Commentary: Closeness of team was a key to success

"With the things we've been through, we're connected on a family level," safety Donnie Nickey said. "You feel the love. We'll always love each other."

It was the small, behind-the-scene things that made the team closer.

"All you saw was the final product," three-time All American safety Mike Doss said. "You guys don't see the locker room, the training tables, the spring practice, all those things that make us a family."

Those bonding experiences even extended to the showers.

"I'll miss you guys getting me in the shower and throwing cold water on me," punter Andy Groom joked.

"All these guys from different situations and different walks of life ... this is where we wanted to be," said little-used cornerback Chris Conwell. "I'm just thankful. I love you guys."

They will be linked forever, and it seems they've already given that some thought.

Nickey and Doss said they plan to write a book about the season. At first it seemed they were joking, but who knows?

The Doss legend will continue to grow. Ohio State has had few better leaders than No. 2. Everyone knows the story about how he returned to Ohio State to win a national championship ... making his decision to stay as he was addressing the media.

And he was successful, even being as superstitious as to eat tons of Tostitos chips during the season because they sponsored the national championship game in the Fiesta Bowl.

Doss even led the team in dotting the "i" in the Script Ohio on Saturday, trying his best to strut out like the sousaphone player does.

He and coach Jim Tressel seem a perfect fit -- both about family and working hard with a healthy slice of religion thrown in.

Speaking of Tressel ... you can't say enough about how he molded this team into the family the seniors described. Most of the key players weren't even ones he recruited. But he shaped this team in his image and made them winners.

I wonder how Tressel celebrated. He just doesn't seem the celebrating type. Even Saturday, while most coaches would have been happy to sit back, he was making sure there were enough chairs for all the seniors to sit in during the media interviews afterward. When there weren't, he stole some from the rows lined up for the media and set them up for this players.

Even now, no detail is too small.

So how do you replace those guys, coach?

"It's a great challenge for the upcoming seniors," he said, understating the obvious.

Tressel said it's "not just a football challenge" next year, meaning the Buckeyes will have to recapture some of the magic the senior leaders provided.

The players had each other's backs, as little-used senior fullback Jack Tucker said. They had faith in each other.

There's no doubt this team had great talent. But did it have more than Archie Griffin's teams of the mid-1970s? Or the Hoying-George-Glenn teams of the mid-1990s? That's debatable.

When you look back on such a fragile season, the bottom line is the team won 14 games. So they had something more than those other teams. Call it chemistry, leadership, luck or the X factor. It was there.

"You guys are the best friends I've had in my life," Groom said.

That type of chemistry, confidence and love doesn't occur by accident -- or very often. And you can't practice it or force it. It just happens.

So how did you get it back when players leave?

Tressel will recruit the kind of young men he feels will continue what was started this year. He will do it his way, which means that a sense of family, values and purpose will reign.

And those are some winning traits. Just ask the 2002 Buckeyes.

Reach Jason Maddux at jmaddux@nncogannett.com.

Originally published Monday, January 20, 2003