one AA in Ohio Stadium behind the track that then circled the field.
Even though he could barely see the on-field action of the game – 21-6 Ohio State win – what he wrote was the first installment of arguably the most comprehensive firsthand accounts of The Game.
May’s understanding of the rivalry was shaped through the dominant Ohio State teams of the late 1960s and the iconic Ten Year War that followed, where coaches Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler traded gridiron blows.
“It was like watching Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots,” May said. “Both of them, for the most part, were scared to death to let it all hang out in the game, because they knew one big mistake could cost you huge.”
May rattles off memories like someone flipping through an internal highlight reel.
He remembers:
The 1987 upset in Ann Arbor six days after coach Earl Bruce was fired, when Ohio State players wore “Earl” and “Bruce” headbands.
The 1992 tie with Kirk Herbstreit at quarterback.
In 1996, Michigan stunned Ohio State when cornerback Shawn Springs slipped on a slant route by Tai Streets, freeing Streets for the game’s only touchdown in a 13-9 upset.
While May can seemingly recall every game year by year, he also knows The Game’s intensity extends well beyond the field.
His first example of that came near the tunnel at the Horseshoe after the ‘96 game, after head coach John Cooper’s seventh career loss to the Wolverines.
“He was screaming at Cooper like he just shot his family,” May recalled. “It was unmerciful. But people take this stuff personally.”
Moments like that taught May that covering The Game meant stepping into something larger than football. For fans, the hate is generational; for coaches, the stakes are existential. For players, the game is defining.
The sport has changed much in his four decades on the beat, with NIL, conference realignment and more.
The intensity of The Game remains a constant.
“You can’t throw all the traditions away, because that’s what college football is about,” May said.
May retired from the Columbus Dispatch in 2019 and now covers Buckeye football without “writing 10 million stories,” like he used to. He
is the host of the Tim May Show and records daily video stand-ups for Fan Stream Sports.
Now 71, May has contemplated retiring multiple times, but his passion for covering the Buckeyes keeps pulling him back in year after year.
This year, May will be in the Big House press box on Nov. 29, looking out over the same field that has given him a lifetime of stories.
When asked whether the shine of The Game ever fades after so many years around it, May didn’t hesitate.
“No,” he said. “The reason you cover Ohio State football and this game is because people give a damn.”
