We’re at the tail-end of the bye-week for Ohio State football, getting ready for the second-half stretch run of a season that started out slow but with the Buckeyes now looking to hit their stride on the way to what will hopefully end in some pretty special things.
Being that there’s not a whole lot going on over at the Woody this week that we’re covering, we thought we’d take the opportunity to catch up with a former Buckeye and see how things are going.
On that note, we reached out to former Ohio State running back Lydell Ross to see what he’s up to these days. For those of you too young to remember, or for those of us that do but need a refresher, Ross was a part of Jim Tressel’s first recruiting class at Ohio State as a member of the 2001 class. He was a highly sought-after back out of Tampa, Florida, and helped rescue (along with running back Jaja Riley) the first recruiting efforts of the sweatered-vested one.
And yeah, he famously had to take a bit of a backseat when freshman sensation Maurice Clarett burst on the scene in 2002, but some of the memories Ross supplied Buckeye fans with during that magical ride that year, one that brought home a national title, won’t soon be forgotten.
Ross is now a firefighter back home in Tampa, and in case you think he’s let his body go to waste after his football career was over — fughetaboudit. Obviously, firefighters are known to be in great shape, and it’s easy to see that he still is by a Facebook post the city of Tampa shared.
We picked out some of the highlights of our conversation and are sharing them with you, so let’s dive in.