Student veterans from two rival universities spent Saturday, November 14, marching together instead of against each other, as the Student Veterans of America chapters at the University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University joined forces for their fourth annual “Ruck the Ball” march, according to UToledo News, the university’s official news service. The marchers set out to deliver the game ball for next week’s Battle of I-75 football rivalry the long way — on foot, over 24 miles.
UToledo News reported that chapter leaders and members departed the Nontraditional and Military Student Services Office at BGSU at 8 a.m. on Saturday and marched 24 miles to Veterans’ Plaza on the UToledo campus, where they delivered the game ball. Student representatives will then present the ball to the game officials before kickoff on Friday, November 20, UToledo News reported.
The football game itself will be played Friday, November 20, at the Glass Bowl in Toledo, according to UToledo News. The Battle of I-75 rivalry series is sponsored by Fremont Federal Credit Union, UToledo News reported. Toledo and Bowling Green are separated by roughly 24 miles along the I-75 corridor — the same distance the march covers — which is what gives both the rivalry and the march their shape.
The march is about considerably more than a football, though. UToledo News reported that the annual march raises awareness of the high rate of suicide among U.S. military veterans and highlights the importance of supporting those who have served the nation. That purpose is why the event brings the two campuses together a week before their teams meet: for one Saturday, the rivalry is the vehicle, not the point.
UToledo News reported that the 24-mile march included members of both universities’ Student Veterans of America chapters, ROTC programs and other campus and community organizations. Community members were welcome to participate and were not required to complete the entire 24-mile route, UToledo News reported — a design that lets supporters join for a stretch, walk alongside the student veterans, and share in the awareness effort without having to ruck the full distance between the campuses.
This was the fourth annual edition of the march, according to UToledo News, which means a tradition that began as a one-off idea has become a fixed part of the rivalry week calendar for both schools. Each year the direction and the campuses alternate the spotlight, but the elements stay the same: student veterans leading, a game ball carried the whole way, and a finish on the receiving campus in front of its veterans memorial space — this year, Veterans’ Plaza at UToledo.
The timing, in the middle of November, is deliberate in spirit even when the calendar is set by football. The march falls in the same stretch of the month as Veterans Day, when both universities run a wider slate of recognition for military-connected students, and it gives that recognition a public, physical form — two student bodies in motion on the road between their schools, visible to every driver who passes them on the corridor their rivalry is named for.
Northwest Ohio has been in a community-minded mood this weekend in Toledo as well. Downtown hosted the 39th Blade Holiday Parade on Saturday morning, and the city learned this week it will host the 137th Ship Masters’ Grand Lodge Convention in January 2027 — different gatherings, but the same pattern of Toledo institutions showing up for each other in public.
For the student veterans themselves, the march also does quieter work. Marching 24 miles in a group is a shared hardship by design — the ruck format comes from military training, where carrying weight over distance together is as much about the unit as the destination. Applying that format to suicide awareness makes the message physical: nobody in the column walks alone, and the marchers say, in effect, that nobody who served should have to carry the harder miles alone afterward, either.
UToledo News reported that anyone seeking more information can contact the UToledo Military Service Center by email at [email protected] or by phone at 419.530.1392. That contact point matters beyond this one Saturday — the center is the standing door on campus for veterans and military-connected students who need support, benefits guidance or simply a community that understands the transition.
What happens next is the game the ball was carried for: Toledo hosts Bowling Green on Friday, November 20, at the Glass Bowl, where, UToledo News reported, student representatives will present the marched ball to the game officials before kickoff. By then the marchers will be on opposite sides of the rivalry again — but they will have already made the week’s most important delivery together.