Fiesta Bowl rivalry all in the family

BATH TOWNSHIP - The University of Texas' burnt orange might not be the most popular color in Ohio leading up to Ohio State's Fiesta Bowl game against the Longhorns on Monday, but Texas fan Zach Clapper's reply to a Buckeyes fan's teasing earlier this week was much less than burning.

After all, no matter how big a Texas fan you are, how are you going to trash talk your own grandmother?

And how are you going to trash talk her when she's taking you to the Fiesta Bowl?

Linda Clapper - she's the one over there on one side of her living room in an Ohio State sweatshirt - decided the night the bowl match-ups were announced on Dec. 7, it would be a great idea to take her 15-year-old grandson, Zach, to the game. He's the one over there on the other side of her living room in a Texas sweatshirt.

Asked if there is an ulterior motive of getting him to change his allegiance from Texas to Ohio State by taking him on this trip, she laughs and says, "I doubt if I can convert him, but we'll see after they beat them."

The reply from the opposite side of the room is brief and to the point. "Yeah, right," Zach says.

The idea to go to the Fiesta bowl "just kind of evolved," Linda Clapper said. "I've been to enough Ohio State games that I love going."

She and her husband, Steve, traveled to last year's BCS national championship game in New Orleans and she has been to several OSU games the last two years, including this year's Ohio State-Michigan game. The Fiesta Bowl trip will be her grandson's first Ohio State game.

The thing that hooked Zach Clapper on the Longhorns in a seas of scarlet and gray wasn't football, though. It was baseball, the sport he competes in at Bath High School. He was on the Bath Junior ACME team that reached the state tournament last summer.

"Baseball is the sport I play. When I was like 9 and 11, I started watching college baseball and they won the College World Series those years," he said.

His Texas gear has some company on school days, he said. "There's a bunch of people at school who wear Texas stuff. I don't know if they're fans, but they wear it."

Linda Clapper also has two younger grandsons, whose allegiances lean toward Ohio State.

But she plays no favorites. She even finds a silver lining in what some might consider the burnt orange cloud of having a Texas fan in the family.

"It's an improvement. He used to be a Michigan fan," she says, with a laugh.