Lee Corso’s farewell to ‘GameDay’: Behind the scenes of a football celebration

COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Kelly Yokely first heard in April that Saturday’s game between Texas and Ohio State would be the final appearance for Lee Corso on “College GameDay,” she immediately thought of chocolate chip cookies.

Yokely, an Auburn grad, loves Corso. She loves him so much that when he first made a visit for the Iron Bowl between her Tigers and Alabama 21 years ago, she brought him homemade cookies.

Corso saw a sign held by Kelly and her husband, Steven, announcing their welcome gift, accepted their cookies and gave their two-year-old daughter a kiss on her forehead. He said during the show how impressed he was with the hospitality of the locals. So Yokely decided she would take every opportunity to give Corso cookies again.

Eleven times over 21 years, she delivered cookies to the coach. On Saturday, without tickets to the game and no rooting interest in either team, she made the pilgrimage from Alabama anyway with, of course, a plastic container of cookies.

“It’s just amazing, really,” Kelly said. “Just the fact that he’ll take ’em. Who cares if he eats ’em, really?”

On Saturday, Corso, now 90 and one of the most revered characters in college football history, signed off at the same place where he became an icon, in Columbus, Ohio, where he first put on a mascot’s headgear in 1996, sporting a Brutus head and changing sports pregame shows forever.

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And the Yokelys were here. During a day that saw a crush of fans crowding the “GameDay” set, a tribute by the mascots from Clemson, LSU, UCF, Alabama, Oregon, and Notre Dame, a presentation of a giant Brutus-sized cake, and the on-air crew, including Nick Saban and Pat McAfee all wearing giant Corso heads, the coach’s family saw Yokely’s sign and went and procured the cookies for him. Their 12th and final mission was complete.

Corso has been an ESPN presence since 1987 when he first joined a little college football pregame studio show with 12 employees. Now, there are that many semi trucks that haul the show from city to city each week, spotlighting the biggest game in the country.

“I think fans have always loved college football for 150 years, but I believe that no one is more responsible for the popularity of it being a day-long-into-the-wee-hours-of-the-morning television event than Lee Corso,” said Rece Davis, the show’s host since 2015. “He made it fun. He was irreverent, he used humor. He could have strong takes and not be afraid of anything.”

And the fans showed their appreciation on Saturday. They came, young and old, from near and far. There was Lexi Simon, 22, an Ohio State grad who now works for the university, tears running down her face in front of the “GameDay” bus with Corso’s picture on it, saying she grew up watching him.

“I wanted to be able to be here for one last show just to be able to say, ‘Thank you, Coach,'” Simon said.

Another Columbus native, Brenda Barriat, 72, was making her first trip to watch “GameDay” in person. She knew she would be behind the set, but it didn’t matter.

“He’s a legend,” she said. “I mean, I just am so excited to even see his backside.”

There was Marc Plancarte, from West Palm Beach, Florida, whose family got him a trip here as a gift for his 60th birthday.

“We have five kids and they went to five different colleges,” Plancarte said. “Every weekend we’re at a game somewhere, except this week we’re here to watch this. We’re not Ohio State fans. We’re not Texas fans. We’re here for the last show of Lee Corso.”

Signs celebrating him dominated the crowd. Cameras followed his every move. Students chanted “We Love Lee!” during commercial breaks. The outpouring was overwhelming. And Corso was typically irreverent afterward.

“It feels like I was dead and all this just happened,” Corso said. “When a person dies, he’s laid in his gravesite and people say nice things about him. I felt like I was watching and I was dead and I was seeing it live. “

Lee Corso changed television on Oct. 5, 1996, when he decided to use a prop, grabbing Brutus’ rotund head to emphatically pick the Buckeyes over Penn State on that day’s show.

But first he had to get access to the headgear, which wasn’t an easy task. He called in a favor, asking his TV partner and friend Kirk Herbstreit to ask his fiancée Alison, a former OSU cheerleader, if she could borrow it for him. Alison went to the cheer adviser with the request and was quickly rebuffed.

