Buckeyes to attend Beyonce, Jay-Z concert at Ohio Stadium

ByEDWARD ASCHOFF
August 17, 2018, 9:16 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio State Buckeyes are hanging with the Beyhive Thursday night.

With Beyonce and Jay-Z performing at Ohio Stadium for their On The Run II Tour, acting head coach Ryan Day surprised players at the end of Thursday's practice with tickets to the concert.

"You guys are going to the concert tonight, Jay-Z and Beyonce," Day said in a video posted on the team's Twitter account Thursday.

Five hundred concert tickets provided by the tour's promoter were made available to Ohio State students at no charge, while the football team was able to enjoy a night watching two of the music industry's biggest stars with tickets purchased through the NCAA student opportunity fund, according to Ohio State's associate vice president for university communications Chris Davey.

Davey said that those tickets were purchased at general public price and that student-athlete opportunities like these are paid for through a "special discretionary fund that comes from donors to university athletics and sometimes the NCAA student opportunity fund."

State tax dollars and tuition dollars are not used, Davey said.

Ohio State's women's volleyball team will join the football team. Last year, both the men's and women's basketball teams were sent to the Kendrick Lamar concert at the The Schottenstein Center.

NCAA Bylaw 16.7 allows an institution to provide reasonable entertainment to student-athletes while they are in their playing season.

"Since football's playing season begins with preseason camp, we meet the requirements to provide such entertainment either through budget or using the NCAA Student Assistance Fund," Davey said.

Before Day's major surprise, he also gave the Buckeyes a chance to skip out on Thursday night meetings, too.

All the team needed was for senior kicker Sean Nuernberger to hit a 39-yard field goal at the end of practice -- in the rain.

And with strength coach Mickey Marotti and a few other assistants bearing down on him before and during his stroll up to the kick.

Without hesitation, Nuernberger -- who is on pace to set the Ohio State record for kicking points in a career (his 276 rank sixth all-time and the school record is 356 held by Mike Nugent) -- sent his kick through the uprights and lifted his arms in celebration, as teammates mobbed him before the ball even made it near the crossbar.

Day was named acting head coach since the school announced on Aug. 1 that it had placed head coach Urban Meyer on paid administrative leave after Courtney Smith, the ex-wife of former Buckeyes coach Zach Smith, told college football reporter Brett McMurphy that Meyer knew about a domestic abuse incident in 2015 and did not act.