FREDERICKTOWN — Jeff Moody had no idea he was about to go down in history.
He spent the last two and a half years living in relative anonymity. Sure, he’d traveled the country, competed at the national level and stood on the sidelines of some of the biggest college football games in the country.
But it wasn’t really him. Moody was hidden under a baggy striped T-shirt, a scarlet and gray baseball cap and a 10-pound mascot head, bearing the image of something far bigger than himself.
But there he was, standing at the heart of one of college football’s biggest rivalries: Ohio State vs. That Team Up North (Moody doesn’t like to use the M word.).
It was the third quarter. The end zone of The Big House in Ann Arbor was fading under a dusting of snow.
“I saw footprints in the snow, and I was like, “Oh, shoot, like there’s a giant M sitting right there. I can do something with this,’” he recalled.
Moody ran over to his coach and whispered a request.
“I thought he would shoot this down immediately,” Moody said. “He was like, ‘Yeah, go for it.'”
Moody later learned that his coach didn’t actually hear what he said above the din of the game. But it was too late.
Brutus Buckeye rushed onto the field during a TV timeout and methodically shuffled a giant X in the snow over the letter M.
“I expected to hear a bunch of boos and have stuff be thrown at me,” Moody said. “No one threw anything at me, so I just assumed no one really noticed what I did.”
Emboldened by the lack of immediate blowback, Moody decided to pay homage to his roommate — a drum major in The Best Damn Band in the Land — by shuffling out a Script Ohio in the snow.
He dotted the ‘I’ with a jubilant leap. A few cheers rang out from the stands.
Even then, he didn’t expect to attract much notice.
“There’s cameras on us all the time and most of it doesn’t even get shown,” he said.
A few minutes later, with the X fading into the snowy field, Moody crossed out the M one final time.
“After that I was on pretty high watch,” Moody said with a chuckle. “The grounds crew came and wiped away the script, came over to my coach and started screaming at him.
“I wasn’t allowed to really do much the rest of the game.”
Moody didn’t mind. He made his mark on The Game.
“While they were yelling at my coach, I just sat there grinning like ear to ear, (thinking) ‘Man, I’m in their head. This is awesome.’”
“I got back on the bus, they were already selling T-shirts with the picture on it,” he added. “It was really cool just to see like people’s reaction to it and how much it meant to people.
“I didn’t really expect it to do what it did. It was cool to be able to play a tiny part in this rivalry that I grew up around.”
Raised to be a Buckeye
Jeff Moody grew up north of Fredericktown, one of quadruplets born to Bart and Beth Moody.
He graduated from Clear Fork High School, where he played soccer for four years and tennis for two. He was also a member of the school’s National Honor Society and class president.
His family ensured he bled scarlet and gray from the beginning.
“My great-grandpa went (to Ohio State), my grandpa did. My parents both met there,” he said.
“It’s been instilled in me since I was a little kid. My mom has videos of me marching back and forth on the couch, singing the fight song, pretending to be in the band.”
Moody said his father took him and his three siblings to Ohio State’s main campus regularly and urged them to continue that legacy.
After finishing high school, Moody enrolled at Ohio State’s branch campus in Mansfield, where he intended to finish out his collegiate career.
Then he saw an Instagram post with information about tryouts for Brutus Buckeye.
“I was in a spot where I was trying to step out of my comfort zone more, really branch out, kind of figure out who I am,” he said.
Moody attended a month of practices where candidates learn to take on the personality and physicality of the mascot. These practices ensure Brutus remains consistently himself, no matter who is wearing the helmet.
The month ended with three-day tryouts consisting of an interview, a presentation, a fitness test and, of course, plenty of time in costume.
“It was the most stressful weekend of my life, that’s for sure,” Moody said.
In the end, Moody was selected to join a team of students dedicated to keeping the magic of Brutus alive.
But there was a catch. He had to keep his involvement a secret from nearly everyone until the end of his senior year.
“I really enjoyed the secrecy of it and getting to almost be like Spiderman,” Moody said. “You have this big secret identity and then on the inside you’re like this struggling college student.”
Moody said keeping his role under wraps was much harder for his family members than it was for him.
“Some of the family members struggled a little bit at first, but that was just because they were super excited for me and proud of me and wanted people to know about all the cool things I was doing,” he said.
Moody’s secret finally came out earlier this month, just before he graduated with a degree in exercise science education.
The team behind Brutus
Brutus Buckeye was co-created in 1965 by then-students Ray Bourhis and Sally Lanyon, a Mansfield native. The pair crafted the earliest version of the now-famous mascot from papier mâché and chicken wire.
Brutus made his debut at that year’s Homecoming game on Oct. 30, 1965, an 11-10 win over Minnesota. Since then, he’s become a beloved icon known for his athleticism and sometimes goofy antics — which include head banging, head stands and dancing.
Being Brutus gave Moody once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. He traveled the country for commercial shoots, sporting events and even the Division IA mascot competition (which Brutus won).
While the role is based more on performance than competition, Moody said mascot performers are considered student athletes by the university.
“We race a student 100 yards down the field every game. We do up to 70 or 80 pushups at the end of the game,” he said.
“We have a strength and conditioning coach. We’re working with him at 6 a.m, four or five times a week. This past spring, we had mile testing every Monday and our slowest guy was running a six-minute mile.”
There are practices two to three times a week, which heavily emphasize synchronized movements and standardized reactions.
“We’re all able to tell pretty easily who’s in suit, but the goal is for everyone else not to realize that there’s multiple,” Moody said.
When asked how many people make up the Brutus team, Moody politely declined to answer.
“There always has been one Brutus, always will be,” Moody said. “He just has a couple people that help him out every now and then.”
‘The kindest jock you’ll ever meet’
Brutus also attends more than 500 non-sporting events a year, from elementary school visits to non-profit events. He’s a regular at Night to Shine, a prom experience for people with disabilities.
Moody said some of his most memorable Brutus moments took place far from the bright lights, cameras and adrenaline rush of competition.
A visit to a local hospital reminded him just how powerful Brutus’ impact can be.
“I went into this room and this guy just lit up. He was so happy to see Brutus,” he said. “I didn’t think much of it. Most people get excited to see Brutus.”
But after he waved goodbye and left to visit his next patient, a nurse stopped him.
“She was almost in tears,” he recalled. “(She said,) ‘This is the first time I’ve seen (that patient) smile since he’s been in here. He hasn’t smiled in a month or two and you walk in the room and he immediately lights up.’”
Moody likes to describe Brutus as “the kindest jock you’ll ever meet.”
While he was never meant to be a religious figure, Moody said the mascot’s character reminds him a lot of how he believes Christians are called to live.
“(Brutus) is always just going love you and be this guy who’s going try to make you laugh or uplift your day,” he said. “I think that’s one of the reasons that Brutus is so well known and so loved is because he loves people like Jesus would.”
While his time as Brutus may be coming to end, Moody isn’t ready to step away from Ohio State just yet.
He’ll return in the fall for the NextGen program, a full-time 24-month program for graduating student athletes.
Participants rotate through various units within The Ohio State University Department of Athletics in order to gain the experience and skills necessary for a career in intercollegiate athletics, according to the program’s website.
There’s no doubt he has Brutus in part to thank.
“It’s been such an incredible opportunity. It’s changed my life for sure,” Moody said. “It’s really cool to be somebody that the Valley is proud of.”