“Absolutely not, it’s sacred,” Alison said she was told. “No one’s allowed to put it on.”

But the show appealed to the OSU athletic department and it reconsidered.

“I think because of knowing me, knowing Kirk and knowing the show, it all worked out and the rest is history,” she said.

Corso loved getting fans riled up. Dave Smith, one of those original handful of “GameDay” employees who was nicknamed “Bama Dave” by Corso, made the trek from Birmingham, Alabama to be here for Corso’s last show. He said while the tradition started with a friendly pick in front of the Ohio State crowd, Corso wasn’t always the warm, fuzzy grandfatherly figure that he grew to become.

“In the early days of this show, Lee was the man that everybody loved to hate,” Smith said. “I remember one show he made a prediction, and we went to commercial, and he said, ‘That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever told.’ But it was his job to stir things up.”

On Saturday, Corso had his chance to be hated again. But he didn’t take it. Making his headgear pick at the show’s desk in the center of midfield in front of a packed crowd at The Horseshoe, Corso signed off with “Give me my first love!” and put Brutus on, picking the Buckeyes over the Longhorns, a fitting bookend for his ESPN career.

“He became an icon,” Smith said. “People across the country, they might not watch the whole show, but they watched the last five minutes just to see what head he put on. There’s no other man in the world that is known for that.”

The Ohio State band spelled out CORSO behind him. The scarlet-clad crowd celebrated its hero one last time.

“It was an amazing feeling,” Corso said. “You can’t explain it. I wish I could, but I’m numb. It was overwhelming.”

“College GameDay” will go on without Corso. He has helped build the show into an institution. He has inspired a generation of fun pregame shows such as “Inside the NBA.” But it will never be the same.

“His fingerprints are going to be on this show forever,” Davis said.

For Herbstreit, Corso has become a father figure. Herbstreit says he has relied on him for paternal advice, including on being a husband and a father himself. There was a role reversal after Corso’s stroke in 2009, with Herbstreit becoming a caretaker for him on the set and behind the scenes.

“He’s just a special person,” Herbstreit said. “He’s been so much more than just the guy sitting next to me at a desk.”

Smith said he was originally supposed to work on the show for one weekend. He got a call from ESPN the next week, after he became “Bama Dave,” and wasn’t interested. He was told by the executive that he was under orders from Corso not to take no for an answer.

Smith worked on the show for 25 years, retiring two years ago.

“He’s one of the finest men that I’ve ever met,” Smith said.

Robert Scholz can relate. Two years ago, Scholz, who has worked on security for “GameDay” since 2008, became Corso’s dedicated security attaché. He lives in Orlando, so he arranges Corso’s car service, meets him at the airport, flies commercial with him — “that’s his thing,” Scholz says — and then escorts him everywhere while he’s on site in a city. He said off the set, Corso is exactly who everyone thinks he is.

“I can say that and more,” Scholz said. “He’s amazing. People in the airport ask me, is that your father? And I say, he might as well be because that is how I treat him.”

He said his job is only difficult because of the outpouring of love fans have for Corso. He said he has never seen a heckler or any signs of disrespect.

“We will continue our relationship,” Scholz said. “We will have breakfast once a month, I hope.”

But one thing won’t continue, according to Davis. There might be new faces on the show, but there will never be another person wearing a Brutus head.

“Anyone who tries to put on a mascot headgear to make a pick at the end of the show, I will deliver a form tackle that would make Chris Spielman jealous,” Davis said, invoking the former Ohio State All-American linebacker.

Corso will head to the airport with Scholz one last time on Saturday. Then, he’ll head back home, and go back to his family life.

“We’ve gladly shared Dad for decades. This whole thing for the Corso family is a blessing,” said his son Steve, a former football player at Indiana. “It’ll just be another Sunday when we get home. The routines will be the same and the conversation will be the same. But family’s family and something else will be more important. His great-grandchild’s going to first grade, and that’ll become the big thing just like every family, everywhere, anytime.”